Having received a proposal for a children's show for 3-4 PM slot on its national channel, public broadcaster Doordarshan has sought counter proposals from other producers through the 'Swiss Challenge method'.
According to officials, the Swiss Challenge method refers to a form of public procurement where a public authority that gets an unsolicited bid for a public project or service invites third parties to match or exceed it.
A statement released by Doordarshan said this policy "encourages transparency" and gives a "fair chance" to all with a commitment for providing entertainment programme for children on the national public service broadcaster.
The key features of this outsourcing is to attract bids for its slots in the genre of 'kids entertainment' for DD National from interested production houses through request for proposal notified on Doordarshan website, the statement said.
Doordarshan asked production houses to submit proposals regarding creating and marketing children's programme on the channel for a fixed tenure of two years in the 3-4 PM slot from Monday to Saturday.
"The Reserve Price is Rs 2 crore for first year and Rs 2.75 crore for the second year. The marketable inventory available to the bidder on DD National in a 60-min slot will be 5 minutes," Doordarshan said, adding, the last date of submitting the proposals is June 30.
Prasar Bharati had also recently decided to auction prime time between 7-11 pm on Doordarshan as part of the slot sale policy.
