Nimbus bags India-SA telecast rights

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Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket India (BCCI) has awarded Nimbus Communications the broadcast rights to telecast the series involving three matches between India and South Africa in Ireland and one match between India and Pakistan in Scotland.

Nimbus would pay US$ 6.05 million per match for the series.

The announcement was made after the Zee Group pulled out of the deal after re-negotiations with the BCCI failed to come through. The Board had requested both Nimbus and ESPN-Star to telecast the series.

BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, who addressed the media gathering at the Board’s headquarters in Mumbai, said, "There has been a lot of media speculation as far as off-shore series are concerned. It is unfortunate that we have to terminate our relationship with Zee. They had intimidated the Board in writing about their withdrawal and subsequently we issued a terminal today."

Modi confirmed that the BCCI has resolved all the key issues with the broadcasters. He admitted that DTH (Direct to Home) signal that has been causing large-scale piracy was a "burning problem."

"Most broadcasters feel that sharing telecast with Doordarshan puts a lot of burden on them. We understand that grievances and have tried to arrive at an amicable solution. The overall contracted value with Nimbus for the four-year deal was Rs 2,724 crores. BCCI has agreed to a discounted value of Rs 257 crores if DD fails to encrypt the signal," he said.

He quashed media reports that the BCCI refused to negotiate with the Zee Group. "We have had numerous dialogues with both parties and somehow couldn’t reach an agreement with Zee. We agreed to offer Zee the terms that we could offer Nimbus. Zee wanted clarity on the amount. We said that it was going to be less than 10% of the total contracted value," he said.

Harish Thawani, chairman and MD, Nimbus communications, said, "We have pushed the past behind us and are looking at the future. It’s very pleasing to know that we can go on with our second innings."

On the short notice he commented, "I would like to put on record that it is not necessarily a favour, a short notice definitely. In the past we did telecast a lot of cricket matches outside India, including games in Europe, and this time too we look forward to providing quality viewing."