Indian public-service broadcaster Doordarshan has passed up the opportunity to broadcast the upcoming cricket series between India and Sri Lanka in favour of concentrating on its coverage of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The India-Sri Lanka series, which will be played from July 21 to August 7, clashes with the London Olympics, which commences on July 27. The cricket series, consisting of five one day internationals and one Twenty20 game, is covered by Indian regulations which require privately-owned Indian sports broadcasters to offer live feeds of certain events to Doordarshan.
With Doordarshan failing to take up its option on the series, it will now be broadcast exclusively by Ten Cricket, the pay-television channel owned by broadcast group Zee Entertainment. “We approached Doordarshan with a bid for the India-Sri Lanka series but they have refused since they will be focusing on the London Olympics,” Zee’s chief sales officer Ashish Sehgal told the Indiantelevision.com website.
Sehgal added that Zee is expecting advertising revenue of Rs800 million (€11.4 million/$14.4 million) from the India-Sri Lanka series. He added: “We have got good response from advertisers. The fact that it’s a short series involving ODI and T20 formats of the game and will be telecast only on Ten Cricket is working in our favour.”