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News |  28 Mar 2011 17:44 |  By PavanRChawla

I&B Addl Secy Rajiv Takru inaugurates AROI's Radio Congress 2011

* Says Phase 3 policy likely to be out in 3 months

* Announces creation of fourth category of locations for Phase 3 licensing

* Says AIR working on snippets of news bulletins for Private FM

* AROI President Anurradha Prasad urges Advertising Industry to support Radio

NEW DELHI: FM Phase 3 is in its final stages, and within the next 2 to 3 months, the I&B Ministry should be able to get a final review by the Government and thereafter, Phase 3 should be up and running. This was announced by Rajiv Takru, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, as part of his inaugural keynote address at Radio Congress 2011, the second annual initiative of the Association of Radio Operators For India (AROI). Takru also announced the creation of a fourth category of locations for Phase 3 licensing, and that AIR is considering offering edited snippets from its news bulletins to private FM operators.

Takru had stepped in at the last minute for the indisposed Raghu Menon, Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting,  to inaugurate the Radio Congress 2011 in the presence of a veritable Who's Who of Radio and M&E  that included the Golden Voice of Indian Radio Ameen Sayani, AROI President Anurradha Prasad, Apurva Purohit, G V Krishnan, Prashant Panday, Sam Balsara, Raj Nayak, Harrish M Bhatia, Harkesh Gupta, Rahul Gupta, Monika Nayyar Patnaik, George Sebastian, Nishant Mittal, Shelly Chaudhary, Sunil Dahiya and P S Sundaram, among others.

In his keynote address, Takru said the government is considering the e-auction method to allocate Phase 3 FM licenses, and it has added a fourth category  -- which includes Jammu & Kashmir, Border Areas, North-eastern States and Island Territories – to the three existing categories that span Metros to Cat-D cities and towns, for Phase 3 of Private FM. He announced that the Government will  incentivize private operators who begin operations in this new and yet non-lucrative category with  heavily subsidized use of AIR infrastructure and not counting licenses for locations in this category in the 15% limit on licenses that a single operator can hold. They can have their business, and do CSR too....

Takru announced that while the government had agreed to allowing Private FM to carry news but only on an as-is... basis, i.e., as broadcast by AIR, it realized that the established broadcasting formats of private FM stations would not allow them to air 15-minute news bulletins as is the norm on AIR  He said, At AIR, we are working on creating 2-minute snippets of original news bulletins for use by private FM stations. These could be specifically designed around how much time  you (private FM) want to give it...  He told RadioAndMusic.com, We are open to discussing these formats with private FM stations and repackaging them to suit their formats....

Takru also told RadioAndMusic.com in an aside that he is confident the government will be able to announce the names of the DGs of DD and AIR within a month. Denying reports in a section of the media of alleged government pressure on Prasar Bharti to suggest names for these positions, Takru  said, There was absolutely no pressure from the government on Prasar Bharti to suggest the names  Prasar Bharti suggested the names after due discussions and deliberations....

On the government's chosen route for issue of Phase 3 licenses, Takru said, There can be no fairer system than e-auction – it takes away guesswork, is extremely transparent and fair,  and you cannot influence anyone as all are on the internet. This system has the advantage that nobody can be kept out or favoured, and therefore, is very fair....

Pre-empting questions on the e-auctions route, Takru said he had no fear e-auction could lead to irresponsible, uneconomic  behavior or overbidding... as he described it, because I am a great admirer of the private sector and I absolutely refuse to believe they will make foolish decisions and overbid in an emotional manner, or do anything that is not driven purely by business considerations… After Phase 1 and now 2, with 245 channels, things aren't as gloomy as they are made out to be. You can judge what revenues can be made so you will not overbid....

Takru was as positive about the future of private FM  as he was vehement about the need to take all research with a bucketful of salt.... Debunking  the IRS Q4 2010-11 research findings without naming them, Takru said he fully agreed with the views MY FM CEO Harrish Bhatia had expressed in a (RadioAndMusic.com) report debunking the IRS Q4 2010-11 findings that said Radio, continuing the trends of Q3 and Q2,  had degrown in Q4 too. Quoting Bhatia's example from the story, Takru said it is incredible that Radio listenership in a big city like Raipur could be tracked on the basis of inputs from a mere single-digit sample size of nine!...

Takru said, It is a myth that Radio is on the decline. Radio has survived all kind of invasions by other media, and it is holding out strongly. There is a certain kind of functionality and popularity of radio that no other media can offer....

Earlier, in an emotionally charged address welcoming the leading lights of Indian Radio to the Radio Congress 2011, held at the glittering Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon, Anurradha Prasad, President AROI, urged the Government to relook at the regulatory side of things if it wanted Radio to flourish. She said India's Radio ad revenues of a meager 2 percent compare very poorly with those of the UK and USA at 8 and 14 percent respectively. I truly believe that the advertising industry has to look at Radio really closely, and if they do this, radio will not look back. It's not been looked at seriously and that's why it has suffered so far....

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