DTH
Dish TV announces first weekly lucky draw winner of ‘Dish Ki Diwali’ campaign
India: Dish TV has announced the first Weekly Lucky draw winner of its festive ‘Dish Ki Diwali’ campaign, which is lighting up the festive season for one crore families with assured gifts. Mr. Narendra Singh Dodia, from Rajsamand, a city located in the Mewar district of Rajasthan, has won a brand-new TVS Jupiter Scooter in the first weekly lucky draw, making this Diwali extra special for him and his family.
The ‘Dish Ki Diwali’ campaign started a few days ago and has received participation from across India. It offers exciting rewards for all Dish TV ,D2H and Zing customers. New subscribers can enjoy huge cashbacks and a one-month OTT subscription via the Watcho Max Plan. They are also eligible for weekly and bumper lucky draws with prizes like cars and more at the end of the campaign. Existing customers can win the Watcho Max Plan as an assured gift by simply recharging their accounts and will also be entered into the Weekly Lucky draw and Bumper Lucky draw.
Narendra Singh Dodia is a small-scale businessman who manufactures mithai boxes for delivery throughout Rajasthan. Speaking on his win, Narendra Singh Dodia, said, “I’m so happy to win the TVS Jupiter Scooter through Dish TV’s Diwali campaign – Dish ki Diwali Assured Gifts Waali! It’s something I always wanted, and I can’t believe I won. This has made our Diwali truly special and unforgettable. It’s great to see that brands like Dish TV are thinking about their customers and doing things that bring happiness into our lives. It’s wonderful when companies go the extra mile to bring joy to their customers. My family and I will always remember this Diwali because of this amazing gift. I’m excited to take them for a ride and enjoy this moment together. We’ve been with Dish TV for years, and this just makes it even better!”
Dish TV India Ltd zonal business head North, Amit Bhasin said, “Our ‘Dish Ki Diwali’ campaign is designed to bring joy to every customer connected with us. By recharging their connection with a minimum of ₹100, purchasing a new connection, or upgrading to our new setup box, customers are guaranteed an assured gift of our Watcho Max Plan. Additionally, we’re hosting weekly lucky draws, offering prizes such as scooters, android phones, microwaves, air fryers, TVs, and more, with draws happening five times. At the end of the campaign, we will culminate with a bumper lucky draw featuring spectacular prizes, including cars, bikes, TVs, washing machines, and much more. Our vision is to celebrate this festive season by enhancing family connections and spreading happiness across the nation.”
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.
