DTH
Doordarshan’s DTH plan to cost Rs 6,380 million
NEW DELHI: Information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today told policy makers that pubcaster Doordarshan was opting for a KU-band DTH scheme at an estimated cost of Rs 6,380 million as terrestrial expansion to cover the whole population would have been much more costly, something that was first reported by indiantelevision.com some days back.
India’s pubcaster Doordarshan is setting up a KU Band transmission project at a cost of Rs 6,380 million to cover the remaining 10 per cent of population, which at present is unable to get DD transmission due to the lack of reach of the terrestrial system.
To begin with, the project would have 20 channels uplinked from Delhi. In a years time this is likely to be extended to 60 channels. All the channels would be free to air, according to Prasad, who was briefing the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry about the latest developments in the media.
According to Prasad 200,000 homes in rural, remote, inaccessible mountaineous regions and border areas would be covered by DD by providing cable head ends and set top boxes. He said, the KU band transmission will be the most cost effective option for extending coverage to the uncovered areas.
As compared to Rs 6,380 million on KU band project, the coverage through the terrestrial method would have required capital investment of Rs 34,560 million and recurring expenditure of Rs 5,190 million annually. Doordarshan is hiring 4 satellite transponders for the purpose, he said.
Prasad informed members that apart from the KU band extension, DD is extending coverage to 160 uncovered villages in the eight states of the North-East by establishing cable head ends. The headends are set up by Doordarshan to downlink the TV signals in the village. The cabling from headends to the households is also done by DD.
While DD bears the entire cost, the system is handed over to the local panchayats for its day-to-day running and maintenance with the technical assistance from DD staff. Prasad said the system has been operationalized in 44 villages and the work is nearing completion in another 43 villages. The target is to cover 16,000 households at a cost of Rs 7,150 million.
Those who attended the parliamentray panel meet included Balram Singh Yadav, Abdul Rashid Shaheen, Gandhi Azad, Balkavi Bairagi, Vijay J Darda, Kartar Singh Duggal, Ajay Maroo, Lalhmingliana, Dr Ramanaidu Daggubati and Shabana Azmi.
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.
