NEW DELHI: Financial bidding for the remaining 97 FM radio stations across 48 cities slated to be held on Monday and on 7 January, has been put off on the ground that �some issues need to be sorted out'.

The 27 short-listed private FM radio companies will now submit their offers on 29 December and 10 January. Earlier, the bidding was to take place on 12 November and 26 November but was cancelled a few days before the due date.

Dismissing speculation of any major dispute, an Information and Broadcasting Ministry official said: "the auction was put off to sort out some more matters, but it is nothing very significant."

The 97 stations involved in the bidding were left out after last year's bidding for 337 FM stations in the second phase of the expansion of FM radio, out of which licences were awarded for 266. Those biddings had generated revenue of Rs 15.37 billion from the licence fee paid by 30 companies.

The present round of bidding is expected to generate about Rs 3.5 billion. The major players in this round include Entertainment Network India Ltd (Radio Mirchi), South Asia FM (Sun TV), and Reliance Unicom (Big 92.7 FM). In addition, there are some regional players like Rajasthan Patrika Pvt Ltd, Ananda Offset Private Ltd, Shri Puran Multimedia Ltd (Dainik Jagran), and Synergy Media Entertainment (Dainik Bhaskar group).