Ordinance on sharing sports feeds with DD gets Cabinet nod

New Delhi, Feb 1 (UNI) With just two months to go before the cricket World Cup, the Cabinet today approved an ordinance that makes it obligatory for broadcasters to share live telecast signals of sports events without their advertisements with the public service broadcasters like the Doordarshan and All India Radio.

The measure was rushed through after the ongoing India-West Indies cricket series kicked off without public broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio broadcasting the event as teleacst rights holder Nimbus Communications refused to share its content with them.

After promulgation of the ordinance, Nimbus Communications, which holds exclusive rights to broadcast all international matches to be held in India until 2010, will have to share live feeds of all cricket matches to be played in the country with Prasar Bharati, besides sharing advertisement revenue from joint feeds.

Now millions of viewers and listeners across the country having the facility of only free to air channels can enjoy live sports events of national and international importance.

Briefing reporters after a Cabinet meeting here, Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said a Bill will be introduced in Parliament in the coming budget session to replace the ordinance titled as 'The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) Ordinance, 2007.

Nimbus was currently providing signals of the India-West Indies series with seven minutes delay after a court's intervention.

Just a day before the cricket series was to begin on January 21, the talks between Prasar Bharti and Nimbus Sports, the BCCI holder broke down on sharing the live feed.

The offer of Nimbus Sports to give the feed to the Prasar Bharti with 15 minutes delay was not acceptable to the public broadcaster.

Nimbus also did not agree to DD showing the matches on its DTH platform DD Direct Plus.

Nimbus had also said that if it shared the feed, the signals would have to be encrypted so that it reaches houses only on the terrestrial network and not to those who get DD signals through cable TV.

Terming the Nimbus action as lawful and unpatriotic, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi had declared to bring in a law to avoid such situation in future.

Meanwhile, the Ministry also approached the court on the basis of Downlinking/Uplinking Guidelines issued by it in November 2005.

These guidelines make it compulsory for sports telecast rights holding channels to share the live feed of important sporting events with Doordarshan and AIR by entering into a commercial agreement.

The terms provide for revenue sharing of 75:25 in favour of the rights holders.

The court in an interim order had asked Prasar Bharti to accept Nimbus signals with a delay of seven minutes following which the second ODI between India and West Indies could be seen on DD.

However, Prasar Bharti again challenged this single bench order on which the Delhi High Court has issued notice to Nimbus Communications who own Neo Sports channel, to file their reply to the notice by February nine.

The issue of sharing feed with Doordarshan and All India Radio has been controversial from the beginning, with private sports broadcasters arguing that it was unfair to them as it would affect their revenue.

They contend that telecast rights are obtained at the expense of a heavy amount and sharing their signals with DD and AIR would make the business less remunerative.

UNI