Broadcasting Rights to Star India will create an anti-competitive environment: Dish TV Chairman

DTH operator Dish TV has made an appeal to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to not keep Star India in contention for IPL broadcasting rights. The DTH operator believes that if Star India wins the bid, almost 70% for cricket content in India will go in hands of one institution which eventually will make an anti-competitive environment.

A letter signed by Jawahar Goel, chairman and managing director of Dish TV also believes that it will force the viewers and subscribers to pay very high subscription rates. The nine-page letter also stated that it will create a monopolistic market where all eggs will be in one basket and DTH players will be forced to pay more and ultimately consumers will have to shell more money from their pockets.

It has to be noted here that except the Indian Premier League, Star India has the rights of all cricketing events which will be played in next 6-7 years.

Dish TV Chairman asks BCCI to not grant rights to Star India

In a letter to Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, BCCI CEO Rahul Johri, Committee of Administrators (CoA) head Vinod Rai, Competition Commission of India and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Dish TV chairman said that, “STAR is aiming to acquire the IPL cricket telecast rights also and thereby attain the status of ‘sole holder’ of the telecast rights of all the major cricketing events…

“The history of the media industry is witness to the fact that all the actions initiated by STAR till date have always been to economically concentrate the power through acquisition of cricket broadcast rights and thereby create a monopoly in the market to gain huge commercial advantage at the expense of the consumers and the distribution industry,” quoted by Indian Express.

“In order to serve its long term objective of charging the exorbitant price for its sports channels containing cricketing content, STAR has challenged the authority/jurisdiction of TRAI itself to fix the price of TV channels and the matter is pending before the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Madras,” he added.