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Get
set for the war of the FM airwaves in Mumbai.
As
the deadline of 29 April draws near, all the players in
the FM fray are scrambling to launch the city's first private
radio stations. Radio Today (from the Living Media group),
Radio Mirchi (offspring of the Times of India Group) and
Radio Mid Day (from the Mumbai eveninger's stable) all expect
to be up and beaming on or around that date.
Radio
Today, headed by G Krishnan (also CEO of top Hindi television
news channel Aaj Tak) will take off by 29 April, official
sources say. Nischint Chawla, till recently CEO of Radio
Mid Day, is the COO.
Radio Mirchi, which has already spiced up the airwaves in
Indore and Ahmedabad, is racing against time for a simultaneous
launch in Mumbai and Pune by 1 May, says AP Parigi, managing
director Entertainment Network, the Times Group company
behind Radio Mirchi.
Queried as to where the FM station had located its transmission
tower, Parigi mentioned two sites - one at Sterling Buildings
in Tardeo in central Mumbai and another in suburban Malad.
According
to the information available, the first to get off the blocks
in Mumbai may well be Radio Mid Day - likely to launch between
23 and 25 April.
RADIO CITY HITS A ROADBLOCK:
Radio City, the ambitious FM project from the Star stable,
however, has come up against an unexpected hurdle. The company
has still to get its tower and transmitter site clearance
from the government. Music Broadcast Private Limited (MBPL),
the company promoting Radio City, already has space earmarked
for the radio tower atop the Shripati building at Nana Chowk,
central Mumbai, but in the absence of government all clear,
is caught in a bind. Says Sumantra Dutta, head of Star's
FM operations: "We are very keen to launch but only if the
government gives us clearance on the tower and the transmitter
site. We, after all, launched India's first private FM station
(in Bangalore on 3 July 2001) and were the first to demonstrate
the true potential of FM in India."
Till
date, FM operations have taken off in four centres - Radio
City in Bangalore and Lucknow and Radio Mirchi in Indore
and Ahmedabad.
Mumbai will, however, witness the first real case where
multiple players will be fighting it out for the listener's
ear. Apart from Radio Mirchi, Radio Today, Radio Mid Day
and Radio City, there is also Millennium Broadcast. It is
not clear at this stage how far it has gone with its launch
plans but it needs noting that Millennium Broadcast has
experience behind it. It has already tasted a measure of
FM success in Sri Lanka.
In
the metro cities of Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, private
players have some more time to start operations (August
29, 2002) and unlike in Mumbai they will be using All India
Radio towers for broadcast. In Mumbai, where neither DD
nor AIR have towers, private players have been exempted
from the condition of co-location for a period of two years
and have been allowed to make interim individual arrangements.
Operators in Mumbai have till 29 February to start broadcast
operations. After that, they will be required to start paying
license fees, whether services start or not.
One
thing that the Private FM players will not be allowed to
do, which will certainly restrict growth prospects, is broadcast
news and current affairs programmes.
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