NEW DELHI: E-auction for the third phase of FM radio channels will commence in June, Information and Broadcasting secretary Uday Kumar Varma said.

The Union Cabinet had approved auctions for the third phase almost a year back on 7 July 2011, but no date had been fixed.

Private FM radio broadcasters are eagerly waiting for the date announcement as they have to ready capital before that. The bidding could turn aggressive, particularly in the metros where more frequencies will open up.

The government expects to earn Rs 17.33 billion from auctioning the radio licences.

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 stations.

The government has hiked the cap on foreign holding from 20 per cent to 26 per cent.

The private radio operators are also allowed to carry news, but only from bulletins of All India Radio (AIR).

FM radio broadcasters are struggling with the slow pace of revenue growth and many of them are in losses. The revenue market for FM radio is estimated at Rs 12 billion.

NEW DELHI: The Government has permitted TV Vision Ltd, Mumbai, to bring in Rs 2 billion by way of FDI/NRI inflows for induction of foreign investment by way of issue of equity shares through an initial public offering (IPO) to undertake the business of broadcasting a non-news and current affairs TV channel. TV Vision already operates music channel Mastiii.

Meanwhile, based on the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the Finance Ministry rejected an application by UT Starcom India Telecom to undertake additional activity related to the telecom and Information and Broadcasting sectors.

A proposal by Springer India to increase foreign equity up to 100 per cent to carry out the business of publishing and re-printing of scientific, technical, medical and other no-fiction books in electronic and printed forms in any language was also rejected.

The Ministry turned down the application of Springer Editorial Services to increase foreign equity up to 100 per cent to carry on the business of publishing services, content, development, content management, content outsourcing, providing a comprehensive service including data conversion, editorial services, pre-press, pre-media services, digital communication services, data based management, digitisation services and data based engineering

Omnimedia SL was asked to approach the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for amendment of Clause 2 of the FC approval to undertake the business of publishing/ printing of scientific and technical magazines/ specialty journals/ periodicals in the name and style of ?Energetica-India? and circulation of its digital version. This will not involve any additional inflow.

The consideration of several applications in the realm of information and broadcasting were deferred. These include one by Oxigen Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon, ex-post-facto for induction of foreign investment to carry out the business of providing B2B services like mobile, direct-to-home TV, and broadband recharges.

A proposal by Alliance Data Pte. Ltd, Singapore, for undertaking the additional of publishing and printing an Indian edition of a foreign specialty magazine was deferred.

Another proposal deferred was that of Packt Publishing, Mumbai, for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of writing, editing, summarising, compiling, printing, publishing, exporting or importing books pertaining to areas like information technology.

A proposal by Fine Publishing India for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of publishing specialty technical magazines covering the subject of wine and champagne was deferred.

Another proposal deferred was that of Reed Elsevier India for publishing and co-publishing research journals in or outside India in any media.TV Vision already operates music channel Mastiii.

Meanwhile, based on the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the Finance Ministry rejected an application by UT Starcom India Telecom to undertake additional activity related to the telecom and Information and Broadcasting sectors.

A proposal by Springer India to increase foreign equity up to 100 per cent to carry out the business of publishing and re-printing of scientific, technical, medical and other no-fiction books in electronic and printed forms in any language was also rejected.

The Ministry turned down the application of Springer Editorial Services to increase foreign equity up to 100 per cent to carry on the business of publishing services, content, development, content management, content outsourcing, providing a comprehensive service including data conversion, editorial services, pre-press, pre-media services, digital communication services, data based management, digitisation services and data based engineering

Omnimedia SL was asked to approach the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for amendment of Clause 2 of the FC approval to undertake the business of publishing/ printing of scientific and technical magazines/ specialty journals/ periodicals in the name and style of ?Energetica-India? and circulation of its digital version. This will not involve any additional inflow.

The consideration of several applications in the realm of information and broadcasting were deferred. These include one by Oxigen Services (India) Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon, ex-post-facto for induction of foreign investment to carry out the business of providing B2B services like mobile, direct-to-home TV, and broadband recharges.

