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Ten Sports' Indian executives were not immediately available for
comment.
In a letter to Ten Sports CEO Chris McDonald DD Kumar has has stated,
"Admittedly, Ten Sports does not have a terrestrial network
in India. Obtaining terrestrial rights and then not utilising them
tantamounts to squatting over or hoarding of such rights, which
is clearly not in public interest."
Further, DD has said that the assumption that simulcast would reduce
the viewership of Ten Sports is not correct. In fact, the simulcast
of matches during the cricket World Cup 2003 shows that there was
no reduction in the viewership of the encrypted channel.
"In so far as the India-Pakistan series is concerned, Ten Sports
had the benefit of (the) platform of Doordarshan, which has now
a reach of 108 million homes. No loss was caused to Ten Sports by
the telecast of the matches by Doordarshan. Rather, Ten Sports earned
substantial amounts by way of increased advertisement revenue,"
Kumar has clarified.
After these exhortations, comes the googly. Pointing out that the
ICC is ensuring no satellite channel gets the World Cup and Mini
World Cup rights on exclusive basis and the rights are always shared
with terrestrial broadcasters, Kumar has said, "Therefore,
there is no merit in not sharing an event (the tri-series in Sri
Lanka), which is of much lesser scale and dimension when compared
to Champions Trophy and the World Cup. "
Having bowled the googly, DD has followed it up with a bouncer.
"We would like to reiterate that sports and games are not totally
commercial products and they promote certain essential values and
have certain cultural foundations, which are being assiduously developed
over decades by public broadcasters like AIR and Doordarshan.
"Therefore, a completely commercial view of the matter is totally
unwarranted. Since you have yourself admitted that sub-licensing
is completely at your discretion, we are only requesting you to
exercise it keeping in view the public interest and (the) overall
interest of the game. I would like to request you to look beyond
narrow commercial considerations in the larger interest of the Indian
public as well as for the furtherance of the game of cricket and
provide signal of the Triangular Series to Doordarshan for live
telecast as proposed by us," Kumar has conveyed to McDonald.
The Indian cricket team's tour of Sri Lanka begins month-end. This
is the second time round that Ten and DD have locked horns over
cricket telecast rights. The first time being in 2004 when India
made a historic tour of Pakistan after 14 years.
Meanwhile, a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by two "cricket
enthusiasts" in the Kerala high court a few days ago seeks
a direction from the court to the private broadcaster to share the
cricket telecast with DD for its national channel.
Interestingly, the petitioners, PS Sudheesh and J Dennis, have
also exhorted the court to pass an order that would make it mandatory
in future for any broadcaster to share its feed with DD for sporting
events played outside India, an issue that is being hotly debated
in the country presently.
According to media reports, subsequent to the petiton, the Kerala
High Court Chief Justice Rajiv Gupta and judge KS Radhakrishnan
have served notices on Dubai-based Ten Sports, the Indian government,
the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Prasar Bharati to
reply to the suit by 28 July.
"This tournament is to be shown only on Ten Sports. Just 40
per cent of Kerala TV households have a connection from Asianet
(that airs Ten Sports). No other cable operator in Kerala has Ten
Sports in their bouquet of channels. My clients do not have (an
Asianet) connection and they want it to be shown on Doordarshan,"
petitioner's counsel VM Krishnakumar has been quoted in the media
as saying.
DD's Kumar, while stating that it would be fruitful to go to the
court with a solution, said, “We are hopeful that a settlement would
be arrived with Ten Sports that would be beneficial to both.”
To a request from DD, Ten has offered to share the highlights and
market it as well for the pubcaster, along with providing feed for
All India Radio (AIR).
Additionally, to blunt DD’s plea that a large portion of the Indian
population still don’t have access to cable TV and would have to
go without the tri-series in Lanka, Ten has said it would facilitate
live feeds through its own receiver boxes in areas that are fed
by 250-odd low power transmitters (LPTs) and don’t have access to
cable TV.
The rider being that DD cannot market this feed and will have to
carry the ads booked by Ten, which won the TV and sponsorship rights
of Sri Lanka for three years effective 1 January, 2004 to 31 December
2006 for a reported sum of $ 51 million.
What has Prasar Bharati demanded? At the moment, nothing short
of simulcast on DD National.
According to Kumar, the arrangement could be similar to the Asia
Cup (ESPN was the rights holder) and the last cricket World Cup
(rights holder Sony Entertainment TV India) where simulcast was
agreed upon on a revenue sharing basis in favour of the private
broadcasters.
Prasar Bharati has said it will share the ad revenue in the ratio
of 20:80 with Ten after recovering an opportunity cost of Rs 10
million a match. A separate account will be maintained (as done
for the Indo-Pak series where too Ten was involved) for the ad revenues
being generated for the five matches on DD.
The government, which is examining a law that will mandate sharing
of feeds of sports events of national importance with pubcaster
on a compulsory basis, has formed a group of ministers to go into
the issue.
Also read
DD
yet to revert on Ten Sports' offer for India-Lanka series
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