From Doordarshan to the IPL: how cricket broadcasting changed over the years

11.29 pm, June 24, 1938. Ernie McCormick who was to bowl the first over of the Test match at Lord's was quietly marking out his run up. Taking guard for the first over was the most stylish and unobtrusive English batsman back then, one of the 1937 Wisden's Cricketers of the Year, Charlie Barnett.But the real action was quietly unfolding behind the scenes. Ian Orr-Ewing had handed over to Teddy Wakelam who concentrated on his couple of cameras perched at the top tier of the Nursery End, hoping nothing would go wrong. It was after all the first cricket match being broadcast on television.Regular radio coverage of state matches were quite common in Australia from 1926 though the first radio broadcast did not start in England until May 14, 1927. An Essex player, Rev. FH Gillingham, had given five broadcasts totalling half an hour on that occasion from the match between New Zealand and Essex at Lyton. The BBC's coverage of the 1930 Ashes in England was, of course, very popular and the matches were followed in Australia by regular cable reports.The 1938 live television transmission of the Test match at Lord's was the first watershed moment in the history of cricket broadcasting. It became instantly popular -- when Len Hutton scored his majestic 364 at the Oval later that year, the television cameras were on him as the BBC had chosen to try out live transmission once again.The Test between South Africa and England at Johannesburg on the Christmas Eve of 1938 was momentous in broadcasting history as it became the first instance of a cricket match being broadcast overseas to the UK by the BBC. Television coverage of matches were still sporadic at this stage with broadcasting technology at a nascent stage and when the BBC shut down in 1939 because of the second world war, people went back to their radios to listen to live commentary of the matches.Since then, there have been five seminal moments in cricket’s broadcasting history, here, let us take a look at them.

#1 How Kerry Packer revolutionised the sport

Kerry Packer was arguably the pioneer of modern cricket broadcasting

But the true commercialization of the sport began with the breakaway World Series Cricket organised by Kerry Packer between 1977 and 1979. The significance of Packer's world series was two-fold. Firstly, it was a direct opposition to the Australian Cricket Board and hence posed a challenge to the way established international cricket was administered and controlled. More importantly, however, it opened the door to a future where the sport would be controlled by broadcasters and advertising.

Kerry Packer had wanted to resuscitate the dwindling fortunes of his Channel Nine by acquiring the broadcasting rights for cricket matches but his substantial bid for exclusive television rights was turned down by the Australian authorities. As a further insult to Packer, the rights, for less money, remained with the ABC. Packer however managed to organise his own series which was a runaway hit because of the innovations he introduced.

For the first time in the history of the game, players donned coloured clothing and some of the matches were played under floodlights. The white ball and the multiple camera angles including the stump camera were Packer's brainchild. Some of the best players, long disgruntled by their pay packages, decided to come on board as they were offered attractive wages. Cricket suddenly had to be a full-time profession. The game was being marketed aggressively and sold on television like never before.

Packer was also extremely demanding and a true perfectionist. He is reported to have said in one of the earliest meetings: "The Yanks came out here to see our (Channel 9) coverage of the Australian Open golf tournament. For the first time anywhere, we covered all 18 holes and they went back home and started doing the same. I want other television companies to copy our coverage of the cricket."

In the years that followed, some of Packer's innovations struck a chord with the fans and some of the best broadcasters borrowed his ideas. The then BBC director Keith McKenzie visited Australia soon after and took home some of Packer's ideas. Cricket would never be the same again.

#2 Dalmiya and the rise of the BCCI

The late Jagmohan Dalmiya

Back in the 1990s, Doordarshan held the sole broadcasting rights for all the cricket matches in India. To meet the cost of production, Doordarshan also demanded huge chunks of money from the BCCI for the live telecast of every cricket match. For the first time in 1993, the BCCI sold television rights to Trans World International (TWI) for the India-England series and Doordarshan had to pay them $ 1 million to acquire the telecasting rights.

The Doordarshan did continue to exercise its monopoly even after that series but it did open up the proverbial floodgates. The agreement with TWI for one single series had earned the BCCI $ 600,000 and baled them out of a long-term financial crisis. But taking telecast rights away from Doordarshan subsequently led to a bitter controversy and ended in a long winding legal battle.

With Dalmiya eager to open up to private broadcasters, the CAB had a broadcasting agreement with the TWI for the 1993 Hero Cup in return of which the CAB was to receive a guaranteed sum of $550,000. The Doordarshan in return refused to telecast the matches as they obstinately declined the possibility of purchasing signals from a foreign organisation.

