ESPN Star Sports bags Sri Lanka Premier League rights

Insearchindia.com Team

(23 July 2012 7:00 pm)

MUMBAI: ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has reached a multi-year broadcast rights agreement for coverage of the Sri Lanka Premier League (SLPL).

In addition to India, ESS will also air SLPL in other markets like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Sri Lanka becomes the 6th cricket body with whom ESS is working on the shortest form of the game. ESS already has the rights to existing T20 leagues from Australia (Big Bash League), England (Pro T20), Bangladesh (Bangladesh Premier League), CLT20 and ICC WT20. The IPL, the most-watched and lucrative T20 format, however, is with Multi Screen Media (earlier known as Sony Entertainment Television India).

The multi-year deal includes a minimum of 24 T20 matches per season. Star Cricket, Star Sports and ESPN will broadcast all the matches from 11 August.

The first edition of the SLPL will see seven provisional teams compete for the trophy as well as a qualifier berth to the Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) to be held later this year.

ESS MD Peter Hutton said, "We are delighted to be able to telecast the live matches of the SLPL in India and throughout the region. It is an excellent addition to Star Cricket's remarkable catalogue of content in the next year, headlined by India's home series against Pakistan, England and New Zealand, the ICC World T20, the Champions League T20 and the ICC Champions trophy. We look to further growing our live cricket content."

The SLPL will feature 42 international players participating from seven countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies. However, Indian players won't participate in SLPL following Indian cricket board's decision not to allow its players to take part in the league.

Digitisation: Broadcasters move Delhi HC

Insearchindia.com Team

(19 July 2012 7:03 pm)

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Star India and Zee News Ltd have filed a petition in the Delhi High Court today, challenging the extension of digitisation deadline to 1 November in the four Metros.

The petitioners have contended that the Government did not have mandate to order an extension under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011.

"We have moved the court against the Government's decision to extend digitisation in the four metros, after mandating it. We also want to ensure that there is no further delay," Star India CEO Uday Shankar told Insearchindia.com.

After hearing the petition, the Delhi High Court has issued notice to the government of India and the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, seeking responses by 6 August.

Earlier, the Government had decided to defer the date of cable digital addressable systems (DAS) to 1 November in the first phase covering four metros.

The four-month delay from the earlier deadline of 1 July was announced on 20 June, bowing to pressure from the local cable operators, multi-system operators (MSOs) and some state governments.

Under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act, 2011, it had been mandated that the switchover of the existing analogue Cable TV networks to DAS should be by December 2014, in a phased manner. In respect of the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the digital switchover was mandated to come into effect from 1 July 2012.

However, the Government admitted in its order that the orders of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Tariff & Interconnection, and on the Quality of Service Regulations and the Consumer Complaint Redressal Regulations had not been substantially implemented. This had resulted in the slow pick up of set-top boxes (STBs) and the completion of the process of digitisation could not be completed by 30 June.

Trai willing to discuss with broadcasters on TV ad time issue

Insearchindia.com Team

(17 July 2012 11:19 pm)

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, whose diktat about television advertisements was challenged by broadcasters, says it is prepared to discuss the issue with organisations of the broadcasters.

This was stated today by its counsel Saket Singh when a petition by News Broadcasters Association and others challenging Trai’s ad regulations came up before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat).

Counsel said Trai was willing to look into various issues raised by the broadcasters which have opposed the move to put a cap on advertising time.

"There are issues we are willing to consider. We are looking in a broad manner," said the counsel. He said amendments can be made, whatever the issue.

Trai was granted its request for six months for this process by chairman Justice S B Sinha and member P K Rastogi.

Trai assured Tdsat that it would not implement its order and enforce the broadcasters to follow it till 30 August when the matter comes up for hearing.

Trai had issued a notification on 14 May limiting the duration of advertisements in TV channels to 12 minutes per hour. Any shortfall of advertisement duration in any hour cannot be carried over, the telecom regulator had said.

Trai in its regulation had also said that the minimum time gap between any two consecutive advertisement breaks should not be less than 15 minutes and not less than 30 minutes for movies.

However, Trai today also faced questions from the bench over the overlapping of its authority with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

"A jurisdiction issue cannot be decided by a statutory authority (Trai)," the tribunal pointed out.

Broadcasters, in their petition filed before Tdsat have questioned the powers of Trai contending that the sectoral regulator has no power to limit the ad times.

According to the broadcasters, such power vests with the Central government and that only it can issue such directions under The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

They further claimed that the present Trai Act, 1997, authorises the regulator to make only recommendations. "The authority has exceeded the mandate given to it by the Central government and instead of making recommendations to the government, proceeded with the formulation of the regulation," one of the broadcasters in its petition submitted before the Tdsat.

Moreover, by the said regulation, Trai has sought to regulate not only the parameters within which the ads would be carried by the broadcasters on their respective TV channels, but also determined the format, nature and duration of the ads to be carried on TV, the broadcaster said.

"The authority has very ingeniously sought to disguise content regulation as Standards of Quality of Service, which it is not entitled to do," said the petition.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), News Broadcasters Association (NBA), and several channels had approached Tdsat against the Trai directive. On 12 June, Tdsat had issued a notice, asking Trai to file reply within three weeks. It also gave two weeks time to IBF and other broadcasters to file rejoinders over Trai's reply.