10.30am today saw the release of the 2014 frequencies from Radio Spectrum Management.

The Auction Catalog consists of 178 AM and FM Broadcast licenses, although some have already been removed by RSM for engineering reasons. You can view the Auction Catalog online by clicking here.

There is a great deal of excitement within the industry as this is purported to be the last ‘sweep up’ auction, although I personally believe there will be frequencies that won’t reach reserve and may well be released again in the future. One interesting development in this auction is, we are told, if a license doesn’t sell, that frequency is sterilized from becoming available again on a short term pending tender basis and therefore will remain unused.

A large number of these frequencies are already on the air having been engineered primarily by the two large networks as ‘short term pending tender’. The investment needed to maintain these already in use frequencies by MediaWorks and NZME (formerly TRN) on the basis of reserve prices alone is over $1.5 million NZD. Whatever happens over the next week, you can count on huge sums of money being spent!

It’s exciting already to see some of our LPFM friends having a go at some of the smaller licenses, and we wish them well.

An interesting week ahead for our industry, and whilst we wont be bidding on any, you can bet our TradeMe watch list is at least 173 items bigger than normal!

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