NEW DELHI: UK-based Satellite Information Services (SIS) will bag the rights for producing and broadcasting the Commonwealth Games next year for the public broadcaster Doordarshan.
Doordarshan sources confirmed that the British group had been shortlisted out of the two consortiums – the other led by an Indian company – which had filed their bids when the last date (19 August) closed for this purpose, out of the five shortlisted earlier for production and coverage facilities in high definition television (HDTV).
Sources, however, said that the matter had been referred to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for its final decision along with some points raised by an empowered committee comprising top officials of Doordarshan and All India Radio.
Satellite Information Services Live of the United Kingdom has formed a consortium with SIS Broadcast and Satellite Information Services Ltd. as lead partner. SIS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Satellite Information Services (Holdings) Ltd and is owned by a combination of leisure and financial investors.
The other shortlisted group was Nimbus Communications which had come in a consortium with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as lead partner.
The others who had initially filed an Expression of Interest were Big Productions in consortium with the Beijing branch of Interpublic Marketing Services (Shanghai) Ltd. and Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. as the lead partners; Nimbus Sports International Pte Ltd of Singapore in consortium with International Sports Broadcasting of the United States as the lead partner; and International Games Broadcast Services of Switzerland.
The Commonwealth Games 2010 are scheduled to be held from October 3 to October 14 next year. The estimated production cost for the event may turn out to be around $ 250 million, the source said.
