Cricket heads for channel chaos

First, though, cricket in India. In 1999, the BCCI sold TV rights for all bilateral and triangular cricket — Tests and ODIs involving the national team and one or two touring sides — to DD for roughly Rs 54 crore per year. Regular domestic cricket was thrown in as a bonus.

DD’s contract ends with the 2003-04 season and, this winter, the BCCI is expected to hawk the rights for the next five years. Though ESPN-Star Sports (ESS) and the Dubai-based Ten Sports, the two all-sport satellite networks beaming into India, and Sony-Set Max, which telecast the recent world cup, are in the race, the dark horse is Subrata Roy’s Sahara TV, whose parent company already sponsors the Indian test team.

While Sahara itself is mum, the buzz is that Roy’s network will bid ‘‘an exorbitant sum’’ and invest its clout with the BCCI to win the rights.

Good for Sahara, not so good for the viewer, or for other sports channels. With the post-CAS scenario looming, so does the possibility of viewers choosing between bouquets — it would be cheaper to, say, buy the STAR bouquet than individual channels — and it’s this prospect of being squeezed out that is concerning Ten Sports and ESS.

Sports channels typically earn about 50 per cent of their revenue from subscribers, the rest from advertising. From a peak of 7.2 million subscriber homes in 2002, ESS (Rs 32 per month for two channels) is now down to just over 6.0 million homes. Ten (Rs 14 per month) is said to reach about half that number. Incidentally, Set Max reached 5.2 million homes during the world cup.

ESS’s biggest plus is that it is part of the Star bouquet; Ten is a lone ranger, though there are unconfirmed rumours of a ‘‘deal’’ with Sony or Zee.

Nonetheless, the battle between the two for viewer loyalty is starting to get bitter. In June, Ten bought the 2003-08 South Asia rights for cricket from the West Indies for an estimated $ 55-57 million. ESS insisted Ten had bought a lemon. ‘‘We bid only $40 million for the rights,’’ said an ESS insider, ‘The only relevant series is the India tour of the Caribbean in 2006.’’

Ten executives countered by arguing the rights market is down 30 per cent from even a year ago. The implication? That ESS is on a sticky wicket by signing, in 2002, a $230 million, six-year deal to telecast cricket from Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Just how symbiotic is the link between cricket and sports channels is clear from Ten Sports’s desperation to get India to play in Pakistan in February 2004. Last season Ten bought five-year rights to all cricket played out of Pakistan for $60 million. Thanks to the war on terror, that investment is close to dead. One Indian tour could be a lifesaver.

The other potential golden goose is Sharjah and Morocco. Cricket in these ‘‘offshore’’ venues is organised by CBFS, Ten’s sister company. As a legacy of the match-fixing scandal, the Indian government has banned the BCCI from sending a team to these destinations till March 2004.

If the ban ends quietly and the Indians return, Ten will be partying all night in Dubai.

Unless the lobbying in New Delhi gets the better of them. (Concluded)