DD slot sale: Saai Baba Telefilms & Balaji Telefilms emerge

Two production houses - Saai Baba Telefilms and Balaji Telefilms - have emerged as successful bidders under Doordarshan's slot sale policy scheme.
According to officials, Doordarshan had floated a Request for Proposal (RFP) in November 2016 for sourcing content through a "Two-Bid Process" under the New Content Acquisition Scheme inviting reputed and experienced producers or production houses to provide content for the prime time slots of DD National.
Slots in the time band of 7 pm to 11 pm on weekdays (Monday to Thursday) and slots in the time band of 7 pm to 9 pm on weekends (Friday to Sunday), which comprised of 34 weekday slots (30 mins each) and 03 weekend slots (60 mins each) were opened for the bidding process.

Four production houses submitted their bids and after assessment of their eligibility through Qualification Bids, three stood qualified for the final (Financial Bid) stage.
"On opening of their Financial Bids two of the production houses successfully secured between themselves 19 of the 34 weekday slots and 2 of the 3 weekend slots. The weekday slots received a bidding price in the range of Rs 1,55,000 to Rs 1,75,000 per slot and the weekend slots Rs 3,27,000 per slot," an official source said.
The two successful bidders are Saai Baba Telefilms and Balaji Telefilms.
The programmes under the scheme are expected to start from February 2017 on DD National Channel.

The slots 7.30 to 8 pm - Monday to Friday and 8 to 9 pm - Saturday and Sunday have gone to Saai Baba telefilms while Balaji telefilms have got the 8 to 8.30 pm, 8.30 to 9 and 9 to 9.30 pm slots for Monday to Friday.