DTH
Airtel Digital TV sub base expands, even as ARPUs dip
MUMBAI: Q1 2018 ended 30 June 2017 has been a bit of a mixed bag for the Sunil Mittal headed Bharati Airtel’s DTH biz – Airtel Digital TV. Its subscriber base expanded by nine per cent to 13.3 million as compared to 12.14 million in Q1 FY 2017 ended 30 June 2016. Net customer additions were hence around 499,000. The average revenue for the quarter however dropped to Rs 228 as compared to Rs 233 in the corresponding quarter last year.
Revenues from the DTH segment grew at a slower pace of seven per cent in Q1 FY 2018 to touch Rs 897.4 crore (Rs 836.9 crore in Q1 FY 2017). EBIDTA in the latest quarter grew 10 per cent over the previous corresponding period to Rs 330 crore, even as its capex went up 31 per cent to Rs 266.1 crore (Rs 203 crore). Its operating free cash flow was down 35 per cent from Rs 98.1 crore to Rs 63.9 crore.
Bharati Airtel’s cumulative investment to date in Airtel Digital TV has spurted to Rs 7225.3 crore as compared to Rs 6693.6 crore in the previous corresponding quarter.
Cumulatively, the DTH service is contributing five per cent revenues to the telecom behemoth’s top line even as investments in the segment are at three per cent.
Says an industry observer: “Airtel Digital TV is among the three to four players who are offering a world class service at very reasonable prices to consumers. The quality of customers who may have signed on in the last quarter could be coming in from Phase III and phase IV areas of cable TV digitization (where customers have a lower propensity to pay for the premium services) or it could be that the competition is forcing it to cut its prices. But overall it has done reasonably well in a difficult year. “
Airtel Digital TV offers both standard and high definition (HD) digital TV services with 3D capabilities and Dolby surround sound. It offers a total of 590 channels including 67 HD channels, five international channels and four interactive services.
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.