It wanted exclusive rights for the signals and Rs. 500,000 per match from the CAB as production fee. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry intervened and gave their verdict in the favour of Doordarshan but the CAB decided to file a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court.

After a series of initial setbacks, the order passed by Justice Verma and PB Sawant was truly a landmark judgement in favour of the CAB that changed cricket broadcasting in India forever.

In an interview to the noted cricket historian Boria Majumdar, Dalmiya speaking about the judgement said, "We were compelled to file a writ petition (No. 836) in the Supreme Court on 15 November. In a landmark judgment, the court directed that TWI could generate its own signals by focusing their cameras on the ground where the matches were being played. It also ordered the Customs authorities to release the confiscated equipment forthwith.

Never before in the history of independent India had a Supreme Court division bench sat in judgment at 11.30 pm on a government holiday.”It was finally in February 1995 that a division bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Justices PB Sawant, BP Jeevan Reddy and S Mohan upheld the BCI plea to telecast matches by its chosen broadcaster.

The Supreme Court judgement said, "The airwaves or frequencies are public property. Their use has to be controlled and regulated by a public authority in the interests of the public and to prevent the invasion of their rights. The right to impart and receive information is a species of the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. A citizen has a fundamental right to use the best means of imparting and receiving information and as such to have access to telecasting for the purpose."

For four years from 2000 to 2004, he BCCI now sold its rights to Doordarshan for a sum of $54 million. The bid for telecasting rights from ESPN in 2004 was $300 million and in 2006, Sharad Pawar along with Lalit Modi awarded the rights to Nimbus for a staggering $ 549 million (Rs. 2,400 crores). The BCCI was by now one of the richest cricket boards in the world.

#3 The hegemony of the BCCI

Niranjan Shah

Speaking of Dalmiya's decision to open the door to private broadcasters, advertising guru and founder of Genesis Film Production, Prahalad Kakkar says, “What this meant was better cricket. The private guys upped the standards of production and brought more viewers to the game.

“This raised the advertising potential and brought more money into cricket broadcasting. Let’s not forget what it meant for the players in the long run. While they were better paid, they were also more visible, which led to them to good endorsement opportunities.”

Cricketers like MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli earn an incredible 8 to 10 crore a year from endorsements. Whenever India plays, the matches can earn broadcasters Rs 4 to 6 lakh per each 10 second slot of advertising. The exponential growth of the BCCI's coffers has led to its unabashed hegemony as it single-handedly controls the cricketing world like never before.

Though it once earned 3-4 % of the surplus earned by the ICC, under the new revenue-sharing model, the BCCI is set to earn 21-22 % of the gross revenue. In an interview to James Astill, former BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah had said, “For cricket, the only market in the world is India. The market is here. So we will control cricket, naturally.”

The non-adoption of the DRS just because the BCCI unilaterally opposes it is one case in point that illustrates the power that the BCCI wields over global cricket administration at the moment.

A senior BCCI official speaking to Livemint on strict condition of anonymity had said, “It wouldn’t be wrong to call us the big brothers of international cricket. We enjoy a similar clout in the ICC as the United States of America does in the United Nations.”

#4 More money, more technology, more entertainment

The innovations kept on coming

With more cash flowing in, the game has seen the advent of more technology which has changed the way we watch cricket. The Hawk eye, for instance, which now monitors the trajectory of the delivery to ascertain if the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps in case of lbw appeals, is actually computer generated graphics created with the help of six cameras placed around the stadium.

The software considers factors like swing, seam, bounce and spin to generate a 3D image of the trajectory of the ball. Other technologies which have become common nowadays include the Snickometer, Hot Spot, Umpire Cam, Spider Cam, Slow motion replays, Speed Gun and stumps with LED bails.

All these innovations have undoubtedly enhanced our experience of watching the game. The broadcast room has usually a wall of television monitors now with feeds coming in from numerous cameras at the same time. It is in a way the master control room where the live drama is scripted and controlled for millions of viewers around the world.

Television broadcast director Deepak Gupta in an interview to the Espncricinfo said, "When we get to crunch time, we know which camera will be on the batsman, which one on the crowds, another near the team dressing rooms, one on the celebrities.

“It is very difficult to cut otherwise. You are trying to capture everything on the field, because remember, the viewer is only watching one camera. So you want him to feel 'Wow, that is all that is happening and I am missing nothing.'"

