DTH
Eutelsat’s Vivanco advocates push for DTH
MUMBAI: “The window of opportunity is getting smaller as new technologies offer alternatives.” That was the warning sounded by Eutelsat’s regional director for Middle East and Asia Jan Grondrup Vivanco regarding the legislative hurdles in the way of DTH broadcast in India.
When DTH comes in channel reach will increase in rural areas which would result in increase in advertising revenue for broadcasters. The cable operator would be able to offer the consumer freedom of choice instead of being tied to a Star or Zee, Vivanco said.
Speaking yesterday at the opening day of the Broadcasting India 2002 symposium, at south Mumbai’s Chavan Centre, Vivanco pointed out that Ku Band was a mature technology in Europe. It makes the industry transparent, he said. And citing the European example, Vivanco said that initial doubts that included interference in the transmission have proved unfounded.
As far as the implementation of Conditional Access System in India was concerned Vivanco was of the view that the open architecture on the set top box was good.
Vivanco spoke of the possibility of DTH coming in through the backdoor if impediments to its rollout continued. Again citing the European experience, he said Open Sky, a broadband delivery solution allowed for one Megabyte downloads by satellite onto the dish antenna. Consumer DVB IP cards and DVB USB Boxes are all that were needed.
Open Sky has a multicast facility which he referred to as ‘push package delivery’. Video files can be updated for select end users. It also facilitates video streaming smoothly. CNN is one of 20 channels streamed by the satellite operator. A content distribution network can be created. The Open Sky platform has a Digital Rights Management System as well as a billing system. This makes the broadcasters’ task that much simpler. He said that the opportunity in India existed as consumers have shown interest, the local content is excellent and technology is available. But it is important for the government and media parties get their act together so that activity could be initiated through the front door.
Eutelsat to launch W5 Eastern Bird satellite next month Vivanco also said that Eutelsat was planning to launch the W5 Eastern Bird satellite next month on Ku band. It will offer a widebeam footprint for Asia, the Middle East and Europe, a Steerable Spotbeam North for Far East Coverage and Steerable Spotbeam South for South East Asia, he said. This will greatly facilitate communication between Europe and Asia. The satellite will be operational by January, 2003.
The company has applied for landing rights permission from the government, the Financial Express reported.
“We are in the process of getting landing rights for W5. We envisage a large market in India and are targeting channels in the news, regional languages and entertainment genres,” Vivanco, was quoted as saying in the report.
DTH
Prasar Bharati’s WAVES earns Rs 2.9 crore in first year
Platform scales content, users but monetisation gaps limit revenue growth.
MUMBAI: Big waves, small ripples at least for now. When Prasar Bharati launched its OTT platform WAVES at the 55th International Film Festival of India in November 2024, it pitched a bold vision: a homegrown rival to global and domestic streaming giants, blending video, audio, gaming and commerce into a single digital ecosystem. Five months into FY2024–25, however, the platform’s revenue stands at just Rs 2.90 crore, a figure that underscores the gap between ambition and monetisation.
On paper, WAVES looks anything but modest. The platform has ingested 13,608 titles, totalling 9,495 hours of content, with over 13,000 titles already live. It has streamed more than 575 live events from the Mahakumbh Amrit Snan and the 76th Republic Day parade to the Hockey India League, Kabaddi World Cup and Mann Ki Baat while offering 74 live TV channels and 12 radio channels. With over 10 lakh registered users and more than 200 content partners onboarded, the scale resembles that of a fully operational streaming service rather than a pilot project.
The architecture supporting this scale is equally robust. Built under Prasar Bharati’s Central Archives vertical, WAVES runs on a cloud-based infrastructure with DRM, encryption and an integrated analytics dashboard. It includes dedicated units for content ingestion, quality control, publishing, graphics, marketing and billing, and is distributed across platforms such as OTTplay, Tata Play and BSNL. The offering extends beyond video to include audio-on-demand, e-games and even e-commerce via ONDC integration.
Yet, the numbers reveal a core disconnect. Despite its scale, WAVES generated just Rs 2.90 crore in a market where India’s OTT industry crossed Rs 23,000 crore in 2024. A key bottleneck lies in monetisation infrastructure: subscriptions cannot currently be purchased within the app and must be completed via an external website. In a mobile-first country where over 95 per cent of OTT consumption happens on smartphones, this extra step creates friction that most users are unlikely to overcome.
Ironically, content is not the problem, it is the platform’s biggest strength. Prasar Bharati holds one of the world’s richest broadcast archives, including 45,154 hours of digitised Akashvani programming and 35,723 hours from Doordarshan. For WAVES alone, over 3,800 hours of archival content have been made OTT-ready, including classics such as Ramayan and Shaktimaan, alongside rare cultural recordings and historical broadcasts.
There are early signs that this library holds commercial potential. Revenue from archival content licensing rose sharply to Rs 3.38 crore in FY24, up from Rs 67 lakh the previous year. Meanwhile, free digital platforms continue to drive massive reach, the PB Archives Youtube channel clocked 119.78 million views and added 4,02,000 subscribers in FY2024–25, crossing 1.7 million in total, while DD News has over 5.84 million subscribers.
That, however, presents a strategic dilemma. While free distribution builds scale, it also conditions audiences to expect content at zero cost making it harder to transition to paid models. WAVES, designed as a hybrid AVOD-SVOD platform with advertising and subscription layers, is yet to fully crack this balance.
The broader challenge is not technological but strategic. In an ecosystem dominated by platforms offering seamless payments, aggressive pricing and high-budget originals, WAVES is still bridging the gap between being a content repository and a commercially viable product.
For now, the platform reflects both promise and paradox. It has the scale, the content and the infrastructure but until monetisation catches up, WAVES remains less a revenue engine and more a digital showcase of what India’s public broadcaster could become.
