Live & Exclusive
Every time the Indian cricket team plays a series, I have to find out which TV channel is showing it live. Because only one channel shows it live, and almost every time its a different one. Live & Exclusive, the channel pays big money to procure the broadcast rights from the producers. But more often than not I hate the coverage. Here's why.
Doordarshan pulls its strings with the government and flaunts its high reach through its terrestrial network, and gets to show each and every match live irrespective of which satellite TV channel has the rights. But its coverage has many flaws. Annoying anchors who cannot stop their inane talk. Hindi commentators who seem to talk Hindi only because they are paid to do it, they struggle to make the commentary lively and interesting. Ad breaks after just 5 balls in the over, the person who presses the button cannot seem to wait to bring on the ads, and they have to interject just when an interesting piece of commentary or an absorbing passage of play is going on.
ESPN-Star and Ten Sports have probably the best in-house commentary team with Harsha Bhogle, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar. Yet they don't seem have the gumption to take on the risky game involving big money. Nobody is sure whether they will make money on the deal and the winner is always left thinking whether he will suffer the winner's curse. So some of the best commentators sit twiddling their thumbs on late night analysis shows while we have to listen to boring and lackluster commentary during the live match.
The biggest prize was won by Sony TV, with the rights to the last and the next World Cup. Nobody knows how much Sony made or lost from the last World Cup, but its viewership surely shot up. And its spaghetti strap coverage with Mandira Bedi was liked by many, but for all the wrong reasons. For all they care she could have been on a show about anything else. But why spoil the cricket coverage? They put her alongside cricket experts while all she did was look pretty. You may say I'm being a puritan, but I'd like to watch Mandira Bedi where she fits in; but I'd also like to watch an informed and sensible cricket coverage. I want to hear comments about the game rather than about who is the most handsome cricketer. I hope they come up with something better for next year's World Cup, but I'm almost sure they will go for the glamour quotient again.
And now Sahara has got itself the rights to the England series. What business has Sahara got showing cricket matches? Its a soap-bollywood typical entertainment channel. Sahara's sponsorship of the Indian team was a pure business decision and that does not make them qualified to show live cricket. But now anybody who can shell out the money gets the rights. But the channel which gets the rights should not only have the money, but also the expertise and experience to show world-class sporting events that translates into great coverage.
And for every series, I have to go to a new channel. And hope my local cable operator is merciful enough to show that channel. Going from channel to channel, turns out really expensive for the consumer and the cricket fan.
Its fine that the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) wants to make the most money from its golden goose. But it should ensure that the people who love their cricket get great coverage. But what stops them from doing this is probably that the people will watch their cricket whatever happens, however bad the coverage is.
What's the solution to this? Its not just about cricket. Worldwide all major sport events that are covered live are mostly exclusive to one TV channel. Why so? Talking about cricket, the standard of live coverage in terms of the camera angles and the technology used, is more or less the same, anywhere in the world; and the technology is easy to replicate. So why not offer the broadcast rights to more than one channel, while the live video feed remains the same? Why does it have to be exclusive? And when more channels pay money it will likely work out to be atleast equal to the amount that will be paid for exclusive rights, if not more. Then the same cricket match will be packaged in different ways by different channels - be it classical coverage with knowledgeable expert commentators or glamourized coverage with the so-called wholesome entertainment factor. When I have the choice of watching the same match on more than one channel, I'll pick what I like and so will others.
Ofcourse, I'm not qualified to come up with a scenario for the media business. But I thought its an idea worth considering. So I suggested this to a person who is qualified, who is in the international television programming business and someone I happen to know well. And the answer was that its unconventional, but it could work. There's nothing wrong with it to stop anybody from trying it.
Its all about offering choice to the viewers. But right now the viewer has no choice. The live feed has become a generic vanilla product. And its not just for live cricket, it could apply to any independent sport or event. The juice is in the packaging. And that can decide which channel will recover the money it invested and how much more it can make on top of it. Why not give the viewers the choice?
