GBC open to ‘formal’ collaboration with StarTimes

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) has dispelled rumours that it is not ready to partner any television station for the broadcast of the Ghana Premier League. After the Ghana Football Association (GFA) named Chinese television company StarTimes as the television rights owners for the 2019/20 Ghana Premier League, the state broadcaster felt hard done by, claiming it tendered in a superior financial bid. GBC said it held the fort in the nadir of the football crisis in 2018 when no television station was interested in having anything to do with Ghana football. “Apart from GBC’s superior financial offer, we thought that the Premier League and FA Cup content would have been treated like a national treasure and given to the national broadcaster and a consortium of local broadcasters,” the national broadcaster said in a statement after StarTimes was named the rights holders. The GFA responded to the claims by GBC and indicated that the bids submitted by the latter were way below the valuation pegged by the bids committee. It said the national broadcaster was even given another window of opportunity to revise its bids when the deadline had elapsed. On Friday, a meeting held by GBC’s top management resolved not to lease any of its equipment nor staff to StarTimes for the broadcast of the Match Day 3 games. Apparently, the national broadcaster says phone calls had been placed to some of its senior staff by StarTimes for a collaboration of some sort. A crawler on GTV Sports+ on Monday clarified that the station is open to a formal request to partner StarTimes if the latter deems fit and not via phone call. GBC says it wants a formal request for such a collaboration. Meanwhile, Head of Marketing for StarTimes Ghana Limited Akorfa Banson said her firm has a good relationship with GBC. Speaking to Yaw Ofosu Larbi on TV3’s New Day on Tuesday, Mrs Banson said aside giving the national broadcaster free content, “we pay them for their services”. She said they had indeed planned partnering GBC for the Match Day 3 coverage but after the media reports, they decided to handle it solely. “And we delivered.” By Emmanuel Kwame Amoh|3news.com|Ghana Follow @kwame_amoh]]>