As the Mumbai Police are probing into the chats and ArnabGoswani's alleged role in the TRP scam with former Broadcasting AudienceResearch Council India (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta, the suspected circumventionof auction process for the slot of channel on free dish has come to light.
Since the launch of Republic TV, a private channel ownedby Goswami, it is available on DD free dish by avoiding the process of auctionand booking the slot. Opposition parties are terming it a illegal owned slot onPrasar Bharti's free dish.
It continued till September 2019 when the orders from Informationand Broadcasting Ministry facilitated the encryption of channels on the dish. GSAT15satellite is used by DD free dish and Republic TV had signed carriage dealswith private players including GSAT15 for retransmission of TV channels, butGoswami started to uplink its Republic TV without encryption on Free dish whilechannels requires uplinking on an encrypted basis.
As per several reports while the competitors pay around Rs8-12 Crore, Republic TV reached 22 million customers of free dish withoutpaying this amount and circumventing the auction process to purchase the slot.
As per experts, it led to loss on the part of exchequerwhile extra viewership was gained by Republic TV.
It is to be noted that Ministry of Information andBroadcasting (MIB) was aware about this fraud and they forwarded it to PrasarBharti in 2017. Prasar Bharati in a response targeted Republic TV for "dilutingcompetition" and "defeating the due process of auctioning."
When the MIB sent a notice to free dish asking about thealleged role of Republic TV in circumventing the auction process in 2017, theDish 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 sayingthat all channels are encrypted as per the compliance norms in September. Withthe controversy erupted out of the TRP scam and alleged involvement of Goswamiand Partho Dasgupta, the matter has come to light again.
In the purported chats, when Dasgupta told Goswami aboutthe complaint regarding Republic TV, Goswami responded, “About the Dish FTAthing. Rathore told me and said he’s keeping it aside.”