Nitin Pai writing in the much followed blog http://www.acorn.nationalinterest.in, talks about the nationalisation of Cricket in India. My opinion ? This is not Cricket.
"The UPA government has delivered a blast from the past, exorcised one of Indira Gandhi’s most damaging policies and turned it loose on Indian cricket. Time and again, this government has shown that it neither understands nor respects a principle that is at once the most basic and most sacred—the principle of rights. This time, it has trained its guns on broadcasting rights, ordering that Prasar Bharati (Doordarshan and All India Radio), as the public broadcaster, must have free access to events of ‘national importance’—like cricket matches. Cricket fans (that includes almost everyone) might rejoice at this state-sponsored free lunch. But the joy is unwarranted, because it is bad news for cricket.
The fact that the market value of broadcasting rights has shot through the roof indicates, well, just how valuable they are. Prasar Bharati is either incapable or unwilling to pay the market price, resulting in its viewers not having access to live cricket. The UPA government decided that this is a bad thing and ordered private broadcasters (who paid for the rights) to “share live feed, without advertisements” with the state-owned broadcaster. Thus Prasar Bharati not only gets the live feed free of cost, it can also make money by selling airtime to advertisers. The UPA may call this policy. A more appropriate word for it is robbery"
The Acorn � Cricket has been nationalised:
Monday, February 05, 2007
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