IPL crackdown: Grade Cricketer takes down hundreds of videos after receiving ‘legal letter'
Indian cricket authorities have clamped down on The Grade Cricketer podcast, compelling the show's creators to take down every single video they have produced for this year's Indian Premier League.
The Grade Cricketer 's daily show about the IPL, which has been called 'The Big IPL Breakfast', may now have to be renamed. The show's hosts Sam Perry and Ian Higgins are due to travel to India for a series of live shows to coincide with the IPL later this week.
The producers of the show, which is watched by an audience of more than a million people in Australia and around the world, received a legal letter from the BCCI and the IPL over the weekend, demanding the removal of photos and logos from hundreds of videos on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X.
According to a source with knowledge of confidential discussions, the legal notice was related to claims that Grade Cricketer IPL videos featured still photography shots from the tournament that the BCCI considered to be used for 'commercial' rather than 'editorial' purposes.
The Grade Cricketer videos have featured sponsorship placement for BigBasket, an Indian online grocery platform. Cricket boards have been known to make periodic crackdowns on the use of video footage on digital platforms, but the BCCI's pursuit of still images is a new development.
Rather than risk a suspension or ban from any of their digital platforms, the show's producers instead elected to take down all their video content from the IPL so far. Titles and graphics for this morning's daily episode were devoid of any mention of the IPL or official team names.
'You may have noticed that every single video from our coverage of this year's cricket tournament has been removed from YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Instagram and X,' Perry told podcast listeners on Monday. 'This is something we've done ourselves, it hasn't been done to us, we have removed these videos.
'On Saturday evening Australian time we received a very polite legal letter about elements of our content from the cricket tournament we speak to you about pertaining specifically to this season. As a result we decided to take those videos down.
'It's very important to note we're going to continue to post coverage of the tournament, at the same cadence that we do. In fact, there's going to be more in the next couple of weeks because we're going to India. But our approach to content has been consistent for five years, we just now have a deeper understanding of what is and isn't passing muster.'
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