DTH
Q3-2016: Videocon d2h YoY revenue up 22% on subscriber additions, higher ARPU
BENGALURU: Videocon d2h Limited reported 14.8 per cent YoY increase in net subscriber additions and 8.2 per cent YoY growth in ARPU for the quarter ended 31 December, 2015 (Q3-2016, current quarter). The company’s revenue from operations (TIO) increased 21.6 per cent YoY to Rs 731.49 crore in Q3-2016 as compared to Rs 601.53 crore. Subscriber addition brings in higher activation revenue.
The company achieved strong subscription and activation YoY revenue growth of 26 per cent at Rs 665 crore as compared to Rs 527.9 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter.
Videocon d2h added 6.7 lakh gross subscribers and 4.3 lakh net subscribers during the quarter. Gross subscribers totalled 149.5 lakh and net subscribers totalled 112.7 lakh as of 31 December, 2015. The company says that monthly churn came in at 0.73 per cent for the quarter and 0.80 per cent for the nine months ending 31 December, 2015, which was marginally ahead of the company guidance.
Note: 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10 million = 1 crore.
Average revenue per user (ARPU) in Q3-2016 increased 8.2 per cent to Rs 211 as compared to Rs 195 in Q3-2015 and increased 2.9 per cent as compared to Rs 205 in Q2-2016.
Videocon d2h reported 42.2 per cent YoY growth in adjusted EBITDA at Rs 201 crore for Q3- 2016 compared to Rs 141 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter. Net loss for the quarter declined to Rs 22.05 crore as compared to the net loss of Rs 79.8 crore in Q3-2015.
Videocon d2h executive chairman Saurabh Dhoot said, “I am delighted the company reported EBITDA growth of over 42 per cent in the quarter compared to last year. This is a result of strong subscriber and ARPU growth and our continued focus on margin improvement, in line with our expectations. We believe we are amongst the fastest growing media companies in the world delivering exceptional performance quarter after quarter. During the quarter, we continued to strengthen our content offering and added new channels on our platform. We recently added two transponders ahead of schedule. This further strengthens our content offering, which is one of our key competitive advantages. With this additional bandwidth we will continue to add more regional and HD channels to our platform in times to come.”
Speaking on the Phase III digitisation implementation, Videocon d2h CEO Anil Khera said, “Phase III digitisation has begun. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting maintained their deadline and instructed broadcasters to switch off analogue signals in Phase III digitisation areas. In the first few days of January 2016, we saw strong pick up in subscriber additions in cities that come under Phase III digitisation. Recently, a few state high courts issued a stay order on implementation of Phase III digitisation for one – three months. This was in line with our expectations of the digitisation being a staggered process.”
“We estimate around 50 million television homes come under Phase III digitisation, of which 24-25 million television homes are already on the digital platform. Thus, the target market under Phase III digitisation is the remaining 25-26 million television homes that are currently on analog cable,” he added.
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.
