Why are we like babies?
The 1990s were a wonderful time to be an Indian cricket fan. Someone by the name of Sachin Tendulkar had just begun taking apart bowling attacks all over the world. I know this is not exactly breaking news of the trivia kind. However, as a cricket fan following matches on TV, have you ever been frustrated enough to contemplate breaking the TV in the middle of an interesting passage of play in the match ?

If yes, I assume there would have been two plausible reasons for this depressing urge. The first reason would have been that you are plain insane. Considering that your choice of channel, which happens to be the one that plays your favourite saas-bahu soap( a rarity in the '90s, nevertheless a possibility on a local channel), has been vetoed overwhelmingly by the other cricket-crazy members of your household. In which case you decide to smash the TV to smithereens. Which makes you insane for two reasons - you dont watch cricket and you watch saas-bahu operas. In either case, you are insane.

The other,and possibly more realistic reason, which applied for a good part of the 90s is that you were watching the match on Longrange-vision, patriotically titled "Doordarshan" and affectionately abbreviated DD.



In the early 1990s and up until cable television became a more affordable middle-class expense, DD gained much of its viewership in Indian homes by broadcasting cricket matches. Most of these matches were characterised by pathetic TV programming, commentary standards that bordered on the unacceptable and above all, a lax attitude towards the viewer, considering their near-universal dependence on the channel for these matches.

For those who's memory fails them, DD's match coverage was almost always delayed until the first ball was bowled. Pitch reports were unheard of in those days,as were toss or weather reports. There was the omnipresent visage of Narottam Puri hosting everything from cricket to water-polo. Commentary was quite transparent to the point that you could hear backdoor creaks, off-air commentators slurping tea or coughing as well as comments on Kapil Dev's emerging paunch. All this was acceptable as long as you had an uninterrupted view of the match and a mute button to cut out the cacophony.

The frustrating aspects were advertisements. As DD's dominance stayed unthreatened for a good part of that decade, the channel took liberties in inserting more and more ads between overs. Sometimes this happened at the cost of the first 2 deliveries of the over that followed the ad. And at times, the TV producer gambled on critical moments of the game by pandering to the ad-revenue departments. All this and more was Indian cricket on TV up until Star and other channels brought in professional sports broadcasting standards to the Indian viewer. Prasar Bharati awoke. Indian cricket had just left its building.

So why am I saying all this? Because, we may just go back to the stone ages of Indian cricket viewership with this development here.

What is happening here ,if bluntly put,is arm-twisting of the communist kind. Not to mention that Prasar Bharti puts in virtually zero investment in buying rights from organisers/cricket board for TV rights. Nimbus invests in broadcast equipment,infrastructure,commentary teams and TV rights and is expected to part with TV rights,ad-revenues without regret.

The funniest gem in this whole saga emerged here :
"They [Nimbus] have a very unpatriotic attitude," Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister, told The Times of India. "Since they do not want to share feed, I will bring in a legislation in the next cabinet [meeting]," he said. "

Well here's the take, Mr. Dasmunshi. I cannot imagine how you do not have the money to pay for the matches and expect the investors concerned to part with their rights. This is business and sadly, DD and Prasar Bharti have never ever stepped up to the plate in all these years. How long can the government hope to piggy-back on private channels and arm-twist them to make money in the name of providing free sports entertainment to the viewer?

Sometimes, one feels that this is but a symptom of a much larger and universal disease in the Indian psyche - that of free-lunches, largesses demanded by crying like a baby deprived of candy, and one that sends a negative message to overseas channels/sports telecasters who infact have contributed to the overall improvement of broadcasting standards throughout the country. The government's move to black-out channels that have paid for and refuse to share feed that is rightfully theirs is a regressive step in an era where we are trying to bring the best in entertainment (sports and otherwise) into Indian homes.

Wake up DD. Wake up Prasar Bharti, or simply lay low till you realise that the candy was never yours for the taking.