HC adjourns Ten Sports petition, over content sharing

Rahul Sharma - Televisionpoint.com
The recent policy guidelines issued by the I&B Ministry for downlinking of TV channels, which has been challenged before the Bombay High Court by Ten Sports on December 09, as already said by Televisionpoint.com, has been adjourned till December 19.

The matter is expected to come up for hearing before a division bench consisting of Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice A.S. Oka on December 19.

Taj TV Limited, owner of Ten Sports, has filed a writ petition challenging the I&B guideline that require private sports channels having TV broadcasting rights to share their feed with Prasar Bharati for national and international sporting events held in India or abroad. The guidelines were issued on November 11.

Ten Sports contends it had acquired exclusive rights to broadcast various cricket matches through contracts with cricket boards of various countries by paying huge sums. The company has paid over $100 million to purchase telecast rights from the cricket boards of Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and British Sky Broadcasting rights, the petition says.

The issue is especially important to Ten because of the upcoming Indo-Pak ODI and Test series in January-February 2006, and the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean. Sharing feed with DD, even for a fee, will mean heavy losses for Ten.

Ten Sports says it had sold nearly 90 per cent of its advertising inventory for the Indo-Pak series even before November 11, the day the guidelines were is sued. Sharing the feed with DD after collecting advertising revenues would amount to a breach of trust of the clients, since they had paid higher sums for exclusive telecast on Ten Sports.

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