NEW DELHI: Even as the hope for revenues continues to rest on cities racing to the Rs ten crore mark and Varanasi continued its rise along with Jodhpur, the cumulative winning price at the end of the hundredth round on the 25^th day went up to Rs 1147 crore in the e-auction for the first batch of FM Phase III cities.

But the surprise of the day came from northeast where one channel in Guwahati fetched a price of Rs 4.07 crore as against its reserve price of just 37 lakh, registering an increase of 976 per cent. A few days earlier, Bhubaneswar had also set a record with a single channel getting the most competitive bidding increment-wise by going up nine times the reserve price.

But there is no increase for almost a week in the number of provisional winning channels and cities - 94 channels in 56 cities – though the total bids surpassed the cumulative reserve price by Rs 688.3 crore or 150 per cent against the aggregate reserve price of about Rs 459 crore.

The cumulative provisional winning price has thus risen over the total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM channels in 69 existing cities - Rs 550.18 crore – by Rs 597 Crore or 108.5 per cent.

While Varanasi marched higher Rs 12,29,62,542, Kolhapur was static with Rs 9,44,24,489.but Jodhpur showed an increase to Rs 9,22,94,238. Others in the waiting for entry to the Rs ten crore club appear to be Kanpur, Rajkot, Amritsar and Aurangabad which have all got above Rs six crore. 

The cumulative winning price is exclusive of the migration fee which will take the total revenue even higher. Information and Broadcasting Ministry source also reiterated that the notice inviting auction was clear that the e-auction will continue as long as bids are received for any of the 135 channels. This included the 13 cities for which no bids have come.

The Auction Activity Requirement rose to 100 per cent after the 59^th round on 14 August, after being 90 per cent for the 37^th round on 7 August.

But there were still no bids for thirteen cities: Asansol, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore, Puducherry, Rajahmundry, Siliguri, Tiruchy, Tirunveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vijaywada and Warangal.

The percentage price increment applicable for the next clock round rose to five each in Shillong and Varanasi but was just one in Guwahati and Jodhpur. There was no change in the other cities.

The winning price has risen by more than 100 per cent above their respective reserve prices in Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nashik, Patna, Pune, Rourkela and Varanasi, all of which got provisional winning bidders at prices more than double the respective reserve prices.

The provisional winning price in the top three cities reflected no change: Delhi – Rs 1,69,16,89,481 (for just one channel); Mumbai – Rs 1,22,81,31,349 (for two channels); and Bengaluru - Rs 1,09,25,45,545.

Chennai at Rs 53,38,83,479; Ahmedabad at Rs 42,68,76,267, Pune at Rs 42,03,50,268; Jaipur – Rs 28,34,98,387; Chandigarh at Rs 19,04,72,374; Hyderabad at Rs 18,00,00,000, Patna – Rs 17,89,83,876, Cochin - Rs 15,04,83,548, Nasik - Rs 14,66,24,270; and Lucknow - Rs 14,00,55,000 remained static.

Auction will now resume on 31 August.

The following Table summarizes 25 days of bidding:

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