MUMBAI: News Corp?s India affiliate, Star TV, has bagged the BCCI media rights for international cricket played in India for a whopping Rs 38.51 billion, surprising all who expected the joint venture entity, ESPN Star Sports, to bid.

Star India bet higher than the only rival bidder Multi Screen Media (formerly Sony Entertainment Television India) for the six-year broadcast and digital rights till 2018. MSM, IPL?s official broadcast rights holder, bid Rs 37 billion to back up its plans to launch a sports channel.

Star will cough up Rs 401.154 million per match, a huge increase compared to Rs 312.50 million that Nimbus Communications was paying for every match when its contract was prematurely terminated by the BCCI last year for non-payment of broadcast rights fee.

According to sources in the BCCI, only five companies had bought the bidding documents with only MSM and Star placing their bids before the marketing committee that had met in Chennai to open the bids. The ones who bought bid documents include Zee, ESPN Software India, and Times Internet, which intended to bid only for the digital rights.

The contract between BCCI and Star TV will cover a total of 96 matches which includes visit by teams like Australia, England, South Africa and Sri Lanka. It also includes domestic events like Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and the Irani Trophy.

The most interesting part of the bidding was that ESS, which operates Star Sports, Star Cricket and ESPN, did not submit the bid even though it bought the tender documents.

?I am glad to announce that Star TV won the bid for six years. The total bid amount is about Rs 3,851 crores (Rs 38.51 billion) for the six year period covering 96 matches. The BCCI is very happy that the BCCI rights are fully evaluated and now I think fully priced,? BCCI president N Srinivasan said, announcing the winning bid.

Star TV India CEO Uday Shankar said the broadcaster would work with ESS to jointly develop the content. ?BCCI is a great property and we are overjoyed to have an opportunity to develop it further. It was decided amongst ESPN Star Sports, ESPN and Star that Star would bid for the rights and if Star were to win the rights it would be exploited in collaboration with ESS,? Shankar said in a statement.

For ESS, which has platforms across television, Internet and mobile medium, the BCCI media rights will come as a booster shot. With the India rights expected to be housed under it, ESS can boast of having rights for three of the top four cricket boards which includes Australia and England excluding South Africa, which is owned by Ten Sports. It also holds the global rights for ICC events till 2015 besides Champions League Twenty20 commercial rights till 2017.

Commenting on the deal, ESPN Star Sports MD Manu Sawhney said, "ESS is very pleased that STAR has secured the BCCI rights for the period 2012 to 2018. It was decided by the ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) Board that the most preferred way for these rights is for STAR to bid with the understanding that should they win, they would utilize these rights in partnership with ESPN STAR Sports. We look forward to continue to enhance fans? engagement with the game.?

The BCCI had clubbed the digital with the TV broadcast rights, setting a floor price of Rs 322.5 million (Rs 312.5 million plus Rs 10 million for new media rights) per international game for category A and Rs 340 million (Rs 330 million plus 10 million for new media rights) per game for category B.

The new media rights, which were not part of the earlier rights package with Nimbus, had failed to draw attention as it was highly priced. The BCCI had twice floated tenders fixing base price at Rs 30 and Rs 20 million respectively.

India?s FTP at home for the period is as follows:

MUMBAI: Zee expects to obtain the landing rights in China soon, six years after applying for it.

Having already run a profitable syndication and sales business in China, the Subhash Chandra-promoted media company aims to cater to the audience in the Mandarin country with its entertainment content in the toughest media market in the world.

"We haven?t officially got the landing rights yet. It is work in progress. We expect to get the approval soon," a Zee spokesperson said.

Zee has been pursuing the landing rights in China ever since it applied in 2006.

According to a PTI report, a Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson has stated that "Zee TV has got the landing rights in China," while briefing reporters on the talks between India?s Foreign Minister S M Krishna and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jeichi.

Indiantelevision.com had earlier reported that Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel), India?s leading broadcasting network overseas, was looking at a 9 per cent growth from its international business this fiscal and would see income up from advertising, syndication and other operations while subscription revenue would stay almost flat.

Zeel has paced up its localisation strategy in global markets, which keeps it far ahead of its rivals. Zee Aflam, for instance, has seen reasonable growth and reached break-even status within three years. Other localisation experiments are already on in Malaysia, Russia and, to a limited extent, in France in partnership with Canal.