By Sohail Ali
LAHORE, Dec 28 (APP):The Pakistan Cricket Board, for the better and clear understanding of its stakeholders, fans and supporters, has explained the transparent and merit-based bidding process that was followed for awarding the Pakistan region PSL TV Broadcast media rights for 2022-2023 on Thursday, 23 December 2021.
A spokesman of the PCB said here on Tuesday night said the process and facts are:
-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).
-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).
-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.
-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.
-After which, the PCB announced the Reserve Price of PKR3.584billion for two years in the presence of both the bidders.
-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.
-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.
-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 award of the rights to ARY/PTVC.
-The Bid Evaluation Report for the PSL TV Broadcast media rights for 2022-2023 (for Pakistan region only) was made available on the PCB Corporate Website on 23 December and is available under Documents/Reports.
-At all times, the pre-defined process in the Bid Document was adhered to.
-PCB’s Grievance Redressal Committee is the appropriate platform to raise any post-bidding concerns and objections. To date, the PCB has not received any complaint from either bidding entity.
