Not just music, you could soon get news on your FM Radio, that's if the I&B Ministry accepts the latest set of recommendations from broadcast regulator TRAI, reports CNBC-TV18.

In its recommendations on the third phase of private FM radio broadcasting, TRAI suggested that FM radio broadcasters be permitted to broadcast news using content from AIR, Doordarshan, authorised news channels like PTI, UNI and any other authorised news agency.

Here are some reactions to these recommendations:

In its recommendations, TRAI suggested hiking Foreign Direct Investment, or FDI, in the FM radio space to up to 49% from the current 20%.

It suggested that FDI in stations wishing to broadcast news be capped at 26%, while the limit for non-news FM stations be set at 49%. The FDI cap will also include funds received from FIIs.

That's not all. TRAI is also in favour of scrapping the cap on the number of FM channels operated by one company and allowing multiple ownership of FM radio channels in one city.

It also recommends a district-wise licensing norm for FM radio, with each district having three private operators.

According to CNBC-TV18's Ramya Ramamurthy, the third phase of private FM radio is up for auction. The I&B Ministry had asked TRAI for a set of recommendations before the third phase kicks off. TRAI has come back and given a slew of recommendations, including FDI capped earlier at 20%.

If you are a non-news broadcaster, that limit could go up to 49%, if the TRAI recommendations are followed by the Ministry. If you are a news broadcaster, that cap could go up from 20% to 26%.

While this will bring in a new cap, allowing news into programming will allow broadcasters to get more listeners and advertisers. Earlier the dissemination of frequencies was done on a city basis. That will now be done on a district level basis. So, while there was 15% cap on a broadcaster holding licenses across the country, that cap is now a district level cap and it is at 50%, not 15%.

So, multiple frequencies per city per broadcaster is what we are looking at. So, if you had one radio channel owning three channels in Mumbai, one could be a Marathi channel, one could be a Hindi channel and one could be an English channel. So, there is more variety in programming and more advertisers queuing up because of this segmented programming.

Importantly, this TRAI recommendation says they will allow for tradability. This means that if you are a regional broadcast player, after three years you can buy and sell, merge and consolidate in this business.

Currently, broadcasters with 10-year licenses have a revenue share of 4%. On the extension of the 10-year license, that can be prolonged to another 10 years. So, if you are sitting on 20 years worth of license, the capital that you can raise either through FDI or otherwise could be a lot more.

The government is clearly looking at kicking-in these TRAI recommendations before they implement Phase III of radio licensing. So, there is a good chance that these recommendations will become policy before Phase-III kicks in. That is in the next 3-4 months and you could get news and much more on your radio channel.