Even as the deadlock between Prasar Bharati (PB) and Nimbus over sharing of feed of the India-West Indies series continued, the public broadcaster pointed fingers at the Indian Cricket Board for giving terrestrial rights to Nimbus.
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While replying to a question whether the BCCI had overstepped its mandate by giving rights for terrestrial broadcast, BS Lalli, CEO of Prasar Bharati, replied that Doordarshan is the sole owner of terrestrial coverage as there is no other competitor. "There should have been a pre-bid arrangement with DD for terrestrial coverage," he said.
Another round of talks between the PB and Nimbus failed on Monday and the issue is now with the Delhi High Court. There was no concrete outcome after a half-hour meeting. Prasar Bharati officials said that Nimbus, represented by its president Digvijay Singh, challenged them to take the signal from the stadium.
Nimbus had already said that deal between them and BCCI was a commercial deal and DD wanted to make money out of it. Both parties refused to budge from their earlier stand.
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Before the meeting, CEO of Prasar Bharati told reporters that any discussions with Nimbus would be within the framework of downlinking guidelines of the government. He also ruled out the possibility of encrypting the signal saying it was not technologically possible.
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Before the meeting, CEO of Prasar Bharati told reporters that any discussions with Nimbus would be within the framework of downlinking guidelines of the government. He also ruled out the possibility of encrypting the signal saying it was not technologically possible.
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"We will have to blank our flagship channel DD 1 for encrypting the signal and that is just not possible," Lalli said. He suggested the way out was adhering to the February 2006 agreement of Nimbus with Prasar Bharati.
Prasar Bharati had earlier filed caveats in the Delhi and Mumbai High Courts and the Supreme Court against any injunction against it following a petition by Nimbus.
The Delhi High Court will hear the Nimbus petition with regard to the series on Tuesday. PTI quoted I&B Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi as announcing that government will soon bring in a legislation in Parliament next month, making it mandatory for private broadcasters to share feed with Doordarshan for major sporting events played in the country.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
