All India Radio bags Cricket World Cup commentary rights

India’s national broadcaster All India Radio (AIR) has secured exclusive rights to broadcast live commentary of 17 matches of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

The tournament will take place in Australia and New Zealand from February 15 to March 29.

AIR will offer ball-by-ball bilingual coverage of all matches played by India, some matches involving neighbouring countries and all matches from quarter finals onwards, according to Indiantelevision.com.

The commentaries will be aired 66 medium wave AIR stations and its FM Gold network.

AIR Delhi will broadcast hourly updates of the matches on its FM Rainbow channel, which will be relayed by all other FM Rainbow channels.

This comes at a time when the country’s national television network Doordarshan (DD) is engaged in a legal tussle over sharing its live feed with cable TV operators.

As per the law, it is mandatory for all cable operators to carry two DD channels free of charge.

Star Sports, which is going to provide the feed to DD had approached the high court to stop it from sharing the feed with cable TV operators to prevent loss of revenue.

The high court issued and order barring DD from sharing the feed, but after an appeal in the Supreme Court, the order has been stayed till February 17, when the court will pass interim orders.