Dish TV urges BCCI to not award IPL broadcast rights to Star India

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India's one of the leading Direct to Home (DTH) service providers, Dish TV, have requested BCCI and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to not award the new broadcasting rights of IPL to Star India. The reason for this request is that they feel that it would create a monopolistic situation, where the subscribers would be forced to pay a high price to view the sporting event. Jawahar Goel, chairman and managing director of Dish TV, wrote a letter to Rahul Johri (BCCI CEO), Vinod Rai (CoA head) and Competition Commission of India and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, stating that the cost for the consumers is likely to increase manifold because of the creation of sole supplier monopoly in the market. IPL brand value marked at US$ 5.3 billion: Report

STAR is aiming to acquire the IPL cricket telecast rights also and thereby attain the status of sole holder of the telecast rights of all the major cricketing events The history of the media industry is witness to the fact that all the actions initiated by STAR till date have always been to economically concentrate the power through acquisition of cricket broadcast rights and thereby create a monopoly in the market to gain huge commercial advantage at the expense of the consumers and the distribution industry, said Goel, as reported by The Indian Express. BCCI recieve more than 20 bids for IPL media rights

In order to serve its long term objective of charging the exorbitant price for its sports channels containing cricketing content, STAR has challenged the authority/jurisdiction of TRAI itself to fix the price of TV channels and the matter is pending before the Hon ble High Court of Judicature at Madras. Such a situation would not only be anti-competitive but also anti-consumers, Goel added.