Rights in hand, DD now looks for Olympian deal

Four years ago, Doordarshan’s grand plan of bringing the Sydney Olympics live unspooled when it marketed the games on its channel and m...

Four years ago, Doordarshan’s grand plan of bringing the Sydney Olympics live unspooled when it marketed the games on its channel and made Rs 1.5 crore after it had bid for the telecast rights and acquired them for $2.4 million.

But that was Sydney. It is time for Athens and, as a public service broadcaster, DD, which has the first rights advantage negotiated as part of the Asian Broadcasting Union (ABU), is learnt to have acquired the broadcast rights for Rs 22 crore. It has also decided to market the event beginning on August 17 on its own and is prepared to lease the rights out to anyone interested for a price.

Sources said Ten Sports, which had the rights to the recently held Olympic Qualifiers, had offered a highlights package for $1,000 to DD, which it did not take up. Ten had the rights to the qualifiers package. Now, while the channel would like to show the Olympics hockey, it would have to negotiate the telecast rights with individual national broadcasters.

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Director for global broadcast and media rights of the International Olympic Committee, Michael Payne, on his first visit to India, says that Olympics are more about reaching out to the maximum number of people and less about money. ‘‘It’s not like a soccer match, the Olympics are a family viewing experience.’’

And keeping future technologies in mind, the IOC will also look into broadband for future negotiations. ‘‘We would like the broadcasters to offer their plans, concerning radio, television, broadband and telephony,’’ says Payne.

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