New Delhi, Jul 23: DD Free Dish, the free-to-air DTH platform of Prasar Bharati, now has an expanded presence of South Indian language content, the government informed Parliament on Wednesday. According to Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Dr. L. Murugan, several measures have been taken to enhance regional representation on the platform, including reserved slots for Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam channels in the 2025 e-auctions. Eligibility norms were also eased to encourage participation from private southern broadcasters.
Three new South Indian channels — TV9 Telugu, Aastha Kannada, and Aastha Telugu — have been added since April 1, 2025. Regional Doordarshan channels like DD Tamil, DD Saptagiri, DD Chandana, DD Yadagiri, and DD Malayalam are also now part of the platform with ongoing upgrades to improve visibility. Currently, DD Free Dish reaches about 49 million households, up from 33 million in 2018. It also hosts 27 educational channels offering content in various South Indian languages.
