The hopes of lakhs of sports fans of catching the opening day’s action at the Twenty20 World Cup and Paes and Federer’s French Open bid dimmed on Thursday with Manthan and ESPN Star Sports remaining locked in dispute.

STAR Sports, showing French Open, and STAR Cricket, which will telecast the Twenty20 World Cup, have been missing from about 8 lakh television screens in the Calcutta Metropolitan Area as a result of the face-off between the multi-system operator (MSO) and the broadcaster over dues.

Sudip Ghosh, the director of Manthan, claimed subscribers mostly wanted to watch India’s matches in the World Cup, which would also be telecast live on Doordarshan.

“We would have been able to cater to the small percentage of subscribers who want to see all the matches if ESPN provided us digital content for non-CAS areas,” he told Metro.

Subhadip Bhattacharya, senior director (distribution), east and west India, ESPN Star Sports, said Manthan had run up a debt with the broadcaster and was now “stealing signals”.

Industry insiders corroborated the allegation. Residents in pockets of Baguiati and Salt Lake confirmed that they were receiving the ESPN channels despite their cable operators being served by Manthan.

Two cable operators who were “hooking lines” were caught last month, said the city detective chief.