The Prasar Bharti – Nimbus standoff

Feb 05, 2007 Cricket

I’ve been following the recent impasse between the Government backed Prasar Bharti and Nimbus (Neo Sports), which came to the fore when millions of viewers in India were not able to watch the opening match of the India-West Indies one-day series.

I & B minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi called Nimbus “unpatriotic”, and then ensured that Prasar Bharti got a court order stating that Neo Sports would have to share the feed (with a 7 minute delay) on DD. The latest on this front is that the Government has brought in an ordinance which makes it mandatory for DD to get live feed without any delay and without any ads. I do believe that Nimbus was justified in providing an encrypted feed, and it does seem a throwback to the era of “State TV” !!

While on the one hand, it does make sense that the cricket loving public should not be denied an opportunity to watch matches in India, the whole concept of free enterprise takes a knock with this kind of action.

There were also a lot of people cribbing that Neo Sports was not even available in most cities. I feel this is nothing but hypocrisy, because if the matches were being shown on Star Sports / ESPN which have a wider reach, or for that matter, even Ten Sports, this issue may not have even seen such a drastic intervention by the Government.

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