'We'll be a catalyst in developing other sports'

Q & A/ R C Venkateish

 Sports viewing is stuck in a cricket straitjacket. Rivals have acquired the rights for substantial sporting events. The Conditional Access System (CAS) regime, as and when it is implemented, will give a new spin to the business: pricing of channels.  The talk is doing the rounds that Navjot Singh Sidhu, a star of the ESPN Star Sports commentary team, is on his way out, having landed the channels in a bit of a spot. The list is long.  In his first interaction with the media after taking over from the streetsmart Manu Swahney last month, Venkateish spoke to Bhupesh Bhandari and Bipin Chandran on how he plans to fix things.  Excerpts:  What is on top of your agenda?
We are in the business of sports broadcasting. India is a major market for us. If you look at the Indian market, it is predominantly driven by cricket. Our immediate task is to expand the genre of sports watching from a cricket-oriented market to a general sports market. This would help us to shift sports viewing from an event-specific phenomenon to a general aspect of television viewing.  At present, people watch a sports channel only if there is a cricket tournament of their interest. To this end, we would have to promote other sports categories like soccer, hockey, F1 racing as well as domestic sporting events.  When we enter these categories, we would be bringing the same quality of programming and technology that we have in our cricket broadcast to, say, a soccer broadcast or a hockey broadcast. This will improve the quality of television viewing and will lead to the development of sports other than cricket in the country.  What are your specific plans to develop sports other than cricket? Would it require the same investments that you have pumped into cricket over the last few years?
We are working out the specific plans with various organisations to develop these sports in the country. There is some fan following for these sports in the country. Soccer is popular in states like Kerala, Goa and the eastern part of the country. Hockey was the most popular sports in the country at one point in time.  In both the areas, we would first look at developing the domestic circuit. In case of hockey, the broadcasting rights of some of the tournaments are up for grabs.  India today has some hockey stars as well in Dhanraj Pillay and Jugraj Singh. People do follow the sport. The Indian team now needs to start performing better and start winning some tournaments to draw people in large numbers.  Besides, we brought in various technology to cricket, which made viewing a cricket match on television more interesting. We can do the same for hockey as well. We want to play the role of a catalyst in developing other sports.  How would you compare the response of viewers as well as advertisers to a cricket programme and to a non-cricket programme?
There is a huge swing in favour of cricket, when it comes to viewership. If you are to take a ratio of cricket viewing, other popular events and not so popular events, the ratio is somewhat in the rate of 8:7:1. The responses from advertisers are more even because some of the companies want to advertise in certain sports broadcasting just because they have to be there.  What is the latest on the controversy with Sidhu? What is the status of his contract?
There is no change in the contract with Sidhu as of now. He continues to be a commentator with ESPN Star Sports. We are looking at the whole issue more closely.  Are you looking at terminating the contract with Sidhu or making it a non-exclusive one?
We are looking in the whole issue and I am not in a position to comment on it. He was a commentator who added certain value to cricket broadcasting on ESPN Star Sports.  ESPN Star Sports had talked about being in the radio broadcasting sector for a while, though it hasn