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Today's News | News of Jan 22, 2007
Telecast Row over India-Windies Series Reaches High Court

New Delhi, Jan 22
Nimbus Communication, which owns the telecast rights for the India-West Indies four-match series, approached the Delhi High Court Monday to challenge the demand for live telecast of the matches on Doordarshan.

The Nimbus petition challenging the public broadcaster's demand was mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice M.K. Sharma, who slated the matter for hearing Tuesday.

Nimbus approached the court a day after its stand off with the government on sharing its live feed with Doodarshan led to millions of cricket fans missing the live action of the opening match at Nagpur Sunday.

Over 50 million TV viewers in non-cable homes and an even higher number of radio listeners missed the action of the match. And the imbroglio also threatens to deprive them of the action of the one-dayer in Cuttack Jan 24.

The row between Nimbus and Prasar Bharati essentially involves sharing live feed between the two.

Nimbus-owned NEO Sports has the telecasting rights of the match in India, the Middle East and Bangladesh while the public broadcaster has the rights to telecast all domestic cricket matches.

While Prasar Bharati has been demanding "uniform clean feed of international quality" from Nimbus, the company wanted Doordarshan to get delayed live feed by encrypting it from satellite.

Alternatively, Nimbus wanted Prasar Bharati to exclude Doordarshan's free-to-air DTH-DD Direct Plus from the live feed sharing agreement. But none of the offers were acceptable to Prasar Bharati.

Prasar Bharati CEO B.S. Lalli said in a press release Saturday: "Equity and propriety demands that uniform clean feed of international quality is made available to all viewers." 

IANS News of Jan 22, 2007

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