Star India’s Dominance Of Cricket Is Getting Bigger

Two events in September have changed the game for the country's sports channels.

First, the Supreme Court restrained public broadcaster Prasar Bharti from giving live feed of significant sports events to cable television and direct-to-home companies. Second, Rupert Murdoch’s Star India bagged the rights to broadcast the Indian Premier League.

The result: Star India has the biggest slice of the sports content pie, giving it the chance to rake in more money from advertisers. A report by ICICI Securities shows how.

Remember that the International Cricket Council and Board of Cricket Control in India events are already in Star’s bag. The Rs 16,350-crore IPL deal gives the broadcaster the sole access to all major cricket events. It’s main competitor Sony Pictures Network, which got 420 crore impressions from IPL since February, will lose out on viewership.

Which means, Star will not only get added cricket viewers from local cable channels and DD National, but also from Sony.

In fact, Dish TV's Chairman and Managing Director Jawahar Goel even lodged a complaint with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, now under Smriti Irani, warning against Star's already established monopoly over cricket broadcast with 71 percent of the total matches played, excluding ICC events and IPL.

Apart from cricket, Star also has the lead in other sports. The company has rights to Football Premier League, Pro-Kabaddi League, Wimbledon, French Open and Formula One, which have higher viewership when compared to other events in the respective sports.

Sony is left with FIFA World Cup, Premier Futsal League, World Kabaddi League, NBA and The Indian Open Grand Prix Gold.

Star’s advantageous position has made this the correct time for it to monetise, the report said. And media reports show that it has already started doing that. Exchange4media, an Indian advertising and marketing news agency , reported that the channel had hiked the advertisement rate for the India-Australia one-day series in September, charging Rs 9.5 lakh for 10 seconds. It also increased rates to Rs 11.75 lakh for T20 matches, the agency reported.

Also Read: Why Star India Will Pay More To Broadcast IPL Than International Tests

(Corrects the spelling of Premier Futsal League.)