Lankan president?s family promoted channel wins cricket rights

MUMBAI: With no other bidder in fray, newly launched Carlton Sports Network has acquired the terrestrial broadcast rights of international cricket matches played in Sri Lanka for a period of three years from 2012-15.

Sri Lankan pubcaster Rupavahini was the incumbent broadcast rights holder while India?s Taj Television holds the satellite broadcast rights for Sri Lanka besides global broadcast rights till March 2013.

Sri Lanka Cricket, the governing body of cricket in the country, had in January published ads in local newspapers and their official website inviting bids for the terrestrial rights.

According to an industry source, the amount CSN will pay for the rights is peanuts compared to what it is worth. Rupavahini had paid SLR 143 million to acquire the rights compared to CSN?s SLR 125 million.

Incumbent rights holder Rupavahini did not even put up a bid, despite the fact that it had made a killing from last year?s ICC World Cup when it earned a whopping SLR 556 million.

According to Lankan English Daily Mirror, Rupavahini chairman Mohan Samaranayake admitted that the pubcaster did not bid for the rights without offering any proper explanation.

To top it all, SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga is also the chief executive of CSN, a brazen case of conflict of interest which many in India would relate to courtesy BCCI president N Srinivasan who also owns an IPL team.

The Lankan government had last year passed a law which requires all local television and radio broadcast rights for cricket matches to be awarded to either state media or a dedicated sports channels. The law, many feel, was beneficial to CSN which was the only dedicated sports broadcaster in the country.

Incidentally, CSN also holds the broadcast rights for the Sri Lanka Premier League.