Indian Radio Industry delighted on Phase-III approval

The private FM radio broadcasters are fairly contented with Cabinet’s approval on the much awaited auction for Phase-III as it brings in more opportunities for the growth and expansion of the medium. 

FM Phase-III Policy extends FM radio services to about 227 new cities, in addition to the present 86 cities, with a total of 839 new FM radio Channels in 294 cities. Phase -III policy will result in coverage of all cities with a population of one lakh and above with private FM radio channels. 

Apurva Purohit, Tarun Katial, Prashant Panday, Vineet Singh Hukmani, Harrish M Bhatia, S Keerthivasan, Prem Kumar and Anurradha Prasad express their views on the Policy: 

Radio City 91.1 FM CEO Apurva Purohit said, “We are very pleased with the announcement of the policy which was long overdue. It is certainly going to give an impetus to the medium and help deliver on FM’s true potential. We see the medium getting 8-10 % of the advertising pie on the back of this policy. As far as Radio City is concerned, we are ready with a very detailed road map on our expansion plans for Phase 3. 

The issues which will impact the industry hugely are 1) the expansion of the medium to 294 cities making it a truly pan Indian medium 2) the ability to broadcast multiple stations in the same city leading to multiple genres being made available to listeners , and ability to broadcast news ( albeit in a limited form ) and current affairs . With this we see a huge expansion in terms of the reach of the medium and therefore in the growth of the industry in terms of revenues, advertisers and investor interest. 

RBNL CEO Tarun Katial said, “With phase III the doors to this growth have now been opened and we’ll see an era of 30% year on year growth for the radio industry. At RBNL, we will be looking at multiple frequencies which will be a revenue multiplier without huge incremental capex / opex. In addition to key urban centers and a network of C and D cities the significant increase in radio inventory and the pricing power offered by multiple frequencies in cities will lead to content innovations and drive growth. 

With expansion of FM radio to 294 cities, FM radio will now touch 90% of Indian population making it truly a common 

(Source : radioandmusic.com)