Prasar Bharati sets up panel to look into ICC cricket telecast issue

Prasar Bharati sets up panel to look into ICC cricket telecast issue

At a meeting of the Prasar Bharati board today in Delhi, it was decided that a panel headed by the pubcaster's CEO KS Sarma would be formed to look into the issue of the telecast rights of ICC designated cricket. 

It may be recalled that last month Prasar Bharati chief executive KS Sarma had stated that the pubcaster was seeking the Indian government's intervention on the matter of telecast rights for sporting events to create a "level playing field in the larger interest of the viewing Indian public." 

Prasar Bharati has already lost out on the live telecast of the just concluded Fifa World Cup and is also under severe pressure from World Sport Nimbus on the issue of rights of ICC-organised cricket matches, the cable and satellite TV rights which are held by Sony Entertainment TV for six years.

Also discussed at the meeting were some relatively minor programming issues. The pubcaster will soon be commissioning programming on Indian classics. While 75 per cent of the programmes will be produced in house, 25 per cent will be farmed out to private producers.