THE TV DEAL Parveen Negi/India Today Group/Getty Images
rights, franchise rights, event and venue management and sponsorship sales as well. But where the IPL has rewritten the rules for cricket coverage is in the scale at which its wrap-up show — Extraaa Innings (EI) — is designed. Anyone who understands television production is wowed by the way the show brings together, at times, three standalone shows within one. The basic show involves an anchor and studio guests: a straightforward chat show. But this is blended with the dancing girls and the musicians who are doing their thing. And, finally, you have the part coming in from the ground, where, again, there are multiple things
popular sense happening at once. To Navjot Sidhu (centre), the lay viewer, it’s just the unfettered champion a lot of simultaneous of cricketainment, claims Extraaa Innings activity. To a television is criticised because it is professional, like extremely watchable. Archana Vijaya, the presenter: “It’s an adrenaline rush; so highenergy that you are always on sixth gear, and usually mentally exhausted.”
The ‘extraaa’ coverage
“Cricket is not the domain of the few who choose to guard it so zealously. No one owns cricket, and no one has any more rights over it than the next person,” says Jasdeep Singh Pannu, vice-president–programming at SET Max, the broadcasters of the IPL.
ISSUE 2, APRIL 2013
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