Ten Network’s Australian IPL Broadcast Pulled

The Indian Premier League (IPL) season kicked off last Friday, April 8, though the Australian public will not have caught any of the action and will not do so for the remainder of the season after commercial broadcaster Ten Network pulled the plug on the five-year deal it had originally signed with World Sport Group (WSG).

It has since been revealed that this deal actually went into limbo after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) cancelled WSG’s rights.

The IPL media rights that the BCCI recently awarded to the Times Internet-Nimbus consortium excluded India, Australia, South Africa, the Middle East, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Caribbean from its ambit.

Ten, which reportedly paid between US$10m and $15m for the rights when it signed with WSG in 2008, till last year used to telecast the matches on free-to-air television, followed by repeats on Ten’s high definition digital channel.