October 6 - Britain's Satellite Information Services (SIS) are set to win the rights to produce and broadcast next year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi for India's public broadcaster Doordarshan, it will be announced this week.



The London-based company have been chosen out of the five shortlisted for production and coverage facilities in high definition television (HDTV).
 

The matter has been referred to India's Information and Broadcasting Ministry to be formally confirmed.

SIS Live was formed in 1986 when bookmakers took the opportunity to broadcast live racing in their shops for the first time and owned jointly by Ladbrokes, Thales (Racal), United News & Media, William Hill Organisation, the Racecourse Association and the Tote.
 
Now received in virtually all British and Irish betting shops, together with 300 outlets in Western Europe - a total of 9,500 shops - it is also broadcasts to betting outlets in the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, Italy and countries in the former Soviet Union.
 
The company has since expanded in other areas and now has the largest satellite uplink fleet in Europe and covers 100,000 hours of live events worldwide each year, including Formula One, Wimbledon, UEFA Champions League football and European Tour Golf,
 
Experts estimate the winning company will charge up to $500 million (£306 million) to cover the 11-day event which opens on October 3, 2010, and which is expected to attract 8,500 competitors from 71 countries.
 
In March Indian union leaders, unhappy at the decision of Prasar Bharati, the country's largest public broadcaster, to seek global tenders for coverage of the Games, had threatened to go on strike and boycott coverage of the event.
 
But under New Delhi's contract with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), signed when they were awarded the event in 2003, Doordarshan, who are part of Prasar Bharati, has to produce an international feed in HDTV format.
 
The other shortlisted group was Indian company Nimbus Communications which had come in a consortium with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as lead partner.
 

The others who had initially filed an Expression of Interest were Big Productions in consortium with the Beijing branch of Interpublic Marketing Services (Shanghai) Ltd. and Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. as the lead partners; Nimbus Sports International Pte Ltd of Singapore in consortium with International Sports Broadcasting of the United States as the lead partner; and International Games Broadcast Services of Switzerland.


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March 2009: TV technicians threaten Games boycott