A proposal by Alliance Data Pte. Ltd, Singapore, for undertaking the additional of publishing and printing an Indian edition of a foreign specialty magazine was deferred.

Another proposal deferred was that of Packt Publishing, Mumbai, for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of writing, editing, summarising, compiling, printing, publishing, exporting or importing books pertaining to areas like information technology.

A proposal by Fine Publishing India for induction of foreign equity to carry out the business of publishing specialty technical magazines covering the subject of wine and champagne was deferred.

Another proposal deferred was that of Reed Elsevier India for publishing and co-publishing research journals in or outside India in any media.

NEW DELHI: Dissatisfied with the under-utilisation of outlay in the Information Sector of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, a Parliamentary Committee has said various projects/schemes being implemented should be critically analysed and remedial action taken to effectively utilise the outlay.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology noted that out of the total Plan allocation of Rs 63.11 billion for the Eleventh Plan, the Information sector had been allocated Rs 3.14 billion, which works out to 4.9 per cent of the budgetary allocation.

During the year 2009-10, the revised budget allocation was Rs 760 million, which was enhanced to Rs 852.7 million and the actual expenditure was Rs 784.9 million which comes to 92.04 per cent.

During the year 2010-11, the budget estimates allocation was Rs 1.2175 million which was increased to Rs 1.2841 million at the revised estimates stage. But only Rs 742.1 million could be utilised up to February 2011, which works out to 57.79 per cent.

As compared to the year 2009-10, the performance during 2010-11 under the Information Sector is clearly unsatisfactory, the Committee said.

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The intervention of the Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni has helped All India Radio (AIR) get Nimbus to part with the radio broadcast rights of the three Tests of the India-West Indies series.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has granted the radio rights to the state-owned radio broadcaster after discussing with the rights holder, Nimbus Sport.

The commercial value of the rights is yet to be fixed, sources said.

AIR had failed to broadcast the commentary of the India-England cricket series as negotiations with Nimbus Sport over revenue sharing were inconclusive. 

"Nimbus and BCCI will be meeting next week to decide on the commercial value of the deal. AIR will broadcast the commentary of the three Tests of the West Indies tour of India following an assurance by the BCCI," a source familiar with the development said.

The Tests start on 6 November, 14 November and 22 November at Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai respectively.

Sources said no agreement has yet been worked out for the five one-dayers being held in November and December at Cuttack, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Indore and Chennai.

When contacted, Neo Sport chief operating officer Yannick Colaco declined to comment on the issue.

For the India-England series, AIR was willing to pay $6000 per match for the broadcast rights, but Neo Sport wanted a 50:50 share in revenues.

The I&B Ministry had last month written to BCCI to allow radio broadcasting rights because a large number of people still depended on radio for their entertainment and information.

Sources said senior BCCI officials had taken up the issue with Nimbus Sport.

Doordarshan will telecast the one-dayers under the the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act, 2007.

NEW DELHI: Denying it was attempting to augment its All India Radio?s FM channels before the auction of the Phase III for private FM Radio, the Government today said an amount of Rs 1.42 billion had been sanctioned for AIR FM expansion under the Eleventh Plan.

New transmitters of various capacities were being installed in 130 places throughout the country, including 100 relay transmitters of 100 Watt. In addition, the old transmitters at 34 places were being replaced by new FM transmitters.

 
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting S Jagathrakshakan admitted in Parliament that state government had been asked to allocate land free of cost to AIR for setting up the AIR FM channels.

He said of the 313 cities for which Phase III had been approved, AIR already had FM channels in 153 cities including those in the pipeline. However, it does not have any AIR FM transmitters in the remaining 160 cities, though 50 of these cities will get relay transmitters in the 11th Plan.

Of these 160 cities, land is required at 153 from the state government, and letters had been written to the state governments of 19 states to allocate the land free of cost, the Minister added.

All the 160 cities will have studios with production facilities and a proposal is being framed for inclusion under the 12th Plan.