The Hindu : Pressure on Ten Sports

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 12, 2004

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Pressure on Ten Sports

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 11. Prasar Bharati's bid to secure terrestrial telecast rights for the India-Pakistan cricket series — beginning on Saturday — for Doordarshan promises to be an exercise that will be decided in the last over. Despite a series of meetings today between officials of the public broadcaster and Ten Sports — which holds the global radio and television rights of the series — a final decision is likely to be taken only tomorrow after more discussions between the two in Mumbai where the Prasar Bharati Board is also scheduled to meet.

The "autonomous'' status of Prasar Bharati notwithstanding, much of the deliberations took place in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry amid indications that the Government was putting pressure on Ten Sports to show the series on Doordarshan's national hook-up. While various options were considered, the one that gained currency by late evening was of Ten Sports showing the matches on DD complete with its logo and advertisements; thereby offering to the satellite channel and its advertisers the wide reach that only the public broadcaster enjoys in India.

The Government view was that it is in the public interest that Ten Sports simultaneously telecast the series on Doordarshan to make it accessible to all television-viewers across the country. "If they have to do business in India, they had better fall in line. This series happened because of an initiative taken by India. How can they ignore the Indian Government's request that they show it on Doordarshan in the public interest under the circumstances,'' said officials.

To begin with, two options were touted in the Ministry in the morning. While on the one hand there was talk of Ten Sports allowing Doordarshan rights to a deferred live telecast of the series, the other option involved Ten Sports showing the matches on the national hook-up with its logo and payment of carriage fee/opportunity cost as "DD offers a huge platform.'' However, both options were dropped as the negotiations dragged on and it was back to "how much would DD pay for the rights.'' While Prasar Bharati was apparently willing to double its offer to $8 million, Ten Sports wanted thrice the amount as it is apprehensive of what such a deal would do to its advertisement contracts which were struck on the assurance that the series would be shown exclusively on this satellite channel. Prior to getting the Government to do a bit of arm-twisting with Ten Sports, Prasar Bharati had tapped and "exhausted'' all avenues, including diplomatic channels, to get the terrestrial telecast rights of the series as the satellite channel could be accessed only by half of the television homes of the country.

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