As the Mumbai Police are probing into the chats and Arnab Goswani's alleged role in the TRP scam with former Broadcasting Audience Research Council India (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta, the suspected circumvention of auction process for the slot of channel on free dish has come to light.
Since the launch of Republic TV, a private channel owned by Goswami, it is available on DD free dish by avoiding the process of auction and booking the slot. Opposition parties are terming it a illegal owned slot on Prasar Bharti's free dish.
It continued till September 2019 when the orders from Information and Broadcasting Ministry facilitated the encryption of channels on the dish. GSAT15 satellite is used by DD free dish and Republic TV had signed carriage deals with private players including GSAT15 for retransmission of TV channels, but Goswami started to uplink its Republic TV without encryption on Free dish while channels requires uplinking on an encrypted basis.
As per several reports while the competitors pay around Rs 8-12 Crore, Republic TV reached 22 million customers of free dish without paying this amount and circumventing the auction process to purchase the slot.
As per experts, it led to loss on the part of exchequer while extra viewership was gained by Republic TV.
Read More: Top secret: Who leaked the Balakot air strike information?
It is to be noted that Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) was aware about this fraud and they forwarded it to Prasar Bharti in 2017. Prasar Bharati in a response targeted Republic TV for "diluting competition" and "defeating the due process of auctioning."
When the MIB sent a notice to free dish asking about the alleged role of Republic TV in circumventing the auction process in 2017, the Dish TV replied that it needed two weeks to file a response on May 22, 2017. However, no response was solicited and everything became nine days wonder.
Coming to 2019, the Dish TV replied to the MIB saying that all channels are encrypted as per the compliance norms in September. With the controversy erupted out of the TRP scam and alleged involvement of Goswami and Partho Dasgupta, the matter has come to light again.
In the purported chats, when Dasgupta told Goswami about
the complaint regarding Republic TV, Goswami responded, “About the Dish FTA
thing. Rathore told me and said he’s keeping it aside.”