TRAI issues reserve price recommendations for FM radio channel auctions, Telecom News, ET Telecom

New Delhi: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India on Saturday recommended that the reserve price for FM radio channels for 273 new cities be set at 80 percent of the estimate for each city. The reserve price will be 80% of the valuation with the exception of cities in the northeast region and Jammu and Kashmir for which it has been set at 40% of the valuation for each city.

The Ministry of Information and Dissemination (MIB) sent a letter to TRAI in August last year, asking it to provide recommendations on a new reserve price for 283 cities – 260 new and 23 existing, within the framework of the FM phase III policy.

TRAI finalized its recommendations after considering all comments received from stakeholders during the consultation process and further analysis of the issues.

TRAI recommended that the valuation of FM radio stations in 273 new cities be developed as a simple average of three valuation approaches which are based on city population, state gross domestic product per capita, listening to FM radio, the gross per capita income earned by existing FM radio operators and market intensity index of various cities.

“The reserve price of FM radio channels for each of the 273 new towns has been set at 80% of each town’s valuation, with the exception of towns located in the North East (NE) region, Jammu-et -Kashmir for which the reserve price has been set at 40 percent of the valuation for each city, ”TRAI said.

For 10 cities in the “other” category, with a population of less than 1 lakh in the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast region, the reserve price is maintained at 5 lakh Rs for each channel of every city, TRAI said.