India's FM radio looks to being re-vitalized with 280 new FM Radio licenses awarded

Thanks to my friends at the [dx-India] group, I can report that 280 new FM radio licences were successfully auctioned by the Government out of 338 in 91 cities that were on offer in the second round of bidding. There are five stages in total.

Realising the disastrous mistakes of the 'licensing model' of the First Phase of FM Radio Policy, the Union government adopted the revenue-sharing model in the second phase, hence the large number of bidders. In fact, some 85 organisations were pre-approved for the auction.

Local major media players including HT Media Limited, Adlabs, Times group's Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL), South Asia FM, Sun TV, Asianet Communications and Radio Mid Day (a joint venture between the BBC and Mid Day Multimedia) all added to their broadcast assets.

Just 22 private FM radio stgations became operational in Phase I, and one of these had closed down, citing high license fee as the reason for unsustainability of its operation.

Based on the original source: http://news.webindia123.com