DTH
Airtel DTH biz Q4-2015 revenue up 17%, segment reports Rs 8 crore operating profit
BENGALURU: Bharati Airtel’s Digital TV services – Airtel DTH – reported 17.2 per cent increase in y-o-y revenue to Rs 634.7 crore in Q4-2015 from Rs 541.5 crore and 1.8 per cent growth as compared to the Rs 623.4 crore in the immediate trailing quarter.
The segment reported an operating profit of Rs 8.1 crore for the current quarter as compared to an operating loss of Rs 110.7 crore in Q4-2014 and an operating loss of Rs 36 crore in Q3-2015.
Note: 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10 million = 1 crore
Airtel DTH revenue in FY-2015 grew 19.2 per cent to Rs 2475.9 crore as compared to the Rs 2077.1 crore in FY-2014. Operating loss was lower at Rs 158.1 crore in the current year as compared to the Rs 427.1 crore in FTY-2014.
The company reported 2.7 per cent q-o-q growth in Airtel DTH customer base for Q4-2015 to 100.73 lakh from 98.1 lakh in Q3-2015. For the year, the segment reported 11.8 per cent growth in customer base from 90.12 lakh in FY-2014.
Airtel MD and CEO, India & South Asia Gopal Vittal said, “The year has ended on a healthy note, with revenue growth accelerating to 12.1 per cent in FY 2014-15, from 9.9 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively in the previous two years. Once again, the 20,000 – strong Airtel family has stood together to deliver these results. Airtel is spearheading the country’s digital agenda with substantial investments in the Internet space. The cumulative investment of Rs 68,000 crore in spectrum is a reflection of our commitment to the cause of a Digital India, and our belief in the potential of the exciting opportunity.”
Overall, Airtel’s consolidated revenues for Q4-2015 at Rs 23,016 crore grew by 3.6 per cent over the corresponding quarter last year. Improved operational efficiency has resulted in consolidated net income growing by 30.5 per cent y-o-y to Rs 1,255 crore says the company.
Annual consolidated revenues at Rs 92,039 crore grew by 7.3 per cent over the previous year, led by robust top line growth in India. Airtel informs that net income for the year grew by 86.9 per cent to Rs 5,183 crore despite higher forex losses of Rs 2,153 crore (FY-2014 forex loss – Rs 1,242 crore).
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.
