Aggrieved by the Board of Control for Cricket in India's decision to award the telecast rights for the India-Australia cricket series to Sony Television, Prasar Bharti said it will challenge the decision in Supreme Court on Monday.
"Prasar Bharati had bid higher than Sony in the initial bids invited by BCCI for telecast rights. However, BCCI favoured Sony. We will challenge the issue in Supreme Court," Prasar Bharati CEO K S Sarma said on Friday.
He said the public broadcaster took the decision as BCCI had been saying at different fora for the past one week that it would produce the feed by itself and telecast on Doordarshan.
"And now what we hear is a totally different thing."
The broadcaster said it is fully competent as far as generating advertising revenue is concerned.
"In terms of marketing cricket, Doordarshan today is totally different from what it was years ago," he said.
Poiting out that at Rs 704 crore, Prasar Bharati had bid higher than Sony's Rs 600 crore, he added that the BCCI should have first negotiated terms with them before taking the matter up with Sony.
On Thursday, the BCCI announced that it would arrange for live telecast of international cricket matches itself, beginning with the India-Australia series. It said Ten Sports would produce the feed while Sony Entertainment Network would be responsible for telecast, distribution and marketing.
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