At the close of the 25th day of bidding in the e-auctions for the first batch of channels under the Phase III of FM Radio expansion, 94 channels in 56 cities became provisional winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of about Rs 1147 crore.
An official statement released here said that the aggregate reserve price of these 94 channels was about Rs 459 crore.
"Thereby the summation of provisional winning prices surpassed the cumulative reserve price of the corresponding 94 channels by Rs 688.3 crore or 150 per cent," the Information and Broadcasting ministry said in a statement here.
Senior officials told PTI that with the auction process having gained a momentum with aggressive bidding for the first batch, there was also a view that the process for auctioning the second batch should also be rolled out soon to benefit from the pace generated.
"There is definitely a thinking that the response to the first phase has been great and it could be desirable to benefit from this momentum by bringing in the remaining batches expeditiously," I&B secretary Bimal Julka said.
Officials said that TRAI has already released the reserve prices of channels in the second batch.
According to the statement released by the ministry today, due to aggressive bidding by companies, the provisional Winning Price of Single Channel in Guwahati has becomes more than 10 times its Reserve Price.
"Today, provisional winning price of single channel put for auction in Guwahati reached 976 per cent above its reserve price. Against reserve price of Rs 0.37 crore, Guwahati's provisional winning price stood at Rs 4.07 crore at the end of the day," the ministry said.
Till now 100 rounds of bidding have been completed at the end of day 25 of the e-auctions and the cumulative provisional winning price exceeded the total reserve price of the first batch i.E. Rs 550.18 crore by Rs 597 crore or 108.5 per cent, the ministry said.
The Auction for the first batch comprising 135 FM Channels in 69 existing cities of Phase II began on July 27th 2015. The channel allocation stage will continue till the bids are received for any of the 135 channels.
