Dxers Guide-282
Weekly Media Scene in India.
Published by Ardic DX Club, India.
Why foreign players are keen on FM radio in India?
Despite a slow and bad start thanks to
enthusiasm-killing high licence fees during the first
round of bidding in 2000, the private FM radio segment
is finally hotting up.Two deals have taken place in
quick succession on the eve of the bidding for the
second phase of FM radio expansion. One - Radio Mid
Day - has found a suitor in BBC Worldwide which is
investing Rs 318.50 million.
-Indiantelevision.com 04/01
NDTV consortium buys India Today out of FM
Aroon Purie-promoted Living Media Group has exited FM
radio business by divesting its entire holding in Red
FM to a group of investors that includes NDTV News,
promoted by Prannoy Roy. Other members of the
consortium buying Red FM, which is present in Delhi,
Mumbai and Kolkata, are Hyderabad-based Value Labs and
Malaysian broadcasting company Astro.
-Business Standard 04/01
BBC to invest Rs 31.8cr in Radio Mid Day
Mid-day Multimedia has signed an agreement with BBC
Worldwide Holdings BV to invest Rs 31.85 crore in the
equity shares of Radio Mid Day West (India).According
to a release issued by Mid-day to the BSE today,
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who is a partner of Rare
Enterprises, has also entered into an agreement with
the company to invest Rs 10 crore in Radio Mid Day
West (India).
-Business Standard 04/01
FM phase II: govt. may collect Rs.1.35 bn in licence
fee
The government is likely to collect Rs. 1.35 billion
as one-time entry fee for the licences for 338 FM
radio stations in 91 cities, the bidding for which
starts on 6 January 2006This is nearly half of the
total investment of Rs. 2.6 billion the phase II of FM
licensing will attract. Additionally, the government
may earn a revenue of over Rs. 500 million per year
through the four per cent revenue share scheme it
announced in July last year.
-Indiantelevision.com 04/01
NRIs plan to launch multi-lingual TV channel
A group of non resident Indians (NRIs) are getting
together to float a multi-lingual entertainment
channel. The company, Manvik Vinjnan Communications
Ltd (MVCL), will be based out of Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala. "The promoters are NRIs based out of Singapore
and the Middle East," says the company's managing
director Rajesh Narayanan. The channel, Bhaarath TV,
will offer programmes in Malayalam, Hindi, English,
Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. "We will be investing Rs
500 million towards the channel," says MVCL executive
director Rajan Mannaar.
-Indiantelevision.com 04/01
Sound Perfect: 85 companies to bid for 337 FM Radio
stations
With the I&B Ministry declaring the third and final
list of bidders for FM radio and reducing the total no
of FM stations up for bid by one, the list of
contenders for the Great Indian Radio Drama is
complete. There will be 85 companies bidding for 337
FM radio stations in 91 cities across the country. In
the first and second lists, the Ministry had notified
the name of 70 and 14 companies, respectively, who had
qualified for financial bidding. The Ministry has
notified the name of only one company, New Mount
Trading and Investment Company Ltd, in the third and
final list of eligible bidders.
-Exchange4media.com 05/01
Big investors may tune into FM radio
Sector set to get Rs 500 cr investments in 12-18
months. India’s private FM radio sector is expected to
get foreign investments of Rs 500 crore in the next 12
to 18 months. According to industry players, now
that the sector is open to foreign direct investment
and the government has moved from licence fees to a
revenue-share regime, the sector has become attractive
to investors.
-Business Standard 06/01
Cheer for listeners as FM radio bids open today
Good news for all you radio listeners in Delhi! The
D-Day for qualified FM radio bidders for the
frequencies in 13 A+ and A category cities. Financial
bids will be opened in New Delhi today to know which
bidder has won what among the 64 frequencies on offer
across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Nagpur, Jaipur,
Lucknow and Kanpur. Which means that you could very
soon have your own favourite local-local station to
tune into like every other major city in the world!
