NEW DELHI: All TV viewers and radio listeners will be able to follow the cricket World Cup live after Parliament approved a Bill making it compulsory for all private broadcasters to share their feed of major sports events with Doordarshan and All India Radio on free to air basis.

The Rajya Sabha approved the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Bill 2007 by voice vote on Friday. The Lok Sabha passed the Bill on Thursday. The Bill will replace the ordinance issued in February after Nimbus Communications, which holds rights of telecasting all international cricket matches in India till 2010, refused to share telecast signals with Prasar Bharati.

The legislation seeks to ensure that access to sporting events is given to a large number of viewers and listeners, especially those who do not have access top satellite or cable television. Most of this section is in rural India and regularly denied access to sports events because a few dominant exclusive rights owners refuse to share the feed with Prasar Bharati, which is the exclusive owner of terrestrial platform.

Winding up the brief discussion, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said the Government's downlinking and uplinking guidelines provided for mandatory sharing of sports signals. The Government was forced to take the ordinance route because the executive guidelines were challenged in the courts. In fact, during the recent West Indies-India one-day series, a large number of people were unable to watch the first match because the rights holders refused to provide live feed to Doordarshan. For these reasons, it became necessary to first promulgate ordinance and then formulate a law to give "immediate effect" to the Government's intentions.

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