KARACHI: A senior official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) confirmed on Wednesday that the Board was seriously working on a plan to launch its own sports channel with the assistance and cooperation of other sports federations and the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB).

"Yes, we've written to other federations and the PSB on this proposal and we've got favourable responses. Even the Pakistan Television Corporation has not objected to this proposal which we feel is feasible," PCB Director Operations Abbas Zaidi told a news conference at the National Stadium here.

He said one option available to the PCB and its partners was that they bought time on one of the PTV channels to run their sports channel. "The other is that we start our own channel independently," he added.

"We can't simply run the channel on cricket feed and programmes alone. We are planning to give exposure to all other sports on the proposed channel and involve all the federations and the PSB and Pakistan Olympic Council in it as partners," he stated.

Zaidi said the need to have PCB's own channel was prompted by the need to give regular exposure to domestic cricket, which had a big market for sponsors and advertisers.

"However it's a big project with huge expenses involved in it. We need to work out all the modalities and a feasibility report; we need to involve experts and see how many people have to be involved in running such a project," Zaidi noted and added, "But obviously the PCB will play a lead role given it's the leading sports body in the country."

This article appeared in The News on 16 June 2005

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