The tides shifted for India in the nail-biting 2024 T20 World Cup final after a 20th-over catch at the boundary line. Cutting-edge broadcasting technology enabled the umpires to determine it a clean catch. India’s hopes for a victory rose, as South Africa’s batter David Miller fell before we finally lifted the trophy.
High-definition cameras with multiple angles and innovative replay systems employed by private broadcasters have scripted many such wondrous moments of victory for Indian sports.
At such a juncture, Prasar Bharati’s, India’s public service broadcaster, proposed foray into over-the-top (OTT) streaming threatens to disrupt this revolution in live sports coverage.
Prasar Bharati’s OTT plans
Prasar Bharati intends to make public interest content more widely available. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India also recommends Prasar Bharati leverage its diverse content library through the proposed platform, though the exact nature of this offering remains unclear.
The announcement, meanwhile, has raised concerns among private OTT streaming platforms about the exclusivity of their live sports content. Currently, private TV broadcasters are subject to laws allowing State expropriation of their intellectual property. They fear similar mandates for digital services, potentially undermining their investments in the sports content ecosystem.
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Regulatory uncertainty
Under the Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act 2007 or the Sports Act, television and radio broadcasters must share a live feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati, without advertisements.
While the current scheme only extends to terrestrial and direct-to-home networks, recent regulatory trends suggest that the government may extend the mandatory sharing requirement to OTT streaming as well.
This aligns with the efforts of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) to unify all distribution technologies under the Draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill 2023, which equates OTT streaming platforms with traditional broadcasting, imposing a converged regulatory framework. Notably, any regulatory shift toward mandatory sharing of a live sports feed, such as cricket, will also contradict a 2017 Supreme Court verdict that restrained the public broadcaster from sharing live feeds from exclusive rights holders like media conglomerate Star India, now Disney Star.
Public service broadcasters in the UK, US, and Australia refrain from participating in sporting events covered by private broadcasters. Any attempt to enable Prasar Bharati to simultaneously air sports events owned by private broadcasters will allow the State broadcaster to increase its viewership and attract more advertising revenue, without having to bid for these sought-after exclusive rights. This expropriation is problematic for two reasons. First, Prasar Bharati will neither invest in buying broadcasting rights nor share private broadcasters’ risk in their purchase. Second, it will erode investor faith in market institutions and may prevent private investment in infrastructure such as sports, health and education.
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A symbiotic relationship
In the past decade and a half, the Indian sports industry has grown significantly. This can be attributed to private leagues such as the Indian Premier League, Indian Super League and Pro Wrestling League. These professional competitions provide recognition to emerging players, promote the development of sports infrastructure in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and provide a much-needed sense of stability in a financially precarious profession. To aid this development, private media rights owners continuously invest in cutting-edge technology like decision reviews and slow-motion replays, to ensure fair play and enrich the viewing experience.
Liberalisation enabled privatisation of broadcasting paved the way for India to lead development in sport. India’s sports boards raked in capital through sale of media rights to sporting events. As viewers increased and advertisers found their way in, the rupee value of sports grew. To illustrate, Disney Star acquired the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) TV and digital rights for India from 2024 to 2027 for a whopping $3 billion.
This windfall will be funnelled back into the sport, and distributed across the ecosystem. The revenue allows the country’s governing body for the sport, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), to develop cricket at the grassroots by instituting welfare measures, attracting investments, running academies, and creating thousands of jobs. This has also earned India a global standing as a cricketing superpower. The BCCI routinely exercises its heft at the international level to negotiate growth-friendly policies, such as the inclusion of cricket in the Olympics and Asian Games.
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Implications
Forcing the private players to share their feed with a State-run platform for free can upend this thriving ecosystem. Viewers will not pay for subscriptions of livestream matches, creating an unhealthy market distortion. This will reduce OTT’s subscription and advertising revenue. Consequently, media rights owners may lose the incentive to invest in sports content, depriving sports administrative boards of a major source of revenue. Any regulatory move to this effect will also directly challenge media rights owners’ investments in sports content distribution and infringe upon their court-protected rights.
With mandatory sharing, Prasar Bharati can offer high-definition sports content, but risks falling short of delivering the user experience that private broadcasters invest heavily in. The financial might and commitment of broadcasters and private sport leagues enable a constant cycle of innovation and development. Prasar Bharati’s apparent fiscal limitations raise concerns over its abilities to match strides made by private broadcasters, as viewers might lose out on behind-the-scenes footage from games, real-time, engaging and creatively-displayed player stats, expert analyses and commentary, and many other joys of innovation.
The State’s entry into the OTT segment will make acquisition bureaucratic, and advancements difficult and slower to implement. This runs the risk of discouraging people from following sports altogether, ultimately leading the sector to a slow death. With fragmented viewership between private streaming platforms and Prasar Bharati, the ultimate loser will be the sports content ecosystem. Given these implications, it will be calamitous to extend the Sports Act to innovative subscription-supported OTT streaming platforms that create and cater to new quality standards, tastes, and globally growing audiences.
The authors work at Koan Advisory Group, a technology policy consulting firm. Disclosure: Koan Advisory serves as the secretariat for the MPAI. Views are personal.
This article is part of ThePrint-Koan Advisory series that analyses emerging policies, laws and regulations in India’s technology sector. Read all the articles here.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)