Only 2 bidders in fray for CWG broadcast

The multi-million dollar production contract for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2010 may be decided between two entities — consortium of Nimbus Communications and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Satellite Information Service Live of United Kingdom — as only these two entities are said to have submitted the bids today, highly places sources said.

August 19 was the final day of submission of financial and technical bids.

“Not everyone turned up with their bid documents today. Those who have submitted their bids will have to wait for some time before the matter is finally decided,” said a government source on the condition of anonymity.

When contacted, an official concerned with the CWG Organising Committee refused to comment on the matter.

Earlier, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) had shortlisted five firms out of a total of 10 interested bidders for producing the high definition (HDTV) format telecast of the CWG 2010 for Doordarshan, the host broadcaster for the event.

Those shortlisted include Nimbus Sports International, Singapore, in consortium with International Sports Broadcasting, USA, Swiss-based International Games Broadcast Services, and Reliance Big Production in consortium with Tokyo Broadcasting of Japan.

The Commonwealth Games 2010 are scheduled to be held from October 3 to October 14 next year and the rules specify that host broadcaster Doordarshan has to produce an international feed in HDTV format.

Since Doordarshan is not equipped with the technical infrastructure for HDTV coverage, it had called for bids from domestic and international content creators in December 2008.

It was only in July that the government announced a list of five successful shortlisted firms that qualified for the financial bidding stage.

A senior executive in one of the leading sports broadcasting firms said: “It took nearly four years of preparations for the host broadcasters of Beijing Olympics. The government should quickly finalise a production house in order to produce HDTV feed for CWG 2010, something no broadcaster has done in the country so far.”

Industry experts said it may require around 200-250 high-definition camera and over 2,000 skilled manpower to cover the CWG 2010 in HDTV format as it was a specialised broadcast.

The estimated production cost for the event may turn out to be around $200 million, experts say.