NEW DELHI: National broadcaster Doordarshan has mopped up Rs 510 million in booking and marketing of airtime for the upcoming India-West Indies domestic cricket series in October 2002. The series includes seven One-Day Internationals and 3 Test matches.

Doordarshan said in a statement that it has booked three main sponsors for the series for Rs 40 million each. The three main sponsors are TVS, Coca Cola and Hindustan Lever. The five associate sponsors for the series are Kelvinator, LG Electronics, Asian Paints, Cadburys and HPCL. According to Doordarshan, the associate sponsorship have been sold to the companies for Rs 25 million each.

The national broadcaster has also roped in Blue Star, Raymond, Hyundai, Onida, Canon amongst others as advertisers for the series.

Besides, this is the first time that Doordarshan, which has the exclusive telecast rights for BCCI organised cricket matches for five years till 2004, has marketed the cricket matches directly.

Doordarshan had awarded the airtime marketing to Buddha Films based on bidding process of Rs 450 million. However, Buddha Films withdrew from airtime marketing. Doordarshan's attempts to rope in another airtime marketing agency for cricket matches were a failure and it decided to market the airtime sale directly.

The one-day matches will be telecast live on National Channel (DD1) and DD Sports. The test matches will be telecast live on DD Sports with a two-hour live window on DD1. The daily highlights of the matches will be telecast on DD1 while on DD Sports the day's game would be repeated the same day.