DTH
‘Demand-driven’ communication satellite GSAT-24 launched; capacity leased to Tata Play
Mumbai: NewSpace India (NSIL) on Thursday successfully launched GSAT-24 in its first “demand-driven” communication satellite mission post space sector reforms, leasing the entire capacity on board to direct-to-home (DTH) service Tata Play, as per a news agency report.
The 24 Ku-band communication satellite was built by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for NSIL. It will provide pan-India coverage to meet DTH application needs, stated the report.
The satellite was launched by French company Arianespace in French Guiana (South America).
As part of the space reforms announced by the government in June 2020, NSIL incorporated in March 2019, was mandated to undertake operational satellite missions on a “demand-driven” model, wherein it had the responsibility to build, launch, own and operate satellites and provide services to its committed customer.
GSAT-24 is configured on ISRO’s proven I-3k Bus with a mission life of 15 years.
“Demand-driven” mode basically means when a satellite is launched, one will know who the end customers are going to be and what’s the kind of utilisation and commitment so that you have very effective utilisation of this satellite capacity once it goes into orbit,” the news report said qouting an NSIL official.
“Earlier the mode was supply driven, with capacity being leased after the launch with largely no firm commitment by customers beforehand,” the official added.
“The entire mission including satellite, satellite launch, launch campaign, insurance, in-orbit maintenance, transformation and support is fully funded by NSIL. Once the satellite is in orbit it will be fully funded and owned by NSIL,” NSIL chairman & managing director Radhakrishnan Durairaj also opined in the report.
Post the successful launch of GSAT-24, NSIL would own and operate 11 communication satellites in-orbit and meet the bulk of the communication needs of the country.
NSIL is the commercial arm of ISRO and a public sector undertaking by the Government of India.
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.
