DTH
DD’s DTH targets 1 mn subscribers by end-2005
NEW DLHI: A delay in the formal launch — or dedication to the nation, as Prasar Bharati would like to put it — of pubcaster Doodrashan’s DTH service notwithstanding, it is going ahead with great gusto and marketing the service to subscribers.
“Some 200,000 (set-top) boxes have already been sold and we are targeting a million subscribers by the end of 2005,” Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma told indiantelevision.com today.
DD Direct Plus, as the KU-band service is known as, is, probably, a unique experiment undertaken by a media company. For the first two years or so, beyond a one-time investment of approximately Rs 2,500, a subscriber would have to pay nothing.
According to Sarma, the feedback from dealers of set-top boxes in recent times has been encouraging. Demand for the boxes for this free DTH service has increased with the addition of some private satellite channels.
Private sector TV channels that are being carried by DD Direct Plus include Zee Music, Smile TV and ETC Punjabi (from the Zee stable), Sun TV, Kairali TV, CNN, BBC, Star Utsav, Aaj Tak and Headlines Today, amongst the 30-odd channels being part of the service at the moment, according to Sarma.
“We are optimistic that we would be able to meet our target of one million subscribers by end 2005,” Sarma said, adding that the demand is building up because it’s a free service, unlike an existing service, Dish TV, which is 20 per cent owned by Zee Telefilms.
For example, in South India, the price of boxes were jacked up by dealers to about Rs. 3,500 as demand upped with the surfacing of South Indian language channels like Sun TV.
If Prasar Bharati’s assertions are to be taken on its face value, then DD Direct Plus has notched up more subscribers in about 75 days than what Dish TV has managed to do since its launch in October 2003. Dish TV’s claimed present subscriber base is approximately 160,000.
Though DD’s DTH service is primarily aimed at those places where cable or terrestrial TV’s penetration is low, it is banking heavily on the inclusion of private sector channels, especially the popular entertainment ones (like Star Plus, Sony, Sahara One and Zee TV) on the platform, which has not happened as of yet.
But DD is optimistic that a proposed initiative of the sector regulator would help it net most private sector channels on its DTH platform. At the moment, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is in the process of fine-tuning the interconnect regulations, which envisage a controversial clause on making available all TV channels to all types of platforms on a non-discriminatory basis.
Industry sources point out that this particular clause is designed to help DD more than anybody else as it would necessarily mean all pay channels also being made available to a free non-encrypted DTH service — a scenario that hasn’t gone down too well with pay broadcasters who have been lobbying hard against the clause likely to be finalized before the commencement of next session of Parliament that begins from first week of December.
However, industry sources also point out, DD has become the first defaulter of the must-provide clause being debated as part of the interconnect regulations by Trai. The moment DD bagged the telecast rights of some of the cricket matches played in India last month, it sent a missive to Dish TV asking it to discontinue showing DD channels telecasting cricket. Dish TV complied with DD’s request, but not before expressing to Trai its concern over this development.
There are over 900 dealers in 212 cities and towns attempting to push STBs for DD Direct Plus. A basic box for the costs approximately Rs 2,500 (slightly over $ 54) and can access all free to air channels without the help of any smart card.
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.
