Millions of DD National viewers missed out on watching Sachin Tendulkar’s 200th and final Test match appearance on Saturday as the IB Ministry failed to take a call on repeated requests by Prasar Bharati for a minor change in The Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing With Prasar Bharati) Act, 2007, which would have allowed it to broadcast the Wankhede Test without incurring massive losses.

Sources in the ministry, however, passed the buck to Prasar Bharati, saying it had flagged the matter only recently and neither routed the changes through their board nor in time. The Act makes it mandatory for the rights holder of any sports event of national importance — listed in the Act — to share the feed with DD. DD on its part is bound to transmit these events on its breadwinner DD National channel, in turn compromising on advertising revenue at the time. Officials say DD’s share in the revenue for the shared feed is too small to make this worthwhile.

Prasar Bharati insiders say a small amendment in the Act would enable it to shift the transmission to DD Sports or DD Direct — its DTH channels which too are free to air and have a wider reach — so as to not force it to incur losses.

Of the 43 events telecast under the Act till November 2012, DD made a loss in 18, the highest 99.5 per cent in the telecast of French Open 2011 and Wimbledon 2011.

In a letter to Additional Secretary, IB Ministry, J S Mathur in September, B B Pandit, Member (Finance), Prasar Bharati, had urged the government to replace the words “On its terrestrial network and DTH” in the Act with “On its free to air networks available on various platforms”. The change was not affected, neither was the Wankhede Test match declared a sports event of national importance, which would have forced DD to telecast it regardless of the losses.

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