DTH
Broadcasters discuss investment caps with Reddy
NEW DELHI: The present Congress-led coalition Indian government has an “open mind” on news on FM radio and foreign investment cap in news and DTH ventures. However, it is not in a hurry to revisit any existing guidelines on these issues.
This was the broad message that information and broadcasting minister S Jaipal Reddy conveyed to the members of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), an apex body of broadcasting companies operating in India, during an informal interaction over dinner here yesterday.
Though the issue of foreign investment cap in direct-to-home (DTH) and news ventures were brought up by some members of the IBF, which is a divided house on these two matters, at least, Reddy made it clear that in matters relating to media laws, India need not be guided by examples of any particular country.
“We have an open mind (on issues relating to foreign investment caps in media). However, if someone has any particular suggestion in this regard, he is welcome to submit them to the ministry,” Reddy is said to have conveyed to IBF members.
The minister, according to some of those present during the dinner, also directed one of his bureaucrats to compile – how many times such an exercise would be undertaken? – media ownership and cross-service laws of various countries like the UK, US, Australia and Japan so that India can have the best of the world.
Those who were present at the dinner included I&B ministry officials, senior representatives of Doordarshan, All India Radio, Sahara TV, Star India, Zee Telefilms, Enadu and IBF executives. Interestingly, Star News president Ravina Raj Kohli, who is said to have put in her papers, according to
reports in a certain section of the media, was also in attendance.
Another issue that was brought up by IBF members during the interaction with the I&B minister, who still seems to be in a “learning” mode, was that of service tax and how a certain leading FMCG company has been steadfastly resisting inclusion of service tax in the release order for advertisements.
Reddy’s intervention was also sought in the matter of high customs duty on import of broadcast equipment, which, according to some, adds to the high investment levels in the broadcast and cable industry.
It was also pointed out to the minister that the difference in customs duties in the telecom and broadcast sectors was sizeable and that both the sectors should be brought at par. Especially when broadcast and cable services have been redesignated as telecom services after a notification to this effect was issued by the previous government while making Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) the sector regulator.
At present, while imports of telecom equipment attract customs duty of around 5 per cent, those for the broadcasting sector range between 20-30 per cent.
Reddy did not make promises, but said he would discuss these taxation issues with his “friend (PC) Chidambaram,” the finance minister.
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.
