Team India’s first formal practice session for the India-Pakistan series at Eden Gardens was thwarted by the weather gods on Sunday morning. And in cable homes, attempts by some viewers to tune into Ten Sports — the channel with sole telecast rights for the series — was tripped by technology and trade tussle.

For the past few days, viewers on RPG Netcom and Manthan networks across the city — be it Santoshpur or Salt Lake — had a superimposed message (which left only a few visible inches on the screen) flash from time to time on their Ten Sports channel.

The message warned that the cable operator concerned had not yet signed the agreement with Ten Sports regarding the upcoming Pakistan series, and as a result, the viewer would not be able to catch the matches. It also asked the viewer to contact his operator immediately.

Ten Sports officials said the message was a check put in place prior to agreements with the two multi-system-operators (MSOs), which had not been removed owing to a “technical problem”. “We were flashing the message on these two networks but we’ve since signed the agreement with Manthan,” said a spokesperson for Ten, confirming that a similar understanding would be reached with RPG Netcom on Monday. The “technical problem” would be sorted out by Sunday night, he added.

RPG Netcom remains the only city MSO to not have freshly negotiated with Ten Sports yet. Other MSOs — starting with CableComm and the latest being Manthan —have fallen in line, although with niggling issues, like some of the operators not agreeing to the hike. Sources said that the ‘message flashing’ was a tactic used by the broadcaster to pressurise these operators.

RPG Netcom officials, however, assured that all its viewers would be able to watch the crucial series. “Most of our operators have agreed to the deal,” said a senior official.

“We’ll make sure that each and every subscriber on our network is able to watch the series without any problems,” he added, refusing to set a date for RPG Netcom formalising the agreements with Ten Sports.

Ten has sought a hike in subscriber base declaration from operators, bringing it up to that of rival ESPN-Star Sports in certain cases and of STAR Television in others (both much higher than what Ten now collects).

It has also sought an upfront payment for the next six months from certain operators by March 10.