DTH
Q2-16: DISH Network reports 27% profit hike, loses 281K pay-TV subscribers
BENGALURU: DISH Network Corp. (DISH) reported 26.52 percent increase in its net profit for the quarter ended 30 June 2016 (Q2-16, current quarter) at $ 410.46 million as compared to $ 324.42 million in the corresponding year ago quarter. Despite activating approximately 527,000 gross new pay-TV subscribers, net pay-TV subscribers declined approximately 281,000 in Q2-16. Comparatively, in Q2-15 approximately 638,000 gross new pay-TV subscribers were added with a net loss of approximately 81,000 pay-TV subscribers.
DISH reported almost flat revenue (grew by 0.12 percent) in the current quarter of $ 3,837.04 million as compared to revenue of $ 3,832.29 million in Q2-15. Subscriber related revenue in Q2-16 grew 0.7 percent to $3,826.22 million as compared to $3,801.42 million in Q2-15.
EBIDTA in Q2-16 declined slightly (2.7 percent) to $ 899.54 million from $ 924.45 million in the corresponding year ago quarter.
Subscribers, ARPU, SAC
The company closed Q2-16 with 13.593 million pay-TV subscribers, compared to 13.932 million pay-TV subscribers at the end Q2-2015.
DISH lost approximately 15,000 net broadband subscribers in the second quarter, bringing its broadband subscriber base to approximately 613,000.
Pay-TV ARPU for Q2-16 totalled $89.98, compared to Q2-2015 pay-TV ARPU of $ 87.91. Pay-TV subscriber churn rate in the current quarter was higher at 1.96 percent versus 1.71 percent for Q2-2015.
Pay-TV subscriber acquisition cost (SAC) in Q2-16 was $353.08 million as compared to $ 405.70 million in Q2-15. Pay-TV SAC was $782 per subscriber during Q2-16 compared to $767 during Q2-15 an increase of $15 or 1.9 percent.
DISH says that this change was primarily attributable to an increase in advertising costs per activation, partially offset by a decrease in hardware costs per activation. The decrease in hardware costs per activation was primarily due to a higher percentage of remanufactured receivers being activated on new DISH branded pay-TV subscriber accounts and by a reduction in manufacturing costs related to certain receiver systems. This decrease was partially offset by an increase in the percentage of new DISH branded pay-TV subscriber activations with Hopper 3 receiver systems, which have a higher cost per unit than the prior generation Hopper receiver systems.
Notes
It may be noted that DISH includes all of its Sling TV subscribers in the company’s total pay-TV metrics, including in the pay-TV subscriber, pay-TV ARPU and pay-TV churn rate numbers set forth below. Sling TV subscribers are reported net of disconnects in DISH’s gross new pay-TV subscriber activations. The Sling branded pay-TV services consist of, among other things, live, linear streaming over-the-top (OTT) internet-based domestic, international and Latino video programming services.
DISH markets broadband services under the dishNET™ brand in the United States. In addition to the dishNET branded satellite broadband service, DISH also offers wireline voice and broadband services under the dishNET brand as a competitive local exchange carrier primarily to consumers living in a 14-state region in the western United States. It primarily bundles dishNET branded services with its DISH branded pay-TV service.
During Q1-2016 DISH made its next generation Hopper, the Hopper 3, availableto customers nationwide. Among other things, the Hopper 3 features 16 tuners, delivers an enhanced 4K Ultra HD experience, and supports up to seven TVs simultaneously says the company.
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.
