NEW DELHI: The government has categorically said that it does not intend to set up a separate authority to review the performance of FM radio services.
However, Parliament was told that the contents of the channels are being monitored by the Broadcast Engineering Consultants (India) Limited (BECIL), and the channels agree to adhere by the Programme and Advertising Codes when they enter into agreements to set up new channels.
It has also been decided to allow operators to own more than one channel but not more than forty per cent of the total channels in a city (subject to a minimum of three different operators in a city) and subject to a national ceiling of 15 per cent.
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Networking of channels is permissible within a private FM Broadcaster’s own network across the country instead of ‘C’ and ‘D’ categories as in Phase II.
The annual licence fee has been fixed at four per cent of gross revenue or 2.5 per cent of bid price whichever is higher.
But for the north-east region, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), and Island territories, the license fee is fixed at half the normal rate for a period of three years.
The largest Indian shareholder in a permit holding company is allowed to dilute its shareholding to a level below 51 per cent after a lock-in period of three years from the date on which all the channels allotted to the company stand operationalized.
Meanwhile, it was clarified in Parliament in reply to another question that no community radio has been given transmitter power above 100 Watts ERP and there is proposal in this regard.
