Some Indian radio players raised concerns on the 15 percent cap imposed by the government for the auctions of the first batch of 135 stations during the third phase of FM expansion in the country, reports radioandmusic.com.

According to the information memorandum issued by the Information and Broadcasting ministry: “No entity shall hold permission for more than 15 per cent of all channels allotted in the country excluding channels located in Jammu and Kashmir, North Eastern States and island territories.”

This means that networks like Big FM – which has 45 stations, and Red FM – which has 50 stations, will not be able to bid aggressively.

The concerns were raised at the pre-bid conference, which was an opportunity for many players to address issues concerning the e-auction – which is a first for Indian radio networks.

While players like Radio City and Radio Mirchi can expand aggressively over the country and the two-station network Radio Indigo plans to expand to more metro cities, another player affected by the issue – Big FM, did not issue any statement.

Commenting on the situation, Red FM COO, Nisha Narayanan said: “Ideally we would have liked to reach out to more cities but it now restricts us to be present in few cities only. As a natural corollary, the likelihood gets skewed towards metros and mini metros and the C and D categories will be left out. The other option is to surrender some existing stations and bid for more cities which again does not help the growth of radio.”