NEW DELHI: Doordarshan is paying a sum of Rs 680 million to Australia’s Global Television and its Indian partner Shaf Broadcast to design, install and operate the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) for the Commonwealth Games in October.
Australia’s leading and most experienced services provider to the television industry, Global was selected for this turnkey project from a tough international field after an intensive three-month evaluation period.
The IBC will be the hub for all Commonwealth Games broadcasting activity, handling incoming television pictures and sound from the host broadcaster, distributing that footage to international rights holders and managing rights holders’ outgoing transmissions.
Doordarshan Director General Aruna Sharma told indiantelevision.com that the Delhi Commonwealth Games IBC will house studio and reporting facilities for broadcasters and journalists from around the world. Occupying 8,000 square meters, up to 1,500 broadcast professionals will be based at the IBC.
Sharma said this is part of the total budget of Rs 3.66 billion for the Games sought by Doordarshan. But the total is for coverage of the games and does not include expenditure being incurred by Doordarshan as right holder broadcaster.
She also said that she would be able to give details of the revenue from the money to be earned from various international broadcasters for rights, and the estimated commercial revenue, only closer to the games.
She said Doordarshan had made inroads amongst cable operators and multi-system operators in educating them about high definition television which will be introduced in the country along with the Commonwealth Games. Sharma said she had been meeting representatives of MSOs and cable operators in Mumbai and Delhi to answer any queries about HDTV.
The XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 will be held from 3 to 14 October. The competition will feature 17 sports, with around 8,500 athletes and officials from 71 Commonwealth Games Federation member countries expected to attend.
She was happy that some direct-to-home (DTH) players had introduced HDTV, as she said this would help the country to move to better technology.
Two HDTV studios will be established by Doordarshan in Delhi and Mumbai, and field production and post production facilities in four metros. The HDTV uplink will be set up at Delhi , and HDTV terrestrial transmitters will be installed in four metros.
