NEW DELHI: Doordarshan will give a slot to the lone bidder for Rs 31.1 million for its free-to-air DTH DD Direct Plus, following an e-auction held this month.

The e-auction for four vacant slots on DD Direct Plus was held to offer private broadcasters the possibility of reaching a pan-Indian audience by DTH transmission, and was conducted by Mumbai-based online trading firm NCDEX Spot. Only one bidder turned up, DD sources admitted to indiantelevision.com.

Doordarshan adopted the e-auction process in July 2011, whereby slots are allocated for a period of a year. The public broadcaster has now conducted six e-auctions to allocate 30 slots on its DTH service, with the last e-auction in November setting a reserve price per slot of Rs 31.1 million which was also the reserve price in the auction held on 16 June.

An e-auction was planned for December 2011, with a minimum reserve price set at Rs 34.8 million but no private broadcasters reportedly showed interest in the five available slots at that time.