Supreme Court upholds High Court decision on broadcasting rights in India

The Supreme Court of India has upheld the decision taken by the Delhi High Court to prohibit Prasar Bharati from sharing the live feeds of cricket matches with the cable operators. The private broadcasters, ESPN and Star, had complained that the Prasar Bharati and Doordarshan shared the live feeds of the cricket matches with the local cable operators. Due to this, they faced severe losses in the revenues.

It is a very well known fact that cricket is the most followed game of cricket. Hence, the broadcasting rights are often sold at prices that beam sky high. Star and ESPN been the prime broadcasters for quite some time now. Their concerns over loss of revenue due to sharing of feeds by Prasar Bharati were addressed by the Supreme Court recently.

As per the reports in Zee News, the bench of justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha dismissed the appeals of the Centre, Prasar Bharati, Home Cable Network Private Limited and Sopan Foundation and thereby adhered to the Delhi High Court’s February 4, 2015 verdict.

“We, therefore, come to the conclusion that under Section 3 of the Sports Act, 2007 the live feed received by Prasar Bharati from content rights owners or holders is only for the purpose of re-transmission of the said signals on its own terrestrial and DTH networks and not to cable operators so as to enable the cable TV operators to reach such consumers who have already subscribed to a cable network,” Supreme Court stated.

“For these reasons, all the appeals will have to fail. They are accordingly dismissed. The judgement and order of February 4, 2015 passed by the high court is affirmed,” SC added.

Popularity of the game

The Supreme Court bench admitted that the game of cricket is the most followed sport. Hence, it is not surprising at all to see large audiences watching the sport. Currently, Star India Private Ltd and the BCCI have settled the broadcasting deal for the period commencing from April 2012 of March 2018.

“Today, if there has to be a national game in India, cricket would certainly be a front-runner. The packed stands in all cricketing venues are certainly not the full picture. Live telecast of all major cricketing events, domestic and international, is beamed to millions of homes in the country,” it said.

“The rights of these entities in respect of the live telecast of major cricketing events in the country and the consequential revenue implications are the core issues arising in these groups of appeals…,” it said further.