Prasar Bharati pays Rs 15 cr

Prasar Bharati today agreed to pay Rs 15 crore to Taj Television (India), owner of Ten Sports television channel, by February 9 for telecasting the five one-day international matches to be played between India and Pakistan.

Ten Sports has the exclusive rights for the series.

The agreement was incorporated in an order of the Supreme Court when the appeal of Taj Television was heard by a bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Tarun Chatterjee. The amount will be for sharing uninterrupted feed for the ODIs beginning on February 6 at Peshawar.

According to the agreement, Doordarshan and Prasar Bharati will not run any advertisement during their terrestrial transmission and must reduce the power of their satellite so that the signal does not spill over to the neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile, a larger bench of the court will examine the validity of the government's guidelines which compel sports channels to share feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharti.

The court transferred to itself a petition pending in the Bombay high court raising the issue.