In a bid to ensure the live telecast of Indo-Pak one-day cricket series without last minute hiccups, the government would suggest to Ten Sports to share its exclusive telecast rights with Doordarshan on payment of a fixed rate calculated on the basis of the national channel's viewership.
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This emerged as a possible solution point after a 45-minute meeting between Law Minister Arun Jaitley and Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, sources told PTI in New Delhi on Tuesday.
When asked about the issue, Jaitley said he had a talk with Ten Sports chief Abdul Rehman Bukhatir, but refused to divulge the details. He said the government was working on a proposal to resolve the issue.
The fixed price to be paid by DD could either be calculated on the basis of revenue generated by the channels telecasting the matches live through terrestrial transmission in Pakistan or through viewership-payment ratio thereof, the sources said.
Jaitley is understood to have told Bukhatir not to take too rigid a stand on the issue though the Dubai-based channel had the exclusive rights over the telecast.
Meanwhile, the information and broadcasting ministry sources said that Ten Sports had agreed to share telecast rights for $15 million in some other countries for the series and perhaps negotiated for terrestrial telecast rights in Pakistan for half a million dollars.
More news on the telecast tussle
Some kind of agreement on pecuniary basis would have to be worked out and the same could be spelled during the hearing tomorrow in the Supreme Court.
Stating that the series had been decided by the two governments, they said Ten Sports could negotiate with DD and accordingly also negotiate with its advertisers.
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