DTH
Cetma appeals for quick roll-out of CAS
NEW DELHI: Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association (Cetma), an apex body of electronics goods makers in the country, today exhorted the government to ensure a quick roll-out of conditional access system (CAS), as it would enable the viewers to pay less for their monthly cable bill.
“CAS implementation would put India on the world map of digital television – for what may probably be the largest digital roll-out in the world,” Catma secretary general Suresh Khanna said in a press release issued here.
Cetma has also appealed to the state and central governments to lessen the burden on consumers by waiving service and entertainment taxes for those who opt only for basic tier at Rs 72 (excluding local taxes) per month.
Further making a case for CAS rollout, Khanna was quoted in the statement as saying, “In the end, consumers get what they want at a reasonable rate. It is a transparent system, where by all the stakeholders – that is, the broadcasters, multi-system operators (MSOs) and cable operators get their fair share.”
Cetma had strongly lobbied for CAS when the issue was being debated last year and had also assured the then information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj that once addressability became common and demand for set-top boxes picked up, local manufacturers would be able to supply the boxes at cheap rates. The rates could be as low as Rs 1,500, they had stated.
Cetma had also given a working paper to Swaraj, who had used the data very effectively to have the necessary amendments related to CAS steam-rolled through the Parliament, last year.
Many Cetma members, notably Thomson Electronics India, have been on various panels set up for CAS and also on a panel of the Bureau of Indian Standards where the technical specifications and standards for boxes for CAS and KU-band direct-to-home (DTH) television service were discussed.
However, contrary to Cetma’s assertions, very few companies operating in India have come out with plans to manufacture the boxes locally. All of them had cited reasons of uncertainty over CAS for deferring their plans, if any.
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.
