Not cricket

Why are cricket broadcasts of "national importance"?

The Supreme Court's ruling last week that sports broadcasters have to provide state-owned public broadcaster Prasar Bharati with a "clean" (in other words, advertisement-free) feed underlines the weaknesses in the state's approach to the sporting business. The ruling requires Star India, which holds the rights to broadcast matches in India that are organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC), to remove all commercial content from the feed it provides Prasar Bharati to relay on Doordarshan channels. This ruling covers advertisements and logos included by ICC. The apex court's judgment is no doubt consistent with the requirements of a 2007 law. But then it only serves to underline again the illogical nature of the legislation that requires that all broadcasters to share signals of sporting events of "national importance" with Prasar Bharati.

For a start, there are practical issues. It may be possible to eliminate the advertisement spots that run in the intervals (between, say, overs or when a player is out) but what about the logos and commercially sponsored tickers with which every screen bristles? Also, where does this leave Star's relationship with the ICC? The ruling has said the relationship is "inconsequential" in this case - but that is hardly tenable in a commercial contract. What may make it more controversial is when the national broadcaster decides to use the same cricket feed along with its own revenue-earning advertisements. This will appear quite inequitable. Perhaps an even bigger point of contention is designating sporting events as occasions of "national importance". In India, this is interpreted to mean cricket, by far the most watched sport. Several questions arise in this connection. First, why should cricket be so singled out when India's achievements in hockey far outstrip anything the Indian national cricket team has won? Second, should entertainment, however popular, be legislated, especially when it skews the market in favour of the state-owned broadcaster?

This selective zeal essentially confuses the abstract and spurious demands of sporting nationalism with the all-important and practical commercial aspect that is the cricketing business. Cable and satellite broadcasters like Star pay hundreds of crores to bag the right to telecast these matches and seek to recoup these sums by charging companies for running their advertisement spots and collecting fees from the viewers. This admittedly narrows the viewing choices for cricket fans - but just as much as exorbitant multiplex fees make movie-going an expensive business. There is also the fact that Doordarshan is free to distribute this feed to private cable operators, depriving the commercial broadcast of viewers. By the same yardstick, should Prasar Bharati demand that all Bollywood movies, more popular than any other form of entertainment in India, be compulsorily released on Doordarshan when they hit the commercial movie theatres? Although it is true that broadcasters tend to indiscriminately raise subscription rates ahead of big events, viewers are free to pay or not, depending on their eagerness to watch a tournament. A designated "national sport" does not, after all, demand compulsory viewing. It is significant that the United Kingdom saw similar debates when private broadcasters entered the competition for football broadcasts against the publicly-funded BBC. But regulators there understood that the intrinsic commercial aspect of the sporting business overrides any claims to "national importance". It is a pity that the Indian establishment lacks this basic understanding.