KARACHI: A country’s private FM radio network, which enjoys exclusive rights of cricket world cup commentary broadcast, has accused Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) of airing ‘illegal broadcast of live running commentary of Cricket World Cup 2015’ matches across the country and warned that it could take legal action against the state broadcaster.

In a letter to the PBC director general, a senior FM 107 official demanded that the state broadcaster should immediately stop broadcasting the commentary of the world’s biggest cricket event and even hinted at involving International Cricket Council (ICC) to safeguard the private entity’s interests in the country.

“I am afraid that if this illegal broadcast is not stopped immediately, we will have no other option but to take legal action against PBC,” said the FM-107’s chief operating officer in a recent letter to the PBC DG.

“In case of continuation of this illegal transmission of live commentary on PBC’s stations, we would also seek help from the ICC to safeguard our rights which may results in unfortunate blacklisting of PBC from participation of any future broadcast rights.”

The letter suggests that the two sides were in contact well before the cricket world cup began in Australia and New Zealand on Feb 14 after FM-107 won the commentary rights for Pakistan and Afghanistan. The PBC, the letter said, denied signing deal with the FM-107 within the stipulated time losing any right to broadcast commentary on its own, the letter suggested.

“You will appreciate that despite a very lucrative offer from our side and a prolonged wait from us for over a month, you finally decided not to take advantage of the offer,” said the letter.

“Only a few days back, after we concluded our deals with radio stations for broadcasting the running commentary you asked us to provide you radio rights as you desired. Our polite refusal was communicated to you immediately mentioning our concluded agreements with other radio partners.”

However, the FM-107 was ‘shocked’ to hear ‘running cricket commentary’ being broadcast on the PBC MW and AM stations despite the fact that it did not have any agreement with the FM-107, which had exclusive ICC rights for the World Cup broadcast over radios in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“This is not only illegal as we hold exclusively the ICC Cricket Radio Broadcast Rights for Pakistan and Afghanistan, but also shows highhandedness of PBC and reflects very poorly on the government,” said the FM-107 letter to the PBC.

“PBC is advised o refrain from this right violation of ICC, which will bring bad name to the present elected government of Pakistan and will put them in an embarrassing situation in front of prestigious organisations like ICC.”

Published in Dawn February 17th , 2015

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