IPL announces truce with broadcasters over coverage
The Indian Premier League today announced it has reached a settlement with the National Broadcasters' Association (NBA), paving the way for the television channels to cover the cash-rich T20 league event.
Hours before the start of the third season, the NBA, the IPL officials and Set Max, the tournament rights holder, re-discussed the coverage issue and resolved the dispute.
"We (IPL and NBA) have jointly agreed that there is a way to go forward," IPL Chairman Lalit Modi said at a press conference here."We're going to review it (the agreement) in June. The idea was to go forward. Both parties have taken great measures to go forward. I am extremely thankful to Sony (official IPL broadcaster) and the NBA. Both parties had a long dialogue before coming to an understanding last night," he said.
Protesting against the "arbitrary guidelines" and contentious clauses regarding the tournament footage, the NBA had last month announced boycott of the six-week long, multi- million sporting event.
Asserting that neither the broadcasters nor Sony had diluted their respective stand, Modi said, "what we've done is that we have come to a mutual understanding for what is beneficial to the fans."
Asked whether there was any change in the guidelines, the IPL chief said, "earlier guidelines do stand. The are some changes and both parties have agreed to it."
He, however, declined to provide details.
However, it has been learnt that according to the new media guidelines the broadcasters are allowed to telecast the match footage with a minimum of a 10-minute delay from the live telecast by the official broadcaster.
Earlier, the non-rights broadcasters were asked to air the footages only half-an-hour after a match.
The 15-point guidelines also allow the 'news broadcasters to telecast an exceptional event (newsworthy event of an exceptional nature) occurring during the course of a match with a minimum of a five-minute delay from the conclusion of the live telecast of such exceptional event.
According to another clause that news and current affairs broadcasters will be allowed a maximum of 5.5 minutes of fresh footage' per match in a day, 'including not more than 4.5 minutes of deferred live coverage of match play and not more than 1.5 minutes of deferred in-stadium entertainment footage.
The news channels are also permitted to use an aggregate of two minutes of footage per half an hour of broadcast subject to not more than 5.5 minutes of fresh footage per match.The NBA, which has 34 channels as members, had last month decided to boycott the tournament in protest against "arbitrary" guidelines.
