Trai unlikely to offer any relief to FM players

If the FM radio players are expecting a quick migration to the revenue sharing arrangement with the government rather than the licence fee regime, they may be in for a shock when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) submits its recommendations to the government.

If government sources are to be believed, "revenue sharing" is by no means a certainty as telecom and radio regimes are different.

Among the alternatives, the Trai is likely to recommend a one-time fee without a high annual escalation cost. Currently, companies operating radio stations pay a 15 per cent escalation cost on their licence fee every year.

Trai is also expected to recommend allowing news on radio. To accommodate news, the FM channels are likely to be divided into two categories "" one that is purely entertainment based and has no news element and the other which has news-cum-entertainment.

Media industry sources say that pure entertainment channels may be allowed 100 per cent foreign equity as is the case with satellite TV channels in the entertainment genre. Currently, no foreign equity is permitted in the FM business.

However, Trai officials are still mulling the foreign equity limit to be imposed on channels that carry news.

Government sources says there will be safeguards in the news category as well as not more than 100 to 150 second of news will be permitted per half an hour of programming.

The Trai recommendations, however, are not binding on the government. Government officials say that they will not be in a hurry to implement the proposals submitted by Trai.