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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) proposal to introduce more radio stations in metros within the existing FM radio bandwidth by reducing the channel spacing between two stations did not get any support from the FM operators except from Radio Mirchi.

According to a report in The Financial Express the FM operators gave various reasons like rising costs, devaluation of current radio business and negative impact on the quality of sound of current stations for not supporting the move.

The FM operators that did not support the proposal include Fever FM, Oye FM, Radio One and Radio City.�

Trai's proposal is similar to the norms existing in developed markets like the US and Europe. While New York has 44 FM stations between 88-108 MHz, London has 42 FM stations within the prescribed FM radio bandwidth.

India however has seven to nine FM stations only in select cities.

Trai had proposed to restructure the frequency allocation plan for FM radio within 88-108 MHz bandwidth. It planned to reduce the channel spacing between two allocated FM stations from 800 Kilo Hertz (KHz) to 400 KHz.

FM operators argued that the reduction in channel spacing would harm the quality of existing radio stations. They also added that the radio companies would have to spend Rs 10 crore to make the proposed technical modifications.

According to the current plans for FM-III policy, only 9-11 channels are envisaged in A+ cities (metros) and six channels in class A cities (except Bangalore and Hyderabad where eight channels are provided).