Adlabs, Radio Mirchi, BAG win in B,C, D cities of FM Radio

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent
Friday saw another 76 FM radio stations spread across 21 cities in Punjab, UP, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir go under the hammer with 103 bids. Adlabs walked away with most of the honours bagging 19 stations losing out on only two cities in Varanasi and Karnal. It bid a total of Rs 29.61 crore with a staggering bid of Rs 15.61 crore for Chandigarh.

The day also saw Pan India (a Zee group company) and BAG Infotainment open their accounts by bagging four stations each. In the last round, both companies drew a blank. Pan India suffered on account of the '25 per cent of the top bid criteria' while BAG had bid ridiculously low amounts.

Another development is that Jammu and Kashmir will be an Adlabs FM monopoly as it is the only bidder to win a radio station each in Jammu and Srinagar city. There were seven stations on offer, but Adlabs bids of Rs 1 crore and one thousand rupees for Jammu and Rs 61 lakh for Srinagar meant that other bidders like South Asia FM lost out. Another major loser was Radio Mirchi, which could not bag Agra despite a Rs 2.10 crore bid, sources said.

Anil Ambani's Adlabs, South Asia FM, Times Group's Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL), the Rajasthan Patrika, Radio Mirchi, Jagran and Bhaskar groups bagged their share of 76 FM frequencies which were up for grabs in the second round of auction for 21 North Indian cities and towns. These have bagged the FM radio rights which took place on Friday in New Delhi.

In all, 104 bids were made out of which 63 qualified, yielding a revenue of Rs 83.7 crore to the governemnt, an official of the Information and Broadcasting Minustry said. The highest bid of Rs 15.61 crore went for Chandigarh, which was quoted by Adlabs.

Jagran and Bhaskar got six each. Bhaskar Group's Synergy Media won six cities – Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Kota, Amritsar, Jodhpur and Ajmer. Rajastan Patrika, which applied for five got two, Kota and Udaipur.

Adlabs, won 19 of the 21 cities it had bid for. The highest bid made by Adlabs was for Chandigarh at Rs 15 crore. An Adlabs spokesperson said, "We have achieved a nationwide footprint with today's wins in North India. We are highly delighted to have a footprint that covers six major metros as well as prime cities like Chandigarh and Shimla." Adlabs total investments in FM radio bids stands at Rs 123.46 crore.

South Asia FM too was a dominant player, all set to get licences for around nine cities like Bareilly, Allahabad, Varanasi, Kota, Bikaner and Aligarh.

The Times Group company, which runs services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Indore, had won licences for Bangalore, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Nagpur and Surat in the first round.

B.A.G Films has won for 4 cities in India i.e. Hissar, Karnal, Shimla & Patiala. The 2nd phase of bidding results announcement today witnessed several other players getting licenses for various other cities at the venue.

"We are very happy with this announcement and keeping in mind that we are a television content company, we will be able to provide meaningful content to the youth of Haryana & Himachal Pradesh and also parts of Punjab. Our experience of more than 12 years will surely bring a remarkable change in the FM industry." said B.A.G. Films managing director Anurradha Prasad.

The second round of bids were for the North zone excluding the A and A+ cities, bids for which were over last Friday. The second round involved 76 frequencies, 21 cities across eight states of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal and Chandigarh.

The first phase of licensing in private FM was a disaster with only about 20 of the over 100 radio stations put on the block becoming operational. Most of the players in this phase had complained of the high licence fee regime, which they said made business unviable, prompting the government to come out with a new policy framework for the current phase of bidding.