DTH
Dishtv, Tata Sky plan schemes for World Cup
MUMBAI: DTH service providers Dishtv and Tata Sky will use the upcoming cricket World Cup to entice their viewers and increase subscription numbers.
Dishtv has come out with a World Cup For Free offer. It has come out with a special world cup promotional pack at Rs 3990, all inclusive with six months subscription free. This also includes dishtv’s sports active services free for the same six-month period. The offer is being introduced by the dishtv mascot who entices the viewer with his histrionics and invites them to this unique experience only on dishtv.
Dishtv is positioning itself as offering active services that enable a better than stadium experience for the viewer. Besides digital picture quality and stereophonic sound, viewers will have value added controls.
The matches can be viewed with multi-camera angles. Subscribers can watch a match through three different camera angles – the main feed, the square leg and the third which will be a mix of stump cam/high wide shot.
Language Feed: The dish subscriber will have the opportunity to hear the commentary from a choice of five languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali along with a live stadium ambient sound.
Highlights: Match highlights, i.e. all wickets and key shots like – 4’s, 6’s will be available to the dishtv viewers at the press of a button whenever they want
Statistics: The dishtv subscriber will have access to a stupendous Amount of cricketing data like team line ups, score cards, in-depth history of the players, their past records and so on again on their TV screens merely at the touch of a button.
The firm says that subscribers will get the Sports Active services at no extra cost that would otherwise cost Rs. 25 per month.
Dishtv CEO Arun Kumar Kapoor says, “Cricket is like religion in our country and the Cricket World Cup being the biggest opportunity to delight the consumers. With the advent
of active services and new consumer offers available in the market, the subscribers have a win win situation. dishtv has always worked towards maximising its viewer’s delight and will continue to do so”.
Commenting on the caricature launched by, dishtv to flag off the World Cup campaign, dishtv VP marketing Anjali Malhotra says, “The mascot lends a face to the brand that is warm, consumer friendly and trustworthy. Moreover he seems to simplify an otherwise perceived technology product apart from adding an element of fun to our communication as we are but, an entertainment provider to Indian homes. We are sure that the consumers will warm up to him.”
As far as Tata Sky is concerned the company’s MD and CEO Vikram Kaushik says, “Tata Sky is offering free subscription for three months and has roped in actor Hrithik Roshan for its new marketing campaign.”
He explains that as part of this campaign select viewers who have subscribed before 15 April will get to watch the World Cup final match with him. In adition the company is extending the free pricing policy to the second, third and fourth television set within a consumer’s household.
“The new marketing campaign is a step to reach one-million subscriber base by the end of this year. We expect phenomenal subscription during the World Cup.”
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.
