No more cricket commentary on radio as BCCI-AIR deadlock continues

In Board vs AIR, cricket lovers will suffer the most

The last few months have been very disappointing for Indian cricket fans who prefer listening to commentary on radio. This is because of a tussle between Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and All India Radio (AIR).

The Indian Express has reported that it has been almost 10 months now since the time AIR stopped broadcasting cricket commentary. According to this report, two years ago, Indian board had approached the radio broadcasters but the latter did not agree with BCCI’s proposed deal. A BCCI official said that eight months back, Indian board had presented a long-term engagement proposal to AIR but they didn’t agree. Both BCCI and AIR have been blaming each other.

A senior BCCI officical said, “The BCCI proposed that we will take care of all their production costs, including the hiring of the best radio commentators available in the country — which itself would be around Rs 7-8 lakh. All we require from them is their airwaves. And as a result they will have to share 50 per cent of the profits of their revenue with us. But they have kept dilly-dallying ever since.”

AIR sees this as BCCI’s fault. “It’s simple market science. You have a buyer and a seller. But if the seller isn’t prepared to sell his product, then what can anyone else do? Earlier the norm was that we signed rights contracts from series to series. But they have simply stopped coming to us over the last many months, maybe in quest of a long-term contract, which isn’t forthcoming at the moment,” said an official from All India Radio.

This is undoubtedly a great loss for cricket fans. Radio commentary has catered to a large audience- be it the rural listeners who don’t have Television sets or those who don’t have time to sit in front of a TV and prefers listening to commentary while working.