I&B Ministry
Day 9: FM Phase III price touches Rs 900 crore; demand slows
NEW DELHI: Even as the cumulative provisional winning price touched Rs 900 crore against their aggregate reserve price of about Rs 407 crore at the end of 36 rounds on the ninth day of bidding for FM Phase III, the percentage price increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was almost nil in most cities.
A total of 85 channels in 56 cities became provisionally winning channels after four more rounds today (6 August). Thus the summation of provisional winning prices surpassed the cumulative reserve price of the 85 channels by Rs 493.19 crore or 121.2 per cent.
The cumulative provisional winning price exceeded the total reserve price of the first batch by Rs 349.89 crore or 63.6 per cent. The total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM channels in 69 existing cities is Rs 550.18 crore.
The Auction Activity Requirement of 80 per cent set at the beginning of the auction continued to remain the same on the ninth day.
As was previously reported by Indiantelevision.com, the 13 cities for which no bids have come are Asansol, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore, Puducherry, Rajahmundry, Siliguri, Tiruchy, Tirunveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vijaywada and Warangal.
The demand over the price in many cities fell by up to three per cent below the aggregate demand.
The Percentage Price Increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was five per cent in Jaipur and a mere one per cent in Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Mumbai, Nasik, Patiala and Pune.
The highest Provisional winning price – the same as the Clock round price at the start of the twenty-eighth round – was in Delhi at Rs 138.64 crore followed by Mumbai at Rs 91.38 crore with both showing marginal increase compared to yesterday.
Among cities recording more than Rs 10 crore, the number rose sizeably in Jaipur at Rs 19.15 crore and marginally in Chennai at Rs 40.84 crore, Pune at Rs 33.77 crore, Patna at Rs 17.!5
89,83,876;, Chandigarh at Rs 16,90,34,565, and Cochin – Rs 10,95,52,597.
Thus Bengaluru and Mumbai are the only cities which may soon cross the Rs 100 crore figure, besides Delhi which did so early in the e-auctions.
Bengaluru – Rs 98,02,16,503, Ahmedabad – Rs 42,68,76,267, Hyderabad at Rs 18,00,00,000, and Lucknow – Rs 14,00,55,000 remained static.
I&B Ministry
India turns up the heat on piracy, orders Telegram to axe 3,142 channels and blocks 800 websites
New legal teeth, nodal officers and notices to intermediaries signal that the government is done playing nice with copyright thieves
NEW DELHI: India’s war on film piracy just got significantly more aggressive. The government has ordered Telegram to remove 3,142 channels distributing pirated content, blocked access to around 800 websites through internet service providers, and put the full weight of freshly sharpened legislation behind the crackdown. The message from New Delhi is unambiguous: the free ride for copyright thieves is over.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting L. Murugan spelled out the legal architecture to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Cinematograph (Amendment) Act, 2023, he said, now contains specific provisions designed to make piracy a genuinely painful proposition. Sections 6AA and 6AB prohibit unauthorised recording and transmission of films, with violations attracting a minimum of three months’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 3 lakh. At the upper end, offenders face three years behind bars and fines of up to 5 per cent of a film’s audited gross production cost — a figure that, for a big-budget production, could run into crores.
The legislation also gives the government powers to act against intermediaries hosting infringing content, by notifying them under Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and compelling takedowns and blocking actions. Under Section 79(3)(b), intermediaries are legally required to remove or disable access to unlawful content upon receiving government notice or court orders. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, add a further layer of obligation, requiring platforms to ensure their services are not used to host or distribute content that violates copyright or proprietary rights.
To put enforcement into practice, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has established a dedicated institutional mechanism, complete with nodal officers to receive complaints. Copyright holders, authorised representatives or individuals can report piracy through a prescribed format, after which the government issues notices to intermediaries to disable access to infringing links.
The most headline-grabbing action came on 11 March 2026, when Telegram was formally notified under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and directed to remove and disable 3,142 channels found to be distributing unauthorised content belonging to OTT platforms, content owners and producers. The complaints that triggered the action came from OTT platforms including JioCinema and Amazon Prime Video, which alleged that copyrighted films, web series and other material were being shared on the platform on a massive scale. Telegram’s architecture, with its large file-sharing limits and capacity for user anonymity, has made it a favoured vehicle for exactly this kind of large-scale piracy.
The Telegram action sits within a broader pattern of escalating enforcement. Just days before the Lok Sabha statement, the ministry banned five OTT platforms for streaming obscene content: MoodXVIP, Koyal Playpro, Digi Movieplex, Feel and Jugnu. In July 2025, the Centre ordered the blocking of 25 OTT platforms accused of streaming obscene, vulgar or pornographic material, a list that included ALTT, ULLU, Big Shots App, Desiflix, Boomex, Navarasa Lite, Gulab App, Kangan App, Bull App, Jalva App, ShowHit, Wow Entertainment, Look Entertainment, Hitprime, Feneo, ShowX, Sol Talkies, Adda TV, HotX VIP, Hulchul App, MoodX, NeonX VIP, Fugi, Mojflix and Triflicks.
Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, provides the regulatory hook for those actions, prohibiting platforms from hosting content that is obscene, pornographic, invasive of privacy, gender-harassing, racially or ethnically objectionable, or that promotes hatred and violence.
For an industry that loses billions of rupees annually to piracy, the direction of travel is welcome. The question, as always, is not whether the laws exist, but whether the enforcement machinery can keep pace with the ingenuity of those determined to circumvent it. Three thousand channels down, and the pirates are already busy opening three thousand more.
