DTH
FreeDish goes for second auction in May
NEW DELHI: After bagging three new general entertainment channels earlier this month, Doordarshan is all set for the 35th e-auction for its DTH platform FreeDish next week, thus marking the first time when a second e-auction is being held within the same month.
The e-auction confined to only non-news and current affairs channels is set for 25 May 2017 will have a reserve price of Rs 80 million as in the e-auction held on 9 May when Sony Wah, Zee Anmol Cinema, and 9X Jalwa successfully bid to come on the platform. Each bid came at the reserve price, Rs 80 million. The Parliament was informed earlier last month that Doordarshan’s DTH platform was soon getting approval to increase this capacity to 250 channels over the next two years.
But, DD got a jolt last month when its 33rd e-auction slated for 11 April could not be held. Although there was no official confirmation, indiantelevision.com learnt that FreeDish auction could not be held because there were no applicants. After final trials of MPEG4 and the success of the 32nd auction in February, the reserve price for the next auction has been raised to Rs 80 million from Rs 48 million per slot.
Until last year, the reserve price was Rs 43 million but one channel fetched the bid of Rs 70 million in the auction held on 14 February 2017.
Earlier last year, the price for one channel went up to Rs 53 million and gave DD the confidence to raise the price which had been Rs 37 million till 2015 but was raised to Rs 43 million for the 25th e-auction in January 2016.
The e-Auction will be conducted by M/s. C1 India Pvt. Ltd., Noida which also conducted the FM Radio Phase III auctions on behalf of Prasar Bharati.
The participation amount (EMD) in the e-Auction is Rs.28 million – up from Rs 15 million – which has to be deposited in advance before or by 12 noon on the date of auction along with processing fee of Rs.25,000 (non-refundable, up from Rs 10,000) in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service, New Delhi.
Incremental amount for the auction will be Rs One Million and the time for every slot e-auction will be of fifteen minutes duration. This may be extended by five minutes if a bid is received before the closing time.
Unsuccessful bidders will get back the participation amount of Rs 28 million within three weeks of the results.
However, Doordarshan has changed its payment regimen and made it stricter.
The first installment of 25 per cent of the bid price with the applicable service tax will have to be paid within one month from date of placement of channel.
The second installment of 25 per cent of the total bid price along with the applicable service tax will have to be paid within four months of placement of channel.
The third installment of remaining amount after adjusting the participation fee and previous installments but adding the applicable service tax will be deposited within seven months of placement of channel.
If any of the installments is not paid in time, a penal interest of 14.5 per cent per annum will be levied.
If there is failure in depositing an installment for two months, the deposited participation amount along with any installment paid will be forfeited and the channel discontinued after a 21-day discontinuation notice.
Doordarshan had in October last year formally announced that FreeDish was capable of carrying 104 television channels and 24 channels would be added to the existing 80 channels after the launch of MPEG4 technology.
In line with the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’, DD has implemented Indian CAS (iCAS) on DD FreeDish Platform. iCAS (which is an initiative of the central government) was introduced in the auction held last month. The introduction of iCAS will provide enhanced viewing experience.
DD officials said the existing viewers will continue to get 80 SDTV channels and 32 radio channels, but will have to obtain iCAS-enabled authorized set-top boxes for accessing all new channels.
Although Free Dish will remain free-to-air with no monthly or periodic fee, the viewers will be required to register with DD FreeDish on getting the new STB from Doordarshan authorized STB dealers.
DD officials said implementation of iCAS and authorisation of STB original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) by Doordarshan will give a major thrust to ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’. At present, a majority of STBs are imported. However, the introduction of iCAS will help in standardization of STBs and encourage quality STB manufacturing in India.
With analogue having been switched off, Parliament had been told that many stakeholders feel that FreeDish is the best option in Phase IV which covers rural India.
FreeDish was launched with a modest bouquet of 33 channels in December 2004, and now carries eighty TV channels and 32 radio channels. This includes 22 Doordarshan channels and two parliamentary channels, seven general entertainment channels, 18 movie channels, 13 news channels, seven music channels, three religious channels and eight channels of other genres. The All-India Radio stations also piggy-back on the platform.
Also read:
MIB favours switching to DTH if consumers have problems with MSOs or LCOs
FreeDish aims to reach 150 channels, earned Rs 3 bn in a year
DD FreeDish auction next week, reserve price is Rs 80 million
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.
