The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : BCCI to retain IPR

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Wednesday, Dec 21, 2005

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BCCI to retain IPR

Special Correspondent

Separate bids for satellite, broadband, internet, mobile telephony

NEW DELHI : The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced on Tuesday it would retain the intellectual property rights (IPR) to allcontent it will produce or outsource. The decision was taken hereat a meeting of the Board's Working Committee.

The Board vice-president, Lalit Modi, said that Doordarshan will have to carry the feed that was provided by to it by the BCCI and will not be allowed to insert advertisements. Mr. Modi also added that the Board wasnot opposed to the Government's decision to make it mandatory for sports broadcasters to share the feed of cricket matches with the national broadcaster.

"From now, all news channels will directly enter into a contract with the Board for content and carry the BCCI logo," Mr. Modi informed.

The Board will make available some secondages of footage free-of-cost while the extra footage could be obtained at a rate fixed by the Board in keeping with the guidelines for the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. The Board will produce the matches through an outsourced entity and will directly offer contracts to anchors, presenters, statisticians and so on.

The Board will also invite separate bids for satellite, broadband, internet, mobile telephony and radio. Private FM radio companies will be offered contracts for broadcasting cricket in different languages.

According to Mr. Modi, the players will receive new contracts after the ongoing Test against Sri Lanka at Ahmedabad. The players are expected to get 26 per cent of the Board's total revenues — 13 per cent to the international cricketers and 13 per cent for domestic players.

According to media spokesman Rajiv Shukla, the Government had cleared the Indian team's tour to Pakistan next month subject to security clearance by the experts who would visit the venues.

The Board is sending a panel comprising Ratnakar Shetty, G. S. Walia and three security experts toreport back on the venues. The team is expected to leaveon Saturday.

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