Two well-known companies in the Indian radio industry are planning to come together to create more value for shareholders.

Next Radio Ltd, which runs 94.3 Radio One, and HT Media Ltd, which operates Fever and Radio Nasha are proposing a merger to take advantage of a larger combined metro play subject to the approval of shareholders, legal bodies and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting.

While Radio One is a pioneer in the international format space, Fever and Radio Nasha are leaders in the Hindi CHR and Retro radio space respectively.

Seven stations of Fever FM and Radio Nasha (two each in Delhi and Mumbai, and Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai) and all six stations of Radio One (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune) will aim to come together in a proposed merged entity.

Both radio companies, for now, will continue to operate ‘independently’ as before since the proposed merger is subject to government approval.

Once the merger has all the requisite approvals, HT Media and its shareholders will hold 74% and Next Radio shareholders will hold 26% in the merged entity.

Vineet Singh Hukmani, MD & CEO Radio One and Harshad Jain, CEO Fever FM, will continue to function in their respective leadership roles.

Sales teams of both companies will continue to function independently as before and will not sell any combination products.

Any decision related to programming for both the companies, during this interim period, will be independently taken by the respective management teams.

The companies are looking at a time-frame of 12-18 months to finalise the proposed merger.