Zee, Packer Eye Dd Metro
Subhash Chandra of Zee Telefilms and Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer have bid for bulk airtime on Doordarshan's Metro channel. Each of the two bids is worth about Rs 100 crore.
Confirming the bids by Zee and Packer's company, Prasar Bharati sources said no decision had yet been taken on the final award of the contract.
A few years back, Packer had offered Rs 1,000 crore for the marketing rights of the DD Metro channel.
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Under a new scheme announced sometime back for offering bulk airtime to private producers, the 7 pm to 9 pm slot has been broken up into four half-an-hour slots and are being offered for the whole year.
The combined floor price for these slots is Rs 55 crore. While the floor price for the 7 pm to 7.30 pm slot has been fixed at Rs 10 crore, the 7.30 pm to 8 pm slot will be offered at a basic minimum price of Rs 12.50 crore. And while the 8 pm to 8.30 pm slot costs Rs 15 crore, the 8.30 pm to 9 pm slot is priced at Rs 17.50 crore.
Interestingly, since there was no restriction on the kind of producers who apply for the time slots, industry experts had said that any private channel/companies such as Zee, Sony, Star/News TV India and NDTV could have bid for these time slots.
Before the two bids came (the last day was Monday), sources had pointed out that the Corporation had been expecting to generate at least Rs 100 crore from this bulk sale of airtime.
With each 30 minute slot the successful bidding-producer(s) will be given 300 seconds of free commercial time. The Corporation has also decided the genre of the programmes to be aired in each slot. For instance the 7 to 8 pm slot has been earmarked for quiz shows, game shows, chat shaows, fashion shows, film based programmes, youth based programmes etc. The 8 pm to 9 pm slot has been reserved for family serials, daily soaps, sitcoms, comedies, thrillers music shows etc. Another condition stated that producers with experience of 200 hours of programming can only apply. The same programme will not be allowed to be telecast on any other channel for the next six month The time slots once acquired by the private producer(s) will be non-transferable. However, Prasar Bharati reserves the right to cancel the contract in case the programmes does not meet the quality standards.
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Metro Time
* Subhash Chandra and Kerry Packger make two bids of Rs 100 crore each for a two-hour solt
Doordarshan's offer
* Four half-an-hour solt between 7 and 9 pm
* The slots are being offered for the whole year at a combined floor price of Rs 55 crore
* Producers will be given 300 seconds of three commercial time
* Only producers with experience of 200 hours of programming can apply
The revenue projection
* The channel expects to generate Rs 100 crore from the airtime sale