MUMBAI: Community radio station promoters are groaning and saying ouch!!! The Information and Broadcasting ministry has as of late March hiked the annual royalty from Rs 19,000 to Rs 91,000 for using the spectrum for broadcasting.  Community radio station representative recently met up with I&B ministry reps to voice their protest.

90.8 FM Jago Mumbai is an NGO based Community Radio station, run by the Union Park Residents’ Association in Mumbai. The station talks about the happening issues in the city and provides new and local artiste a platform to showcase their talent. It works integrally with the BMC in water harvesting, Garbage disposal and solar power etc.

Station head – creative & programming Nitin Makasare says that the government is erring in putting commercial and community radio stations on par.  He elaborates: “The government is trying to start over 4000 community radio stations all across the country, but this kind of steep rise is actually going to shut down many of the existing stations. It’s not that Jago Mumbai will close immediately but it is going to become more challenging for us to sustain in such an environment.”

He points out that the biggest challenge is to get advertisers on board in a city like Mumbai. He shares, “ Already we have low transmitter coverage and strength. This does not help in attracting advertisers, as it is not heard in most of the areas. This leads to a shortage of money and in this existing challenge if the government is going to hike fees by five fold it quite likely will kill us.”

India has over 130-140 operational community radio stations nationally, although the I&B ministry has issued 250 letters of intent. Says Makasare:  “We are expecting that if the government cannot hold back the spectrum fees it will look after the existing community radio stations in some way or the other. All this is a time consuming process, but we are hoping to get some kind of respite from the government in the next couple of days.”

MUMBAI: Community radio station promoters are groaning and saying ouch!!! The Information and Broadcasting ministry has as of late March hiked the annual royalty from Rs 19,000 to Rs 91,000 for using the spectrum for broadcasting.  Community radio station representative recently met up with I&B ministry reps to voice their protest.

90.8 FM Jago Mumbai is an NGO based Community Radio station, run by the Union Park Residents’ Association in Mumbai. The station talks about the happening issues in the city and provides new and local artiste a platform to showcase their talent. It works integrally with the BMC in water harvesting, Garbage disposal and solar power etc.

Station head – creative & programming Nitin Makasare says that the government is erring in putting commercial and community radio stations on par.  He elaborates: “The government is trying to start over 4000 community radio stations all across the country, but this kind of steep rise is actually going to shut down many of the existing stations. It’s not that Jago Mumbai will close immediately but it is going to become more challenging for us to sustain in such an environment.”

He points out that the biggest challenge is to get advertisers on board in a city like Mumbai. He shares, “ Already we have low transmitter coverage and strength. This does not help in attracting advertisers, as it is not heard in most of the areas. This leads to a shortage of money and in this existing challenge if the government is going to hike fees by five fold it quite likely will kill us.”

India has over 130-140 operational community radio stations nationally, although the I&B ministry has issued 250 letters of intent. Says Makasare:  “We are expecting that if the government cannot hold back the spectrum fees it will look after the existing community radio stations in some way or the other. All this is a time consuming process, but we are hoping to get some kind of respite from the government in the next couple of days.”