Dânesh Zaki

Unfair, frustrating and pathetic (I am running out of adjectives) is the behaviour of Doordarshan in treating the Cricket fans in Chennai. After making an announcement that it would be telecasting the 2006 India Pakistan Cricket series, it retracted at the last moment when its deal with Ten Sports did not materialize.

Since Ten Sports is not a “free-to-air” channel and needs a Set top box (STB) to view it, Chennai viewers are left in the lurch feeling cheated and deprived. As most people are satisfied (or can live) with the basic cable coverage, a need for the set top box was not felt. But this act of DD has left them in a situation where they are helping SCV quadruple their profits as that is the primary seller of set top boxes in Chennai.

As if the shame of DD chickening out of the telecast deal was not enough, All India Radio disgraced itself by not broadcasting the commentary leaving viewers with the only option of sitting in front of news channels to know the score (or be connected to Cricinfo.com).

Why this injustice called Conditional Access System (CAS) only to Chennai folk?