Doordarshan pulls its strings with the government and flaunts its high reach through its terrestrial network, and gets to show each and every match live irrespective of which satellite TV channel has the rights. But its coverage has many flaws. Annoying anchors who cannot stop their inane talk. Hindi commentators who seem to talk Hindi only because they are paid to do it, they struggle to make the commentary lively and interesting. Ad breaks after just 5 balls in the over, the person who presses the button cannot seem to wait to bring on the ads, and they have to interject just when an interesting piece of commentary or an absorbing passage of play is going on.
ESPN-Star and Ten Sports have probably the best in-house commentary team with Harsha Bhogle, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar. Yet they don't seem have the gumption to take on the risky game involving big money. Nobody is sure whether they will make money on the deal and the winner is always left thinking whether he will suffer the winner's curse. So some of the best commentators sit twiddling their thumbs on late night analysis shows while we have to listen to boring and lackluster commentary during the live match.
The biggest prize was won by Sony TV, with the rights to the last and the next World Cup. Nobody knows how much Sony made or lost from the last World Cup, but its viewership surely shot up. And its spaghetti strap coverage with Mandira Bedi was liked by many, but for all the wrong reasons. For all they care she could have been on a show about anything else. But why spoil the cricket coverage? They put her alongside cricket experts while all she did was look pretty. You may say I'm being a puritan, but I'd like to watch Mandira Bedi where she fits in; but I'd also like to watch an informed and sensible cricket coverage. I want to hear comments about the game rather than about who is the most handsome cricketer. I hope they come up with something better for next year's World Cup, but I'm almost sure they will go for the glamour quotient again.
And now Sahara has got itself the rights to the England series. What business has Sahara got showing cricket matches? Its a soap-bollywood typical entertainment channel. Sahara's sponsorship of the Indian team was a pure business decision and that does not make them qualified to show live cricket. But now anybody who can shell out the money gets the rights. But the channel which gets the rights should not only have the money, but also the expertise and experience to show world-class sporting events that translates into great coverage.
And for every series, I have to go to a new channel. And hope my local cable operator is merciful enough to show that channel. Going from channel to channel, turns out really expensive for the consumer and the cricket fan.
Its fine that the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) wants to make the most money from its golden goose. But it should ensure that the people who love their cricket get great coverage. But what stops them from doing this is probably that the people will watch their cricket whatever happens, however bad the coverage is.
What's the solution to this? Its not just about cricket. Worldwide all major sport events that are covered live are mostly exclusive to one TV channel. Why so? Talking about cricket, the standard of live coverage in terms of the camera angles and the technology used, is more or less the same, anywhere in the world; and the technology is easy to replicate. So why not offer the broadcast rights to more than one channel, while the live video feed remains the same? Why does it have to be exclusive? And when more channels pay money it will likely work out to be atleast equal to the amount that will be paid for exclusive rights, if not more. Then the same cricket match will be packaged in different ways by different channels - be it classical coverage with knowledgeable expert commentators or glamourized coverage with the so-called wholesome entertainment factor. When I have the choice of watching the same match on more than one channel, I'll pick what I like and so will others.
Ofcourse, I'm not qualified to come up with a scenario for the media business. But I thought its an idea worth considering. So I suggested this to a person who is qualified, who is in the international television programming business and someone I happen to know well. And the answer was that its unconventional, but it could work. There's nothing wrong with it to stop anybody from trying it.
Its all about offering choice to the viewers. But right now the viewer has no choice. The live feed has become a generic vanilla product. And its not just for live cricket, it could apply to any independent sport or event. The juice is in the packaging. And that can decide which channel will recover the money it invested and how much more it can make on top of it. Why not give the viewers the choice?
posted by SN @ 4/01/2006 02:01:00 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting read!
I hate Sony for bringing Mandira Bedi into cricket (How about having Michael Holding in a Balaji serial, if we go by the same innovation? ;)) and tarrot card readers and all that crap!
Only ESPN-Star Sports can give a good cricket coverage - cricket is cricket only with Harsha, Boycott, Tony Greig, Gavaskar.
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