For a minute, let's pardon the programming heads at Star and believe the most oft-repeated line in newspapers' sports pages: cricket is a religion in India. Are the devotees of this religion interested in watching re-runs of matches they perhaps weren't even interested in in the first place? How many times can they watch - and Star Sports show - the "India vs West Indies H/Ls"? And, to be fair, I don't think even poor Pragyan Ojha would attach "outstanding" before his surname. And then there is Wasim Akram or Navjot Singh Sidhu telling you about the intricacies of the sport in a programme called "Masterclass".
It's infuriating if you are a football fan. You can easily have the option of picking and choosing live football games, but the wise men at Star Sports want you to see "Sachiiin … Sachiiin". I would really love to know who wants to watch such programmes when live football is on. And while we are at it, who really comes up with these programme names?
The channels are unimaginatively called Star Sports 1, 2, 3, 4 - the most random labelling one could have done. There are two other high-definition (HD) channels as well, which show the same football match that is being telecast on the non-HD channel. Or three channels will show re-runs of cricket matches, and the other three will show football games. So if you're a Chelsea fan and you don't have an HD-enabled TV and set-top box, you have no choice but to look for live streams off the Web.
One can understand that Star is betting on digital media, and you can watch all the matches on its website. But does it actually believe most Indians have access to high-speed internet where streaming works smoothly? What irks me more is that although Star has hogged - well, actually, bought - broadcast rights for three major European leagues, it serves us with some rancid cricket-oriented programming.
And then there's Ten Sports. A couple of weeks ago, Manchester United was playing Stoke City in the Capital One Cup when a hailstorm struck and the game came to a halt for 10 minutes. Ten was showing another Capital One Cup game between Tottenham and West Ham. As soon as the United game feed was cut off, strangely the channel stopped showing the other game as well. So we were shown the same Italian football match on Ten's three channels.
What is it with sports channels in India when it comes to showing football? Ten, which has the rights for the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League, makes really perplexing choices when it comes to experts. Carlton Palmer, who once played for Leeds United, and John Burridge analyse the game so painfully that you might be better off watching "Swinging Shami"! Their so-called banter with the host Joe Morrison is worse than a few comments you will read on Rediff.com.
When it comes to analysis, Star Sports goes to the other extreme. It has big names like Michael Owen and Dietmar Hamann as experts, along with the host John Dykes. And then there's Andy Townsend, who over-analyses things to a great extent. He will pause the feed, give his analysis, then play, then pause, then play … it gets on your nerves. One loves to hear good football analysis and gain a better understanding of the tactics of the game, but analysis just for the heck of it is not what we want.
There was a time when you knew you couldn't watch football on television because there weren't enough channels - only ESPN and Star. Sometimes I think it was much better, since you were resigned to the fact that you did not have an option. But to show re-runs of cricket matches when live football is available and paid-for doesn't make sense, and Star really needs to get its act together. Show us football and not Navjot Singh Sidhu dressed in a maroon tracksuit talking about how to play a cover drive!
Every week, Eye Culture features writers with an entertaining critical take on art, music, dance, film and sport