ISLAMABAD: The auction of three licences for direct-to-home (DTH) programming was held on Wednesday after the Supreme Court allowed the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to proceed with it but barred it from awarding the contract.

The bidding began around 1pm from the Rs200 million mark and proceeded neck-to-neck until 1:30am on Thursday, when the pledged sums had reached the Rs4.3 billion mark. However, no clear winner had emerged at the time of the filing of this report.

The bidding process was delayed for a few hours in the morning as Pemra Chairman Absar Alam was appearing before the Supreme Court.

“Let the bidding process, already fixed for Nov 23, be held and take place at the time and venue already fixed. It is however made clear that no final award of bidding or contract would be made by the petitioner (Pemra),” said an order dictated by a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam.

SC allows regulator to proceed with bidding process

The petition had challenged a Nov 22 interim order by the Lahore High Court (LHC), which had restrained the authority from opening tenders and holding bidding for DTH licences.

However, the court held that the bidding process undertaken would remain subject to the final determination by the high court.

Once the Pemra chairman was able to get interim relief, investors commenced bidding.

The sealed bids were opened and announced in front of all bidders, mediapersons and various stakeholders present there.

Among the 12 short-listed companies, 11 participated in the bidding process, while Maestro Media Distribution of Lahore pulled out of the auction.

Those who pooled their bids included: HB DTH Pvt Ltd (Islamabad), IQ Communications Pvt Ltd (Karachi), MAG Entertainment Pvt Ltd (Lahore), Naya Tel Pvt Ltd (Islamabad), Orient Electronics Pvt Ltd (Lahore), Sardar Builders Pvt Ltd (Islamabad), Shazad Sky Pvt Ltd (Islamabad), Skyflix Pvt Ltd (Islamabad) and Smart Sky Pvt Ltd (Islamabad).

Two of the companies in the auction have foreign parent companies: Parus Media and Broadcast Pvt Ltd (Islamabad) is a concern of a Russian parent company.

The StarTimes Pakistan Communi­ca­tions Pvt Ltd (Islamabad) is a subsidiary of Star Times China, which already operates DTH networks in 16 African countries.

Contrary to predictions by Pemra officials that the DTH bidding would reach the Rs1.5 billion mark for each licence, the race triggered between MAG Entertainment, IQ Communica­tions, Sardar Builders, Orient Electronics and Shazad Sky Pvt Ltd took the numbers way beyond their expectations.

The bidding is the first step towards the launch of DTH services in Pakistan. Incidentally, all South Asian countries, including Afghanis­tan, already have DTH services.

DTH is a digital box that provides channels permitted to be aired in the country to customers without any cable connection.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2016