DTH
DTH operators lost 0.97 million subscribers at the end of September 2021: Trai
Mumbai: The number of active subscribers with pay DTH operators decreased from 69.86 million at the end of June to 68.89 million by the end of September, according to the latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) data. This is in addition to the subscribers of DTH Free Dish.
The top four DTH players are Tata Sky with 33.34 per cent, followed by Bharti Telemedia at 26.11 per cent, Dish TV India at 22.65 per cent and Sun Direct at 17.91 per cent. Bharti Telemedia and Sun Direct’s share increased whereas Tata Sky and Dish TV India’s share decreased over the previous quarter.
The total number of private satellite TV channels decreased from 915 in the previous quarter to 906 channels for uplinking only, downlinking only and both uplinking and downlinking. The number of pay TV channels increased from 346 to 348 which include 252 SD and 96 HD satellite pay TV channels.
There are 1745 multi-system operators registered with the I&B ministry out of which 12 MSOs and one Hits (headend-in-the-sky) operator have a subscriber base greater than one million.
The number of internet subscribers increased from 833.71 million to 834.29 million out of which 794.88 million were broadband subscribers and 39.41 million were narrowband subscribers. Wired internet subscribers increased from 23.58 million to 24.47 million. Out of total internet subscribers, 96.91 per cent are using mobile devices to access the internet.
The total number of VSAT subscribers increased from 289,392 to 289,557 quarter on quarter. Hughes Communications continues to be the market leader with 45.84 per cent share in VSAT with a subscriber base of 132,727 followed by Nelco at 75,535. Hughes added the maximum number of VSAT subscribers (3003) during the quarter. Bharti Airtel, BSNL and Infotel Satcom have registered a decline in their VSAT subscribers during the quarter. It should be noted that Hughes Communications and Bharti Airtel have combined the VSAT businesses of both companies in a new joint venture announced recently.
The average revenue per user of wireless subscribers in September stood at Rs 108.16 with revenue from data usage at Rs 97.36.
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.
