DTH
Digitalisation: Lack of exclusive content a hurdle
MUMBAI: With no exclusivity how is the switch to digital going to accelerate? “Work with what is available and offer the same content pitched on quality of service and creative and unique packaging of content, my dear fellow.”
That about paraphrases the general tenor of the discussion during the session afternoon session ‘Sizing up the promise of digital’ at the India Television Summit’ had the panelists (Reliance Infocomm President Prakash Bajpai, Tandberg Television Business Manager Simon Cothliff, Hathway CEO K Jayaraman, Tata Sky CEO Vikram Kaushik, Dish TV CEO Sunil Khanna, Indusind Exec Director Ashok Mansukhani and NDS AsiaPac GM Sue Taylor) discuss the various challenges and opportunities that content distributors faced and whether and how technology would help address them.
Among the points that came across were that the consumer is not overly concerned with what access technology is used, what is important is the content, the way it is packaged and how and when it is made available that matters.
Talking on various delivery pipes, Reliance’s Bajpai pointed out that there were several different ways of going about it but admitted that the Indian market reality was that it was an extremely difficult proposition, whichever route was adopted.
Bajpai touched upon broadband, 4gen Wimax, power Lines (through BSES), pipes getting bigger, content getting smarter, among other things.
Questioned about Reliance’s own DTH plans, Bajpai admitted that there were some ideas on the table but more in the concept stage at present. What Bajpai emphasized on was that “There is no one single format that we are going with. Addressing different market segments with different formats (is our gameplan).”
Speaking about the experience of Dish TV in rolling out its services, Sunil Khanna made an interesting observation. Which was that the Doordarshan’s efforts at educating the public about its DTH offering DD Direct Plus also gave a significant push to Dish TV’s own uptake of subscriptions. An indication of the largely unleveraged power the national broadcaster has at its disposal.
Hathway’s Jayaram pointed out that one major impediment for MSOs to digital in the absence of CAS was that one could not offer exclusive niche content, so there was no real differentiator in terms of content to what was available via analogue.
Hinduja TMT’s Ashok Mansukhani in amnner of speaking threw the gauntlet at wannabe DTH operators by asserting, “I think that cable will grow and will grow more. There are still 60 million more (homes) to reach out to. Cable will rule the waves for the next 10 years at least.”
Jayram, however, saw DTH entry as a trigger that would make the cable frat make the switch to digital as a mechanism to confront the competion the new delivery medium offered. “Personally at Hathaway we feel that DTH will take off well,” said Jayaraman.
Meanwhile, Tata Sky’s Vikram Kaushik said, “I think DTH will be an attempt at a structured change in the Indian media environment. We need to be modest in our expectations though – and expect more in the medium and long term rather than short term.”
“We need to be basic here. TV is about entertainment. There has been no innovation in the past 20 years in which people get that entertainment. That entertainment has to be made more entertaining with interactivity to enable more possibilities.
“Rather than a fine niche, we need to provide better entertainment at better costs to a mass audience.”
According to Kaushik, “The inherent advantages that DTH offered would be choice, control and interactivity.”
NDS’ Sue Taylor commented, “Costs of customer acquisition are too high, interactivity helps in retention. PVR is a global trend and will come into India sooner than later.”
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.
