India’s Supreme Court has ruled that broadcasters of major sports events in the country must remove all advertising before supplying feeds to public-service broadcaster Doordarshan.
Pay-television broadcaster Star India approached the court to appeal an October 2013 ruling by the Delhi High Court over a plea by ESPN Software, which said that its responsibility was to share the event feed it received from organisers, including advertising content.
The 2007 Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharati) Act requires private broadcasters to share signals of sports events of national importance with Doordarshan without advertisements.
In its ruling, the court said: “The sharing of the signals has to be without any advertisements and if the advertisements are also to be included in the signals, there has to be sharing of the revenue.”
Star India has rights in the country to events operated by the International Cricket Council.
The court addressed this partnership directly in its ruling by saying that even advertisements or logos inserted by the ICC should be withdrawn as they would have been included from a “purely commercial angle".