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With the announcement of the prices of the sports channels, the Reliance Industries-controlled Network18/Viacom18 group just made it public that the media company is all set to shake up the sports broadcasting arena — probably akin to the disruption that Reliance did with the launch of its Jio telecom services few years back with data bundled almost free.
It is also quite certain that the IPL cricket rights, originally thought to be raking in for the Indian cricket board BCCI around $ 4 billion this year, may just climb northwards as nothing could be a better asset for the next five years than IPL (starting 2023) for a new-born sports channel — Sports18.
With Reliance Industries also having a thriving telcom service, which has become the largest network in terms of consumers, Jio and its allied services like Jio Platforms and Jio TV could be very placed to exploit the IPL property on linear and digital realms. Something that the BCCI would love as breaking up digital and linear TV rights to different companies could impact visibility of the games — and the revenues.
So the a la carte rates for the Sports18 One SD and HD channels will be Rs. 8 each with a la carte per subscriber RTA rate per month being Rs. 6.40 each.
The sports channels, said to be making its debut on Bengali New Year’s day of April 15, will also be offered in several bouquets with different price tags. For example, the HD sports channel has been bundled with two English entertainment channels, Colors Infinity HD and Comedy Central HD, at a monthly maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs. 17.50.
The SD version of the Sports18 One channel will be bundled in a bouquet with CNN News18, CNBCTV18, Colors Infinity and Comedy central (all SD) for an MRP of Rs. 15.
In another bouquet, the HD version has been bundled with CNBCTV18, CNN News18 (two SD channels), and CNBC TV18 Prime HD, Comedy Central HD and Colors Infinity HD at an MRP of Rs. 21 per month.
As a sop to the distribution platforms and consumers, the Sports18 One channels would be available for free the first month.
Viacom18 has been trying out sports programming on its MTV channel and digital platform VOOT for the last almost one year and presently has properties like La Liga, Abu Dhabi T10 cricket and FIFA soccer World Cup.
