Indian media company Star India’s sports operations will be restructured into three segments as it seeks to break even in the current financial year through to the end of June 2018, despite remaining competitive in bidding for rights.
Star India managing director Sanjay Gupta told the Economic Times that the broadcaster will continue to bid for television and digital rights, including those for the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament from 2018 to 2022, but “will be very sensible” about the prices of such properties. The bidding document for the IPL rights will be available from July 19, with the tender expected to be launched by August 25.
“We are seeing a lot more traction in sports and we think that fiscal 2017-18 will be profitable for our sports business,” Gupta added.
Under the restructuring process, Star India will operate Star Sports First, a soon-to-be-launched free-to-air channel that will target new sports viewers; Star Sports 1 and 2, which will show popular sports such as cricket and kabaddi; and Star Sports Select, which will be focused on international content.
Star India also plans to introduce more regional language feeds in addition to English, Hindi and Tamil.