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New Delhi, Feb 1: With just weeks to go for the cricket World Cup, the government today approved promulgation of an ordinance making it mandatory for private broadcasters to share live feed of important sports events with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati.
The clearance for the proposal, which is set to upset private broadcasters who have purchased telecast rights at high costs, was given by the Union Cabinet.
Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi expressed the hope that it would be notified before the start of the coming India-Sri Lanka series on February 8.
The decision will ensure that millions of cricket lovers in non-cable houses and radio listeners would receive live feed of Indian team's one-day matches, wherever it plays. However, for Test matches, the government has said live feed would be required only for matches played in India while for those played abroad, the highlights would be sufficient.
However, to assuage the feelings of the private broadcasters, Dasmunsi said a technical committee would look into the matter of encrypting the signals being telecast by Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan, which would ensure that the feed is not accessed by broadcasters outside India.
The government's move to bring in a law to rein in private broadcasters comes as no surprise in the face of their denial to share telecast, despite there being a provision in the uplinking/downlinking regulations to do so.
Dasmunsi said The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Ordinance 2007, which would ensure telecast sharing on all platforms of Prasar Bharati, including DTH, would be replaced in Parliament by an Act for which a bill would be tabled in the coming budget session.
The Minister said to work out the list of sporting events that have to be shared, the government would consult various sports bodies to decide which are of national interest.
The Minister said the feed that the public broadcaster gets would be without any advertisements and could be marketed by whoever offers to get higher revenues. "The revenues will be shared on a 75:25 basis, with the big portion going to the private broadcaster," he added.
On encryption of signals, which has been demanded by private broadcasters, Dasmunsi said a technical committee -- having representatives from BCCI and Prasar Bharati -- will study its feasibility.
However, he added that encryption was not possible immediately and would require around seven months if at all the government decided to go for it. "There are 1,400 centres where we have to encrypt. We have to see how to get equipment and how to go about the process," he said. (Agencies)
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