Talks fail, all eyes on courts

Public broadcaster Doordarshan and private network Nimbus have failed to reach an agreement on telecast of ongoing India-West Indies cricket series, dampening hopes of a resolution to the dispute before Wednesday's match at Cuttack.

Criticising the "rigid line" taken by the Indian information and broadcasting ministry and the state broadcasteing corporation Prasar Bharati, BCCI rights holder Nimbus challenged the public broadcaster to produce its own programme and go live.

"We offered Prasar Bharati a deal where they could have live feed of the matches if they encrypt signals or they could go in for a 15-minute delayed feed", Digvijay Singh, the CEO of Nimbus, told PTI immediately after the talks with Prasar Bharati. "However, since they do not agree to both these, all I can say is they can come to the stadium with their equipment and go live if they believe they are so entitled under guidelines."

Asked if this would not be illegal, he said: "Let them first do it, then we will see."

L D Mandloi, the director-general of national broadcaster Doordarshan (DD), ruled out any live recording from the stadium, saying, "How can we do it without an agreement? It is not possible."

Today's talks between the two broadcasters came even as both approached the courts to resolve the matter and swing things in their favour. Nimbus went to the Delhi High Court, challenging the Centre's uplinking guidelines that make it mandatory on private broadcasters to share feed of sporting events of "national interest" with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati. The Delhi High Court has fixed the matter for hearing tomorrow.

On the other hand, Prasar Bharati filed caveats in the Supreme Court and Delhi and Bombay High Courts, pleading that it be heard whenever the matter regarding the telecast row would be taken up.

While the BCCI has thrown its support behind Nimbus, the Indian government has taken a serious view of the public broadcaster being denied telecast rights. P R Dasmunshi, the information and broadcasting minister, who has said the government will take steps to bring in a law making mandatory to share feed of sporting events of national interest with DD, questioned the BCCI rights award to Nimbus, saying terrestrial rights cannot be sold to any private broadcaster as they were not under the jurisdiction of the cricket board.

"Terrestrial rights to Doordarshan and radio cannot be overshadowed by any private marketing company. I will not be under pressure of any sort in this regard", he said, adding that once the law was in place there would be no scope for the broadcaster to violate it.