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In a bid to
diversify sources of revenue, All India Radio (AIR) has decided
to offer chunks of programme time on its FM channels in non-metro
cities to private operators for entertainment programming. “We
have recently taken this decision. We are already negotiating with
some private operators,” head of AIR Resources Hari Om Srivastava.
AIR has excluded the metro cities from this offer anticipating protests
from existing private operators who have paid high premium to secure
FM licences for 24-hour radio channels.
AIR operates
FM stations at 128 places. Leaving the metro channels out, there
are 124 cities in which slots are being offered to private operators.
The commercially attractive ones are, however, likely to be limited
to 70-odd cities. These are the same cities in which 24-hour FM
channels are proposed to be auctioned to private operators in the
second round of privatisation, likely in the latter half of 2002.
On whether this is going to influence the next round of privatisation,
Dr Srivastava said that it would only offer an opportunity to the
prospective bidders to test the waters. Further, there are some
players who would not like to operate a 24-hour channel and are
just interested in offering a few hours of programming everyday.
The time slots are initially for a few hours in the morning, afternoon
and evening. Currently, there are three maintenance shifts on AIR
FM channels in non-metros during which there is no transmission.
The maintenance
work will be shifted to night time and with the help of the private
slots, it would be made a continuous transmission during the day.
“We are even willing to offer slots in a full state if the
private operators are willing to take it,” Dr Srivastava said.
The ‘testing waters’ strategy is significant since in
the first round of privatisation, many prospective licencees over-estimated
the size of the market and submitted very high bids which were not
financially viable. Subsequently, some of these bidders opted out
and landed up in the courts.
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