DTH
Cable TV carriage fees head south
Carriage fees have been a bane of the Indian television industry. Most broadcasters have been groaning and moaning how they have been choking up their capital, preventing them from investing in content, especially news channels.
Now throwing some light on the trend in carriage fees is five year old television media and distribution audit company Chrome Data Analytics & Media which has just released its Chrome Dii R3 (Distribution Investments Index – Round 3).
Chrome Dii,says the company, has been worked out while tracking deals done by broadcasters over the past year, with information gathered from across various sources including broadcasters as well as distribution platforms. After eliminating high variance deals, an average of six solo deals per cable network were studied for their investments for S band and UHF.
 |
|
Jeffrey Crasto…
|
“For the digital scenario, Chrome Dii indicates a benchmark carriage to be available on the basic tier that is channels under BST (mandated FTA channels) along with the first tier of pay channels,” says Chrome Data executive director Jeffrey Crasto. “The study is inclusive of both new launches/new deals done in the last one year and existing deals expiring in April/May 2013.”
Adds Chrome Data founder & CEO Pankaj Krishna: “Digitisation was expected to be a harbinger of correction leading to nullification of carriage fees. As per TRAI, they had anticipated the Chrome Dii to come down to Rs 1, however though there has been a significant drop; it has not come down to Rs 1.As compared to R2, Dii has come down from Rs 20 to Rs 11.6. “
 |
|
.. & Pankaj Krishna have attempted to demystify the burden broadcasters have to bear
|
In its third round, the Dii has revealed that north India has emerged as the costliest region with a whopping 16.7 crore in carriage fees for 100 per cent availability across Basic + S band for new channel launches and 13.3 crorefor renewals of existing deals whereas central India is the lowest with 3.11 crore and 2.73 crore for Basic + S band for new launches and renewing existing deals respectively.
While a different image is revealed if the Dii (cost per contact for the television channels) is studied, Chrome Dii R3 data shows the cost (renewals, S-band) per contact (household) is the highest in west India with an average of 17.6 followed by Central at 14.4. The national average for renewals stands at 11.6.
Out of a total universe of 47 million households in Class I India, 42 million are C&S Homes. Chrome Dii study tracks 31 million homes, 2 million remain uncovered and balance 9 million are DTH!
Source: Chrome Data Analytics & Media
|
C&S Households
|
89%
|
DTH
|
74%
|
|
Non TV Households
|
11%
|
Chrome Dii
|
21%
|
|
|
|
Balance
|
5%
|
Chrome Data says that its Dii R3 was pre-subscribed by eight leading TV networks. And it is an addition to the other services that it offers (covering1800+ cities and towns) Chrome Track 2.0, Chrome DPi, Chrome Dii & Chrome SES, Chrome AV, Chrome LC1, Chrome NE and Chrome Language Feed.Some 132 channels subscribe to its various services.
Some interesting facts according to Chrome Dii R3 –
|
Carriage Fee Cost
|
||||
|
Existing
|
New Launch
|
|||
| REGION | Basic + S BAND | Basic + UHF | Basic + S BAND | Basic + UHF |
| CENTRAL | 273,75,000 | 194,70,000 | 311,95,000 | 235,30,000 |
| EAST | 376,65,000 | 281,25,000 | 404,65,000 | 340,00,000 |
| NORTH | 1330,33,300 | 1118,71,800 | 1673,03,300 | 1343,67,800 |
| SOUTH | 549,50,000 | 466,67,000 | 625,65,500 | 527,32,500 |
| WEST | 1099,80,000 | 1014,80,000 | 1320,00,000 | 1195,00,000 |
| Grand Total | 3630,03,300 | 3076,13,800 | 4335,28,800 | 3641,30,300 |
* To cite an example as per the above data, comparing how much a Hindi News channel would spend for 75 per cent HSM availability as per Dii R3 as compared to Dii R2 – it would pay 75% of (Rs 36.30 croe minus Rs 5.49 crore for the south) = Rs. 23.1 crore as per Dii R3, whereas it would have paid Rs 38.2 crore as per Dii R2 – a saving of over 39 per cent! But has the overall pie reduced, not really! As there has been an increase in network bandwidth, hence the number of takers has increased.
North emerged as the costliest region with Rs 16.7 crore for 100 per cent availability across Basic + S Band and Rs 13.4 crore for 100 per cent availability across Basic + UHF for New Launches. Renewals of existing deals for Rs 13.3 crore for Basic + S Band and Rs 11.2 crore for Basic + UHF.
The study also provides a benchmark for carriage fee efficiency with respect to the investment indices that is Chrome Dii that is cost per contact (see tables below). Chrome reveals that the Dii (renewals, S-band, household) is the highest in West India with an average of Rs 17.6 followed by the Central at Rs 14.4. The national average for renewals stands at Rs 11.6.
|
Carriage Fee Cost per contact for existing channels in Rs
|
||||
|
Existing-Basic+S Band |
 |
|||
| West |
17.6
|
|||
| Central |
14.4
|
|||
| North |
14.1
|
|||
| East |
7.1
|
|||
| South |
6.6
|
|||
Source: Chrome Data Analytics & Media
* In terms of highest Chrome Dii, West was followed by North, Central, East and South.
* The gap between Dii for Existing and New Launches has reduced over the years owing to digitization and increase in bandwidth of the networks.
|
Carriage Fee Cost per contact for new channels being launched in Rs
|
||||
|
New Launches – |
 |
|||
| West |
21.1
|
|||
| Central |
17.7
|
|||
| North |
16.4
|
|||
| East |
7.6
|
|||
| South |
7.5
|
|||
Source: Chrome Data Analytics & Media
* Further, the gap between Dii for S Band and UHF has also reduced due to digitization
* Chrome Dii for a New Launch in Central and East India has halved.
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.
