Neo Sports to be out of OneAlliance bouquet from 1 April

The current distribution deal between the two players ends on 31 March. There is no drive to renew the contract. 

Rajesh Kaul, president, MSM Discovery, said, “With the absence of any worthy sporting event on the Neo channels, we would have found it difficult to sell and make money from them. Our contract is expiring on 31 March. We decided to part ways.”

Neo Sports Broadcast, which runs Neo Sports and Neo Prime, will have to form its own distribution team. The distribution on direct-to-home (DTH) platforms is directly done by Neo. 

Neo said they would distribute their channels through an in-house team from 1 April. Neo Sports Broadcast EVP of distribution platforms Dilip Sharan said that digitisation would lend reasonable value to their channels from the ground. 

Sharan said that MSM Discovery and Neo Sports could not reach an agreement to continue the deal on commercial terms. “While we understand their concern of us not having sports properties, we do have a good proposition. Cricket is an important area but there are defined audiences for other sports as well. In a digital world, it is much easier to reach them.” 

The separation comes within weeks of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) content aggregation notification whereby the regulator has barred the agents (read distribution bouquets) from bundling up channels of multiple broadcasters.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/4369-neo-sports-to-be-out-of-onealliance-bouquet-from-1-april.htmlhttp://cablequest.org/news/national-news/item/4369-neo-sports-to-be-out-of-onealliance-bouquet-from-1-april.html