Despite not being a favourite to bag the four-year telecast rights floated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has ensured Doordarshan gets the feed for all one-day matches by signing agreements with both top contenders Zee and ESPN-Star Sports.
"Both Zee and ESS signed the agreement with us just before they submitted bids for the BCCI tender," Prasar Bharati CEO K S Sarma said.
According to market estimates, Zee's bid is the highest in the latest tender, which closed on August 26, while ESS falls in the second place.
On the other hand, other contenders, Sony and Prasar Bharati, are said to be way behind the top two.
Sarma said as per the agreements, signed separately, both private broadcasters agreed to share the feed of one-day matches with the public broadcaster on a revenue sharing basis.
"This would be on a 25:75 ratio, the majority in favour of the private broadcaster," he said, though clarifying that Prasar Bharati would not be getting any "opportunity cost" it managed to earn earlier.
Sarma added that the agreement envisaged sharing of direct feed of every match involving the Indian team, and also of the semi-finals and final.
"We have insisted on the semi-finals and final as a separate clause as there can be a case where the Indian team does not reach these stages, depriving the viewers of action."
Sarma said for the Test matches, the agreement envisaged the private broadcasters providing highlights to Prasar Bharati.
The telecast rights, awarded to Zee last year in the previous round, had to be cancelled after a bitter legal dispute. Then Zee was the highest bidder at 260 million dollars, which it had later hiked to 308 million dollars. ESS came in second with a bid of 230 million dollars.
This time round, BCCI has fixed a floor price at $ 2.14 million per day. With about 139 days of cricket on offer, BCCI is expecting to garner at least $ 297 million (around Rs 1,300 crore) by selling the rights.
The only hitch to this otherwise straight story arises due to BCCI's decision to bar broadcasters not having three years of cricket telecast experience, which if implemented will keep Zee out of the picture. Zee has already knocked the doors of the court against this.
What shape the whole issue takes will be clear only after BCCI, which is in the process of finalising the winner, announces its decision. Notably, taking a cue from the legal disputes last time, it has already said that it reserves the right to cancel the tender.
