Queering The Pitch For Viewers

Deja vu? Perhaps. After all, Doordarshan's latest legal salvo is the fifth it has fired at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in less than three years. But the issues involved are far too important to be glossed over: the need to enforce commercial fairplay and to uphold the natural right of the public to free access to a tournament that promises to have the entire cricketing world in a state of high excitement for a whole month. The ball is now once again in a judge's court: DD's petition against WorldTel comes up for hearing in the Delhi High Court on December 5. Will justice be done? Going by the outcome of the previ-ous legal battles over TV rights, there is reason to believe that it will.

But as always, ironies abound. One, in the jousts between DD and BCCI during the Hero Cup and the West Indies tour of India in 1993-94, WorldTel was on Mandi House's side. Two, in the days of DD monopoly not very long ago, Indian viewers were shortchanged only in terms of production quality, but now with a multiplicity of channels available at the push of a button, they face the sad prospect of being deprived of the live telecast of World Cup matches. And three, if Doordarshan blocks the uplink for WorldTel as it did for Trans World International in 1993-94, not only will the worldwide telecast of the quadrennial event be in jeopardy, but the entire World Cup will also be on the brink of collapse.

It is TV that brings in the revenue. The official sponsor of the event, ITC, has paid BCCI a whopping Rs 350 million. Besides, it has drawn up plans to spend Rs 100 million on the merchandising of World Cup mementos. If the telecast of the matches is scuttled, everyone who's put money onthe World Cup will be in a soup. So there will be pressure from all sides on both DD and WorldTel to sort out the mess before it is too late.

But why did WorldTel's Mark Mascarenhas, who bought the telecast rights of the World Cup for $ 10 million from PILCOM (the joint Indo-Pak-Lankanorganising committee), suddenly terminate his agreement with Doordarshan, to whom he sold the Indian territorial rights for $4.75 million? Says a source close to the man: "DD defaulted. It was refusing to sign a contract that was no different from those already inked by TV networks in other cricket-playing nations. It turned the draft of an agreement upside down and reneged on many points. Worst of all, it did not pay the third instalment—30 per cent of the total amount—on time." Incidentally, DD has paid Mascarenhas $2.9 million. The fate of that amount will hinge on the court verdict.

It is a stroke of luck, says the WorldTel source, that the row has erupted now. "The problem can be sorted out well before the World Cup starts. What would we have done if DD had taken such a stand two days before thetournament?" WorldTel is not worried about DD's third instalment. It has already mopped up $20 million by selling the feed to networks like Australia's Channel 9 in Australia, TV New Zealand, South AfricaBroadcasting Corporation, Pakistan TV and Sri Lanka's Rupavahini.

The WorldTel-Doordarshan MoU was signed in May last year and it encompassed cable and satellite rights. It stipulated, among other things, that Gary Frances of Grand Slam Sports, WorldTel's production collaborator, would have the final say on all technical matters and that DD would share the costs of production and uplink-ing. In June this year, WorldTel sent DD a copy of the proposed contract. DD's counter-draft insisted that Biswanath Das, an in-house producer, should have the same powers as Frances. It also wanted to wash its hands of the uplinking costs.

In September, WorldTel responded strongly to DD's demands, with copies of the reply marked to PILCOM chief and Union HRD Minister Madhavrao Scindia, BCCI Secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya and DD Director-General R. Basu. The DD affidavit filed in court on November 15 claims that Basu had instructed his officials to pay the third instalment before the October 15 deadline. But the payment did not reach WorldTel. Yet, the Connecticut-based company gave DD 12 days to get back. "Or else, we will be compelled to assume that the draft would stand," said the WorldTel letter.

B.N. Chakravarthy, DD deputy controller (sports), claims that the draft for $1.45 million was sent by Desk To Desk Courier on October 26, a day before the extended deadline was to expire. But WorldTel received nothing till November 1. So it terminated the agreement, and two days latersigned a $5 million deal with STAR TV for the pan-Asian telecast of the World Cup matches on Prime Sports.

If the court verdict goes in STAR's favour, the World Cup will be an exclusively satellite show for 14 million viewers in India. Doordarshan, on the other hand, has nearly 250 million captive viewers. But media analysts point out that though Prime Sports' viewership is minuscule compared to DD's, it reaches a large section of India's affluent middle class. So advertisers wouldn't mind throwing in their lot with the satellite channel. Moreover, if the World Cup is beamed only via satellite, the number of cable TV subscribers is bound to double, at the very least.

But if DD is out of the picture, how will WorldTel get uplinking facilities which, according to sources in the Department of Youth Affairs and Sports, will be available only if three departments of the government—Sports, Telecom and I&B—approve in unison? Says a senior I&B Ministry offi-cial: "Only Doordarshan and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited can provide the uplink. So unless both of them agree, there is no way any private party, Indian or foreign, can cover an event held in India."

"Given the laws of the land, you cannot take on the Government," says a media analyst. Legal intervention is the only way out. So the degree of nail-biting excitement that DD's case will generate in the next few days, perhaps weeks, could well put the tension that normally accompanies a limited-overs game a trifle in the shade.