BCCI panel to sort out encryption issue

NEW DELHI: In a bid to address the concerns of private broadcaster Nimbus and prevent it from pulling out of its $612-million contract, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has formed a five-member committee to sort out the encryption issue with Prasar Bharati. The committee would be headed by Shashank Manohar and have other members like Lalit Modi, N Srinivasan and Punjab Cricket Association president IS Bindra.

According to industry sources, BCCI and Nimbus are likely to request the government for a timeline for Prasar Bharati to make the technical arrangements for encrypting the cricket feed.

In the meantime, they will ask the government to permit Nimbus to stop sharing live feed until encryption technology is installed. Recently, the government had brought about an ordinance mandating that private broadcasters share live feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati.

Nimbus has demanded that shared feed with DD be encrypted on the grounds that the satellites used by the public broadcaster have significant signal dispersion into many neighbouring countries, including the Middle East and Singapore.

It also contended that since DD had not upgraded its technology, the signals sent through terrestrial transmitters without encrypting can be pirated and used by broadcasters abroad, resulting in significant revenue losses for Nimbus.

When contacted, both BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah and Nimbus chairman Harish Thawani said that nothing has been finalised yet. “We hope that the government will support encryption but when this will happen is the big question for us,” said Mr Thawani. Mr Shah said that BCCI will be convening another meeting on Thursday.

“It will take a series of meetings to work out a solution. We have some time on our hands as the next international cricket series in India is scheduled for September,” he added.

In fact, the technical sub-group (under the guidance of state-owned Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd) set up by the Union Cabinet to look into the issue of live feed sharing had also proposed that DD signals be encrypted in such a way that it is uniquely aimed at feeding content to the terrestrial transmitting centres of the DD network.

meenakshi.verma@timesgroup.com