Clarifying its position over the sale of the broadcasting rights for the next two editions of the Pakistan Super League, the Pakistan Cricket Board issued a press release on Tuesday.
The press release says that “the predefined process in the Bid Document was adhered to” at all times during the bidding procedure.
The statement came after Transparency International Pakistan wrote a letter to the PCB after receiving a complaint about irregularities in the procedure after the rights to broadcast the Twenty20 league in Pakistan were awarded to a consortium comprising ARY Communications (Pvt) Limited (ARY) and Pakistan Television Corporation Limited (PTVC).
TIP said that that the complainant had said that the granting of the broadcast rights to the consortium was “a violation of the Public Procurement Regulatory authority (PPRA), 2004 rules”.
It that TIP had learned that Independent Media Corporation Pvt. Ltd (IMC– the parent company of GEO Entertainment Television Pvt Ltd) “had bid Rs3.74 billion for two years alone, while PTV and ARY consortium had bid Rs 2.1 billion for one year”.
“The complainant wrote if PCB had to approve the bid of the consortium, then it should have been Rs4.2 billion for two years but upon re-bidding, PCB approved the bid of the consortium for 2 years of Rs 4.35 billion,” it stated.
TIP also expressed surprise at why “despite the experience of 65 years of sports broadcasting, why did PTV not bid individually for broadcasting rights of PSL?”
PCB, in the media release, stated the process and facts of the whole process:
- A public tender advertisement, inviting bids for PSL TV Broadcast media rights for 2022-2023 was published on 1 December in two leading local newspapers. Last date for submission of technical and financial proposals was 23 December with technically qualified bidders required to submit financial proposals specifying their aggregate offer for a period of two years (2022 and 2023).
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Bids were received from Independent Media Corporation Pvt. Ltd (IMC – the parent company of GEO Entertainment Television Pvt Ltd) and a consortium comprising ARY Communications (Pvt) Limited (ARY) / Pakistan Television Corporation Limited (PTVC).
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Just before announcement of the Reserve Price set by the PCB, the IMC representative raised a concern, asking the PCB what process PTVC, as a state broadcaster, had followed to align itself with ARY. The PCB advised that this query was better directed towards the PTVC who would be best placed to respond.
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Bidders were asked if there were any further concerns or objections before the PCB announced the Reserve Price and then opened the sealed financial proposals. No further concerns were raised and both bidders agreed for the bidding process to continue.
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After which, the PCB announced the Reserve Price of PKR3.584billion for two years in the presence of both the bidders.
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Before the financial proposals could be opened, the representative of ARY/PTVC stated that their financial offer as contained in the earlier submitted Financial Proposal document was for one year and requested that its value should be considered doubled. The PCB informed the ARY/PTVC representative that a verbal request made at this belated stage could not be entertained in order to modify the contents of the sealed financial proposal. Hence, the request was declined and this decision was accepted by the bidders.
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The financial proposals of the bidders were opened and revealed the following:
• Aggregate rights fee – IMC = PKR3,360,000,000
• Aggregate rights fee – ARY/PTVC = PKR2,108,786,786
– Thus, neither bidder met the Reserve Price of PKR3.584billion set by the PCB.
- As per the pre-determined process set out in the bid document, both bidders were afforded another opportunity to meet or exceed the Reserve Price by submitting sealed revised financial proposals within the stipulated deadline of one hour. Thereafter, the PCB would open the revised financial offers and award the rights to the highest bidder who had exceeded the Reserve Price.
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The revised financial offers were opened in the presence of both bidders and upon evaluation, both exceeded the Reserve Price as follows:
• Aggregate rights fee – IMC = PKR3,740,000,000
• Aggregate rights fee – ARY/PTVC = PKR4,350,786,786
– Accordingly, the PCB Bid Committee announced that it would recommend the award of the rights to ARY/PTVC
- At all times, the pre-defined process in the Bid Document was adhered to.
The PCB concluded saying that a bid evaluation report was made available on its corporate website after the Dec 23 bidding process while it had not received any complaint regarding it to its Grievance Redressal Committee.
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