IPL update

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International media watchdog News Media Coalition (NMC) lent its support to the Indian news channels on Thursday while urging IPL to avoid alienating the global news media community and roll back its online media terms to the 2009 norms.

The Coalition has invited IPL to find a solution to widespread press concerns about coverage of the 2010 tournament scheduled to begin on March 12. In a statement, NMC has said the terms offered by IPL raised ‘‘serious issues of press freedom including the ability to inform the public with topical information and the legitimate distribution of news content for editorial publications.’’

Courtesy ToI, an extension of a point raised in the previous post.

Lalit Modi can, and on past form likely will, tell NMC to take a hike. But as in year one, I suspect the pressure on the IPL will come from the franchises, who have shelled out good money to be part of this and for whom the prospect of a media boycott is anathema.

5 thoughts on “IPL update”

  2. In 2008, the guidelines were finalised after the BCCI-IPL’s consultation with the Indian and international news media and their representatives. Clear and specific guidelines relating to quantity, currency and frequency of use of footage were agreed upon. Despite the mutually acceptable agreement reached with the news broadcasters, the news media and their representatives, the BCCI-IPL noted widespread breach and violation of the guidelines across numerous news channels. Violations included commercial packaging of highlights using sponsors that conflicted with IPL sponsors, failure to give due credit to the IPL and the official broadcaster, breaches of the limitations on quantity, currency and frequency and even cases where news channels displayed live footage as it happened. News channels did not comply with requests from the BCCI-IPL and its licensees to comply with the guidelines. This unlicensed over-use of footage and proprietary content materially impacted the IPL official broadcaster’s exclusive rights.

    Noting the widespread violations, the news access guidelines were reformulated by the BCCI-IPL and the official broadcaster for IPL 2009, making certain modifications to the limitations on quantity, currency and frequency of use of footage. At the same time, the BCCI-IPL recognised that certain limitations on use of images by cricket websites in the media accreditation guidelines were restrictive, and these were amended to facilitate legitimate uses. The second edition of the IPL saw 2882 hours of audio-visual clips of match footage used by 109 news channels in India alone without payment to the BCCI-IPL or its licensee. A significant amount of this use was in direct breach of news access guidelines, whether considered in relation to the 2008 version or those published and implemented in 2009. Again, despite notification to the news channels by the BCCI-IPL and its licensee no remedial action was taken. In fact, the IPL official broadcaster was forced to approach the courts to enforce its exclusive rights and obtained injunctions against certain news broadcasters to protect against continued infringement of its rights.

    Agree on media boycott being an anathema.. But so is media abuse!

  4. I am not completely familiar with IPL’s media guidelines. Does Mr. Modi really think that without media support, the IPL can be a success? While this is unlikely in todays ‘make-a-quick-buck’ economy, I believe that if all media(TV, radio and print) were to join together and refuse any press to IPL, will it succeed? It definitely does not make its money on ticket sales. The media is responsible for the popularity cricket enjoys todays that allows Mr. Modi to make money off a poorly managed scheme.

    If only, the media would spend this effort on other sports and help build them too.

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