NEW DELHI: A Parliamentary Committee has refused to accept the statement of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that the persons who signed documents relating to payments to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2005 had since retired.

The Public Accounts Committee headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi said officers responsible for the fudiciary loss of Rs 33.9 million to the government must be made accountable.

According to an earlier report of the PAC, Prasar Bharati was to pay Rs 75 million per match for 12 one-day cricket matches to the BCCI during 2005. However, it had been made clear that this was subject to a minimum playing time of seven hours per day and Prasar Bharati would pay hour-wise for days when the match was played for less than this duration and not pay any money if a match was cancelled.
 
While five matches were held for less than half the duration, an audit report had shown that Prasar Bharati had not paid for one match not played and one played for less than half the duration at Mohali.
The PAC had at that time been angered by the remark by the then Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry attributing this loss to ?an unhappily drafted agreement.?
 
In the report laid in Parliament earlier this week on the action taken pursuant to the earlier report, the Committee said it wanted to be apprised of any recoveries from BCCI or its response, and said it was not satisfied with only interim replies and wanted final replies.

Taking umbrage at the response of the Prasar Bharati and the Government that the recommendations had been taken note of for future guidance, the PAC said it wanted details of remedial action taken and also the steps taken to recover missing or untraceable documents. It also wanted responsibility to be fixed for failure to recover the missing or untraceable files.

MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its official broadcast partner Multi Screen Media (MSM) will set up a monitoring agency for the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to keep a watch on erring news broadcasters who flout news access guidelines.

The BCCI said that the usage of match footage by the news broadcasters shall be monitored by "such monitoring agency which may be appointed by BCCI-IPL and/or the Official Broadcaster from time to time".

The cricket board said that the news guidelines have been framed on the basis of and reflect settled law on the fair use principles laid down by the Delhi High Court in 2012.

Other channels which are not News Broadcasters and in particular sports channels are not permitted to use any match footage from the tournament, the guidelines clarified.

The guidelines say that news broadcasters will be allowed to broadcast a maximum of 5.5 minutes of fresh footage in a day on news programmes and/or special programmes strictly in accordance with the limitations contained in these guidelines.

An aggregate of no more than two minutes of fresh footage may be broadcast per hour of broadcast. A maximum of two repeats of fresh footage may be broadcast in any given hour of news broadcast in the news programmes or special programmes.

"For purposes of clarity, the fresh footage of two minutes per hour of news broadcast, as permitted may only be broadcast two times in that hour, and no further repeats of such fresh footage will be permitted," the news access guidelines read.

The guidelines also require news broadcasters to maintain a minimum 30-minute delay between the live telecast by the official broadcaster and the telecast of any fresh footage on news channels.

Additionally, all fresh footage must be broadcast "as is" without alterations or modifications and within 24 hours of the commencement of the match to which it relates.
Fresh Footage may be used for news reporting (which is result orientated) only and not for the purpose of analysis (by way of review or comments by experts, ex-cricketers, anchors, analysts or presenters).

Commercialisation of sports segments incorporating fresh footage by way of sponsorships and insertions of advertisements shall be considered a violation of the guidelines.

The guidelines allow news broadcasters to commercially exploit a news programme within which fresh footage is broadcast as a whole through normal advertising breaks usual in programming of news channels, provided always that no advertising, sting, logo, graphic and/or any other commercial (morphing) activity occurs immediately before, immediately after or during the Fresh Footage and no association is created, suggested or implied between the use of Fresh Footage and any third party brand or product.

News broadcasters may not include any advertising, sting, logo, graphic or any other commercial (morphing) activity carried immediately before, immediately after or during any ?player-of-the-day?, ?event-of-the-day?, ?image-of-the-day? or like feature relating to the Tournament, the guidelines specify.

The guidelines also disallow news broadcasters to use any fresh footage as part of news programmes, sports segments or special programmes which promote a third party brand or product by way of side screens, interview backdrops, by the anchors or analysts appearing in the programmes, or any other form of logo or product placement activity.

Carrying the name of the league and the logo, for example Pepsi IPL, is mandatory for news broadcasters in all their broadcast mentions.

The guidelines warn that "failure to abide by these conditions will amount to a violation of the copyright in the content (including the Fresh Footage) which may be actionable under applicable law by the BCCI-IPL and/or the Official Broadcaster".

News broadcasters can undertake live video streaming simulcasts of its news channels on the channel?s official website provided that the content being streamed on the channel website is the exact replica of the programme run on the news broadcaster?s news channel.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned, news broadcasters shall not display deferred or archived fresh footage, whether as part of news bulletin or otherwise, on their own official website or via their account or otherwise on a third-party video-upload site such as YouTube or Daily Motion.