New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved an ordinance that makes it mandatory for private broadcasters to share live feed, without advertisements, of sporting events of national importance with public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati's Doordarshan and All India Radio.
The government will introduce a Bill in the Budget Session of Parliament to make the ordinance a law.This ordinance applies to matches in India and abroad. A committee will be formed comprising members of Prasar Bharati and the Board of Control for Cricket in India to determine the technical feasibility of feed encryption, which restricts the DD feed to India.
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting P R Dasmunsi hoped that the ordinance would be notified before the start of the India-Sri Lanka series, which starts on February 8.
After the ordinance comes into effect those who don’t have cable connections in their home and radio listeners would be able to receive live feed of Team India's One-Day matches, wherever it plays.
But the Test matches would not be shown live.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.
The decision is bound to irk private broadcasters.Private broadcasters like Nimbus and Sony TV have paid thousands of crores for rights to matches in India and the upcoming World Cup.
They will now have to give the feed free to Doordarshan. In return DD will give them 75 per cent of the ad revenues to the broadcaster."The revenues will be shared on a 75:25 basis, with the big portion going to the private broadcaster," Dasmunsi said.
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