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Our Bureau

New Delhi , July 14

MANDATORY sharing of signals for sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati has become a contentious issue as private broadcasters are not in favour of a legislation for this.

At a CII conference on `Sports Broadcasting & Content Sharing: A Reality Check,' private broadcasters said that compulsory sharing of feed with the public broadcaster would devalue the rights substantially.

Mr R.C. Venkateish, Managing Director, ESPN Software, said, "The value of the rights gets diluted quite dramatically when it is a certainty that the feed has to be shared with Prasar Bharati." As a trickle-down effect, this would affect the various sports federations and the sports per se, he added.

"We buy the rights after going through a stiff and competitive process. In case the exclusivity is gone, we lose our pay subscribers whose subscription in normal circumstances is almost half of the money we make," he added.

Responding to this, Mr Navin Kumar, Director-General, Prasar Bharati, said, "In several countries around the world, there are rules for sharing of rights. The national broadcaster could enter into a commercial agreement with the rights-holder and work out a mutually beneficial agreement."

The Cabinet recently decided to refer the uplinking policy to a Group of Ministers (GoM) which will also take a view on making it mandatory to share feed of events of national interest, including cricket, on Prasar Bharati's terrestrial network Doordarshan, through a legislation.

Mr Gary Lovejoy, Chief Operating Officer, Zee Sports, said that in the UK a list of nationally important events was created in 1956. "The Indian Government cannot suddenly have a list. The broadcasters would need time as some would be in the middle of contracts. To put a list in place without notice would be unfair to the broadcasters."

Mr Venkateish also added that the number of cable and satellite homes has been going up and now stands at 61 million, and thus a majority of the population could access private channels.

However, Mr Kumar emphasised that even now around 47 million homes were still on the terrestrial network, which is substantial. "Should we, in the name of exclusivity, deprive a large number of people?" he asked.

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