The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) yesterday issued a corrigendum to its earlier recommendations on ‘Formulating a Digital Radio Broadcast Policy for Private Broadcasters’, revising the formula for calculating migration amounts in cities where no bids are received during spectrum auctions.

According to a statement from the broadcast and telecom regulator, the revised recommendation states that in cases where no bids are received for new radio frequencies in a city, the reserve price (RP) — rather than the previously suggested average of discovered prices (ADPs) — should be used as the basis for determining the migration amount for existing broadcasters.

TRAI said this change was necessary to prevent potential “aberrations” that could arise from averaging ADPs across different cities. The digital radio policy was first submitted to the government in the first week of October.

The corrigendum modifies paragraph 3.74(g) of the original recommendations submitted to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) on October 3, 2025.

The initial formulation had proposed using the average ADP of similar category cities (A+, A, etc.) as the reference price for migration when no bids were received in a particular city. This approach, TRAI noted, could lead to discrepancies between the migration amount and the reserve price determined through the established valuation model.

TRAI clarified that the reserve price for a city represents the minimum value determined through a rigorous valuation process and serves as the lowest acceptable amount during auctions. Consequently, the Authority concluded that the reserve price would provide a more appropriate and consistent base for migration calculations in the absence of auction bids.

MIB had initially sought TRAI’s guidance in April 2024 to help frame a comprehensive digital radio broadcast policy for private broadcasters. The regulator submitted its full recommendations to the Ministry on October 3, 2025, before issuing this corrigendum yesterday.