The Hindu Business Line : `Sharing feed of events with DD can hit private channels'

THE Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has cautioned the Government that sharing the feed of events of national importance, including sports, with Doordarshan would have a detrimental impact on private TV channels.

In an advocacy note to the Group of Ministers (GOM) on uplinking and downlinking of TV channels headed by the Defence Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherji, FICCI has opposed the idea of mandatory sharing of content with Doordarshan.

The FICCI delegation included CEOs and senior representatives of STAR TV, Sony International TV, Zee Telefilms, Ten Sports and ESPN StarSports.

The note said that mandatory sports licensing under the proposed norms for uplinking of TV channels from India would seriously impact the revenues, quality of programming and the investment climate.

It will have a direct bearing on popular sports broadcasts such as cricket matches as well as major international events like the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.

The chamber has said that the move would reduce the value of sporting properties and adversely affect sporting federations, both within and outside India.

This, in turn, would substantially reduce the ability of sporting federations to invest in infrastructure to develop sports and would ultimately impair the remuneration available to sportspersons.

The chamber added that the availability of the event on the DTH platform of Doordarshan, which can be received in areas outside India, would increase the incidence of piracy and unauthorised access.

FICCI has said that since the issue of access is principally in rural areas where cable TV does not have adequate coverage, the problem could be addressed by private channels who have the rights to share their feed with the low power transmitters of Doordarshan in identified rural areas.

This way, there could be protection of the subscription revenues of private channels, while at the same time ensuring the social obligation of reaching the homes, which do not have access to cable TV.

The chamber suggested that care must also be taken to ensure compliance with Indian and international copyright norms, intellectual property laws, treaties and WTO commitments.

The chamber has said that parties, who have acquired exclusive rights of telecast prior to the Mandatory Sports Licensing regime, must not be retrospectively stripped of those rights or of their right to commercially benefit from such acquisitions.

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