NEW DELHI: Rights holders of cricket matches will now have to share television signals of all India fixtures and every final — irrespective of where they are played — with Doordarshan on a revenue-sharing basis. A decision to this effect was taken by the Union Cabinet on Thursday after a Group of Ministers cleared an Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry proposal to make it mandatory for rights holders of sports events of national importance to share signals with the public broadcaster.

Announcing this here at a Cabinet briefing, I&B Minister S. Jaipal Reddy said this mandatory sharing of signals would be applicable with retrospective effect; the only difference being that in cases where rights have already been purchased the rights holder will not have to share signals of semi-finals — in which India does not feature — with the public broadcaster. As for fixtures where rights have not been purchased, the rights holder will have to share feed of all semi-finals and finals with Doordarshan.

The revenue-sharing model that has been worked out provides for 75 per cent of the revenue going to the rights holder with Doordarshan keeping the remaining 25 per cent.

Also, as per the new regime — that seeks to end the perennial stalemate over telecast rights ahead of every cricket series, particularly those in which India features — Doordarshan will show the matches only on its terrestrial network and DTH platform.

Other sports events

In the case of other sports events of national importance, the Cabinet has opted for a regime wherein the mandatory sharing of feed with the public broadcaster would be decided by the Union Sports Ministry in consultation with sports bodies and rights holders.

These decisions on telecast rights were taken on a day the International Cricket Council (ICC) said it had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressing concern over the Government's proposed bid to give Doordarshan preferential treatment in securing broadcast rights to telecast international cricket in India.

Besides, the Cabinet cleared a set of downlinking guidelines that seek to provide for better regulation of satellite television channels which uplink from overseas. Introduced for the first time since the television boom in India, these guidelines include a mechanism to check the antecedents and verify the legitimacy of the owners/distributors of channels downlinking into India from overseas.

The Cabinet also introduced changes in the uplinking policy by which flexibility has been allowed in the nature of foreign funding within the existing cap of 26 per cent in news channels having foreign equity.

Earlier only 26 per cent Foreign Direct Investment was allowed. Now, Foreign Institutional Investors, Non-Resident Indians and Overseas Corporate Bureaus can also invest in news channels within the foreign equity cap of 26 per cent.

And, foreign news channels can now secure a one-time clearance every year on a pre-designated teleport for live telecast of events instead of approaching the Government for clearance ahead of every event.

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