Sports broadcasters in India face uncertain future over govt’s mandatory ‘sharing’ rules

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New Delhi: Private sports broadcasters in India are headed towards an uncertain future thanks to the governmental pressure due to which they are mandated to share sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati.

This isn’t all. The introduction of the “must carry” provision mandating that all Doordarshan channels be carried by cable operators and DTH operators has made life tougher. If this continues, broadcasters will be forced to think twice before bidding for exclusive rights of sporting events.

All private Distribution Platform Operators (DPOs) such as Tata Sky, Dish TV, Hathway etc. are forced to show the 24 DD channels after the Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued a notification in 2013 asking cable operators to “must carry” those channels. In 2014, it further asked the DTH plaforms to compulsorily carry the Doordarshan channels.

But sadly, this isn’t the idea behind the whole Sports Act that was passed in 2007. According to that, the idea was to provide access to maximum viewers and listeners of sporting events of national importance so that even those who don’t have access to cable television aren’t deprived of such events.

In the present scenario, the viewer can actually pay for the basic cable service and get to witness the exclusive sporting events as private broadcasters like Star, Sony and DSports must share their content with DD as it is of national interest.

So, with DD being shown for free by the cable operators, the viewers don’t need to pay extra for the different Star or Sony packages which come for a price and aren’t free to air.

While Prasar Bharati doesn’t bid for any of the sporting events, this act of getting the private sports broadcasters to share their content has created a scenario which indirectly affects the economics of sports broadcasting in the country.