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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 10: Dumping bid partner WorldTel, Australia’s sports television production major Channel 9 bagged the production rights of all cricket matches in India for the next two years.
The lucrative production rights for a period of two years were clinched by Channel 9 for $18.44 million (approx Rs 80 crore) after a revised bidding edged frontrunners TransWorld International (TWI).
The US-based production house TWI and their Indian partners Stracon India Pvt Ltd, however, bagged the global marketing rights for a considerable sum of $43.75 million (approx Rs 200 crore).
The Prasar Bharti, in its bid to maximise its income, split the marketing bids into overseas and domestic bids and excluded Internet rights from either of the two.
The domestic airtime selling rights were awarded to Buddha Films, a subsidiary of Zee Network, for a whopping amount of Rs 450 crore, Kunhikrishnan, Deputy Director General (Sports) of Doordarshan, told PTI here on Thursday.
With Channel 9 bagging the productionrights for all international cricket matches played in India for a period from January 2000 to February 2002, the bitter bidding contest comes to an end.
The $18.44 million award also includes training of DD personnel by Channel 9 team, beginning with 25 per cent of the production crew and going up to 75 per cent of the team being DD staffers by the end of the contract. Channel 9 has also proposed to sponsor DD staffers training programme in Australia.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Channel 9, TWI-Starcon and Nimbus were in the race for production rights for cricket played in India.
South Africa are touring India from Feb 16-March 20 with the first Test scheduled to be held in Mumbai from Feb 24-28. This leaves just 14 days for Kerry Packer’s Channel 9 to assemble their entire equipment in time for the test.
Kunhikrishnan refused to comment on the reported fallout’ between Channel 9 and WorldTel, who earlier had jointly bid for the lucrative rights.
“As far as I know, Channel 9 will beindependently doing the production for a period of two years,” he said.
While DD would shell out Rs 80 crore for production of matches in India during next two years, it has aimed at earning Rs 650 crore (Rs 450 from domestic and Rs 200 from Global), if the marketing rights materialise.
Controversial millionaire and WorldTel Chief Mark Mascarenhas has for the second time lost out a much-needed business deal in India.
WorldTel, in October 1999 lost a bitterly-fought bid totwi for the India-New Zealand series, and now despite joining hands with famous Channel 9, it lost once again.
