DTH
Arun Kapoor becomes new Dish TV CEO
MUMBAI: Dish TV India has informed Bonmbay Stock Exchange that upon the recommendation of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of the Board, the Board of Directors of the Company at their meeting held on 20 November 2015inter alia, has approved the appointment of Arun Kumar Kapoor as the Chief Executive Officer of the Company with effect from November 23, 2015.
Further, Kapoor, has also been nominated as a ‘Key Managerial Personnel’ of the Company under the applicable provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 and Listing Agreement. Kapoor was earlier CEO of Taj TV, the Zeel; groups distribution business subsidiary, a post from which he resigned in April 2015.
Dish TV India CMD Jawahar Goel, while welcoming Arun Kapoor on board said, “Arun brings a depth of business experience that will be a perfect complement to the expertise of Dish TV in the DTH industry. His business acumen will enhance our ability to deliver consumer oriented services while also increasing stake holder’s value.”
Kapoor, on his appointment as the CEO of Dish TV, said, “I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead Dish TV at this important stage in its journey and look forward to working with the Dish TV team to ensure that the Company delivers as per its strategic business objectives.”
It may be recalled that the earlier Dish TV CEO R.C. Venkateish or RC as he is called had resigned effective October 31, along with a number of personnel at Dish TV following a board meeting on October 27. The meeting also saw the elevation of managing director Jawahar Goel as Dish TV chairman, and the resignation of non-executive promoter director Subhash Chandra from the board. RC shall however continue to be associated with the company in an advisory role specifically in areas relating to content, legal and regulatory affairs. He shall also continue to represent Dish TV in the DTH Association and before industry and regulatory bodies.
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.