-The Times of India 06/01
First campus radio in Kerala
The first private FM (frequency modulated) community
radio station in the State was launched at a function
at Vyloppilly Samskrithi Bhavan. Radio DC FM 90.4 will
broadcast from the media school run by D.C.
Kizhekkkemuri Foundation at the Kinfra Film and Video
Park at Kazhakoottam.
-The Hindu 07/01
Stay with HT on FM now
Nearly 58 radio stations spread across 13 cities --
including the four metros and boomtowns like Bangalore
and Hyderabad -- saw a horde of bidders vying to bag
the rights.Twenty-five companies, led by the likes of
HT Music, Adlabs, Radio City and Radio Today, won
stations by forking out Rs 568 crore for 53
frequencies. HT Music won frequencies in Mumbai,
Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore.
-Hindustan Times 07/01
BBC arm wins seven FM radio licences in India
BBC WORLDWIDE, the broadcaster’s commercial arm,
acquired FM radio licences covering seven of India’s
biggest cities yesterday in the unit’s first move into
overseas markets. BBC and its local partner, Mid-Day
Multimedia, won licences to operate FM radio services
in Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta,
Ahmedabad and Pune. The successful bids came just days
after the BBC announced that it had bought a 20 per
cent stake in Radio Mid-Day West, a subsidiary of
Mid-Day Multimedia, the Bombay-listed media group.
-Timesonlin.co.uk 07/01
BBC, Murdoch queue up for Radio India
Indian radio, the country's last mass medium to be
freed for private participation, is set to draw
investments of $581 million in a second round of
expansion from companies including the British
Broadcasting Corp. For long the government's preferred
means for publicizing messages on family planning,
gender equality and farming practices, radio is
becoming the conduit for selling products from mutual
fund subscriptions to luxury apartments as stations
turn to music and entertainment to attract audiences.
-The Financial Express 06/01
7 firms get FM licences for B'lore
In the near future, Bangaloreans will get to tune into
a lot more music and of course much much more of the
never-ending chatter of radio jockeys. Even as
Bangalore roads get clogged with endless traffic jams,
one will at least be able to tune into a variety of FM
stations as seven more stations will try to grab your
attention. Radio Indigo (of Rajeev Chandrasekhar),
Radio Mirchi, Radio Mid-Day, Adlabs, HT Music, Kal
Radio are among the firms which have made successful
bids to operate these services in the city.
-Business Standard 07/01
India Today group bids for 9 FM radio stations
The India Today group, which is participating in the
second phase of private FM radio licensing, today said
it has bid for licences in nine cities including Delhi
and Mumbai. The group, which early this month sold its
FM radio business to a consortium of NDTV, Malaysias
Astro and Hyderabad-based Value Lab said that it was
hopeful of prospects in this round.
-The Hindu 07/01
FM Phase II expansion:
HT Music saved Rs 154 cr in Mumbai due to revenue
sharing regime With the first round of bidding for
Phase II expansion of FM Radio for Category A+ and A
cities out in the open, some interesting calculations
reveal that HT Music, the highest bidder amongst A+
category cities, might just have saved a whopping Rs
154 cr as compared to the highest bidder in Phase I,
thanks to the new government policy of migrating to
the revenue sharing regime from the erstwhile licence
fee regime. Under the new revenue sharing regime, the
permission holder will have to pay an annual fee to
the government at the rate of 4 per cent of gross
revenue for each year or at the rate of 10 per cent of
the Reserve One Time Entry Fee (OTEF) limit for the
concerned city, whichever is higher.
-Exchange4media 09/01
India to launch satellite for multimedia broadcasts
India announced plans to launch by 2008 a satellite
capable of offering multimedia broadcasts to mobile
phones and audio-video receivers fitted in vehicles.
The project to design, develop and launch
GSAT-6/INSAT-4E, a multimedia mobile satellite system,
at an estimated cost of Rs.2.69 billion ($58.5
million) was cleared by a meeting of the cabinet
chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
-Dx_India.com 09/01
Compiled by
Jaisakthivel.T,
President of Ardic Dx Club
12-1-2006
Address for Communication:
T.Jaisakthivel
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