Faced with heavy losses by broadcasting cricket matches on Doordarshan under the present system of revenue sharing, the Prasar Bharati has recommended amending the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act 2007 so that it could get equal share of the ad revenue.

At present, the private rights holder has to mandatorily share the signals with the government broadcaster, but it offers only 25 percent of revenue to Doordarshan keeping the remaining 75 percent for itself. The Prasar Bharati now wants that it should be amended to ensure that the public broadcaster gets 50 percent of the revenue for telecasting cricket matches.

“Generally, Doordarshan earns about Rs 2.5 core to Rs 3 crore per day as advertisement revenue but when cricket is telecast the general programming is cancelled resulting in huge loss of revenue,” Prasar Bharati sources told The Pioneer.

Citing the example of the recent India England cricket match series the rights for which was sold to ESPN at the minimum guarantee of Rs 17 crore, the sources said that the private entity could not sell the proposed 6000 seconds of advertisement space. Now even if the company will give 25 percent of Rs 17 crore to Doordarshan it will amount to Rs 4 crore while the actual loss of advertisement revenue for the Doordarshan is at least Rs 13 to 15 crore for the match series, the sources claimed.

Though Doordarshan does not want to deprive the subscribers of cricket matches, it wants a fair share so that the revenue loss to the public broadcaster could be reduced, they said.

The Prasar Bharati has sent its recommendation to the Information and Broadcasting ministry, but the amendment bill is not likely to be tabled in the coming Winter Session. Apart from the procedural delays, the public broadcaster fears that private companies which buy the broadcasting rights will oppose this suggestion.

The apprehension is based on the fact that the private parties had even gone to court in 2007 as they felt that Section 3 of the Sports Act was against their interest. Under this, it is mandatory on the part of private entities to share signals with the Prasar Bharati under a revenue sharing agreement. Though they had opposed the Act tooth and nail, the government remained firm that they could not be allowed to deprive the subscribers of the cricket matches by telecasting them only on private channels, the sources pointed out.

The government’s argument was based on the ground that if cricket broadcast is left alone to the private channels it would deprive the people in rural areas who are generally dependent on Doordarshan. Also, the competition from the public broadcaster checks the tendency among private channels to become paid channel which would further restrict the viewers getting access to cricket matches.

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