I&B Ministry to push forward third phase roll-out

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent | New Delhi
The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry, which is mulling a third phase roll-out of FM stations, has earned a whooping Rs 52.71 crore from private radio channels during 2008-09. 35 FM radio stations were operationalised and a total of 248 stations were functioning in the country as on March 31, 2009.

The I&B Ministry officials say that the FM policy phase-II has been well accepted by all stakeholders, though there was initial skepticism in the Ministry due to several stations failing to generate revenue. The Ministry has prepared a cabinet note on the third phase roll-out of FM stations and it will be soon pushed forward.

In the intervening period between the second phase and the prospective third phase roll-out of FM stations, a software has been developed by the government for monitoring the private FM license holders.

The software provides details of general information about the license holder company and also the license fee paid, both company-wise and quarter-wise for various years. This has been a major systematic improvement and has enabled efficient realisation of revenue as well as monitoring and penalising cases of default.

Prashant Panday, chief executive officer, Radio Mirchi and senior vice-president at the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI), had last month met the I&B Minister Ambika Soni.

Panday says, "We have re-affirmed our commitment to phase III when we (as AROI) met the I&B Minister and her team. What we have requested is a delay in the auctions for new towns, which will be totally unviable until the music royalty issue is resolved."

Panday adds, "And since the royalty issue is likely to be resolved in the next few months by the Copyright Board, we have only requested the Ministry to examine the possibility of delaying the auctions till the new royalty regime is announced. Surely, a few months' wait is better than a failed phase III?"

On the other hand, Sunil Kumar, founder, Big River Radio, explains that the phase III of FM radio bids needs to be held aggressively, "as India has only about 250 radio stations - too few for a large and diverse country. Since radio is a local medium, the more segmented it is, the better sense it would make."

For instance, Mumbai has a mixed population - there is a Marathi-speaking majority as well as a huge Gujarati-speaking populace. But, Mumbai does not have a single complete Marathi or a Gujarati radio station, Kumar says.

Kumar says there are two aspects of radio privatisation - public interest and business interest. Interestingly, at present, neither its public interest nor the business interest is being fulfilled. Today, a radio operator works under many restrictions. Broadcast of news and current-affairs programmes is not permitted on radio, he says.

Kumar notes that content restriction makes it a bad business model and radio stations end up playing only music. The music royalty issue is still not resolved. As much as 30-40 per cent of input cost is music and stations are dependent on the whims and fancies of the music companies and copyright bodies for that.