New Delhi: Private sports broadcaster Zee Sports said on Thursday it was ready to share the feed with Prasar Bharati if it got BCCI's cricket telecast rights, a position contrary to other players such as ESPN-Star Sports and Ten Sports both of whom have gone to court in protest.

``We are ready to share [the feed] with Prasar Bharati if we emerge successful in the bidding process,'' Zee Sports Business Head Himanshu Modi told PTI here. Mr. Modi said that by making it mandatory to share the feed on Doordarshan's terrestrial network, the Government was ``only legislating something which has been in practice.''

``So why the hue and cry now?'' he asked, pointing to instances when many of the sports broadcasters had shared their feed with Doordarshan for telecast on the terrestrial network.

Interestingly, both ESPN-Star and Ten Sports have gone to court and protested against the legislation that mandates them to share ``exclusive'' cricket feed with Prasar Bharati. While ESPN-Star moved the Delhi High Court on the matter, Ten Sports approached the Bombay High Court. As part of the revisions on the uplink and downlink guidelines, the Government has made it mandatory for private sports broadcasters/management companies to share with DD the feed of Indian cricket team's matches. This has been done in the national interest, going by the public hysteria the sport creates in the country.

Asked whether the `must provide' clause will devalue the cricket rights, as claimed by foreign sports broadcasters, Mr. Modi said it was not the case. ``No, I don't feel that this will happen,'' he said.

He said that even in the last round of bidding for the cricket rights, which was cancelled by the new management of the BCCI, most of the players had pre-bid arrangements with Prasar Bharati. — PTI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail