The Union Cabinet has approved the auction of 683 channels in 236 cities in the third batch of Phase-III FM radio licenses. With the roll out of the third batch of auctions, the coverage of private FM radio broadcasting will span across all 29 States and 6 Union Territories. The third phase will also include a large number of cities where there are no private FM radio channels as well as cities with a population of less than one lakh.
Batch-I and Batch-II auctions of private FM radio Stations were conducted in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The first batch of Phase 3 auction, which concluded in September 2015, had 135 channels in 69 cities on offer. The total value of channels sold was Rs1,187cr.
However, Batch-II earned only Rs200cr, as only 66 out of 266 frequencies were sold. 66 channels in 48 cities were sold in Batch-II. Many leading FM radio players stayed away from the Batch-II auction due to the high reserve prices set by the government. Notable absences from the auction included DB Corp, HT Media, Reliance Broadcast Network and Music Broadcast.
The government estimates that it would yield more than Rs1,100cr from the e-auction of third batch of Phase-III FM Radio licenses.