The broadcast control room at a first glimpse looks like a space straight out of a postmodern science fiction film. Monitors and scenes spurt out a huge tangle of cables that run all over the square, windowless room. Men from different departments like graphics, sound, communication, camera-control, the Hawk Eye and the EVS (for the replays) sit quietly glued to their tasks.

The director, along with his assistant, is the master of ceremonies feeding all these data inputs to the vision mixer to switches between the feeds and pushes the buttons according to the instructions he gets. The feed from there is routed to the satellite truck and uplinked to a satellite so that international broadcasters can downlink the signals from their own control rooms.

The entire process starts days before the match as the control room is set up and the monitors get wired up with the cables along with the cameras and microphones being painstaking laid all around the stadium. All the camera and sound facilities are thoroughly checked the next day once everything has been set up.

The director makes crucial decisions about production and cameras depending on the match situation to ensure the maximum TRP. A good example is the seamless flash interviews conducted on the ground just after India had won the 2011 world cup.

For 22 minutes, the feed from all the 15 cameras around the stadium were constantly used to create a live montage of the victory celebrations: Harbhajan's tears, Tendulkar embracing a teary Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni's smile, Gary Kirsten and then Tendulkar being carried on the shoulders of the other players. Never before had the drama of cricket broadcasting been played out live in an inimitable fashion like this.

#5 The Indian Premier League - the advertisers\' delight

Lalit Modi and Sachin Tendulkar

Indian cricket experienced its very own Kerry Packer moment when the Essel Group started the now defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL) back in 2007. The Essel Group had just launched Zee Sports in 2006 eyeing the lucrative BCCI telecasting rights.

The Essel Group had already outbid ESPN Star Sports but were incensed when the telecasting rights did not go to them. Desperate to create its own sports content, the ICL was started in 2009 but without the support of the BCCI and the ICC, some felt quite rightly perhaps that its future was doomed from the very beginning.

When Lalit Modi with the blessings of the BCCI built upon the idea and founded the Indian Premier League in 2008, it was at once a runaway success. With the biggest corporate game players and celebrities pitching in, the amount of capital that it managed to generate was astounding. The IPL was a success even before a single ball was bowled. The inaugural auction fetched a staggering US$723.59 million.

Almost seven years and a few scandals later, IPL despite being a financial success story has found its fair share of critics. It is one of the worst instances of the BCCI's unabashed muscle flexing -- among the masala, the DJs, the cheer-leaders and the media circus, the game being played out in the middle often takes a backseat.

All of these that go under the heady cocktail of ‘entertainment’ are perhaps as important as the game. Advertising logos appear to be everywhere from the jerseys, to the helmets, the sight-screens, the giant screen, the dug-out and even the banners in the crowd are sponsored. Karbon Kamaal Katches, DLF maximums and Citi moments of success dominate the discourse of the commentators. In this newly morphed corporate vocabulary, only brand names can qualify as adjectives.

The prospect of bumper television sponsorship deals has ended up in selling lucrative air-time to advertising. But this has lead to an ad overkill - the amount of visual clutter that the IPL generates makes it unwatchable at times even during the most nail-biting run chases.

Media buyers ahead of the 2015 IPL said they were expecting a turnout of a whopping Rs. 950 crore from ad sales. Strategic time-outs have been introduced with the sole purpose of giving more air-time to advertisements during matches. But clearly that has not been enough - the camera often cuts to banners and advertising logos even between deliveries.

"I am shocked to see the way IPL has devised new ways of making money," Bishan Singh Bedi said. "I believe the board has enough in its coffers to run a show like the IPL without ads between deliveries." But Bedi has been somewhat of a lone voice in this regard. Mukul Kesavan in an article published in The Telegraph and Espncricinfo points out how the Indian players and commentators have become unabashed apologists for the BCCI.

Kesavan writes that it is very normal for players in other countries to have long disputes with their respective cricket boards. The long spat between Kevin Pietersen and the ECB or Chris Gayle and the WICB are cases in point. But when it comes to Indian cricket, the BCCI likes to strictly monitor and control the action of its players and commentators.

Commentators are required to enter into an agreement with the BCCI that they would never criticise or questions any action of the board while on air, the reason why Ian Chappell refused to commentate in an India-Australia ODI series in 2013.

And all of this - complete conformity and the stamping out of dissent - has started taking its toll on Indian cricket. For many viewers like me, who have grown up watching cricket on Doordarshan in the 90s, Indian cricket epitomized perhaps by the IPL has thrown the last bits of suave minimalism of the gentleman's game out of the window. The interests of consumerism have unapologetically taken precedence over the beautiful game.