DTH
IBM study predicts 23 per cent rise in new media sales
MUMBAI: The sales of media on the internet and cellphones are expected to rise 23 per cent over the next four years, according to a IBM study. The upsurge is largely driven by TV networks and film studios putting more of their content online.
IBM researchers estimated new media sales to grow at nearly five times the rate of traditional media. The biggest surge, they claim will come from the internet syndication of professionally produced programming, which is expected to jump 33 per cent to $25 billion.
The research cites examples of Walt Disney Co. offering episodes of hit prime-time shows “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” for free on ABC.com and Sony Corp. offering a Star Wars-themed multiplayer game on its Web site.
The IBM report comes in the wake of Google Inc.’s stalled talks with U.S. television networks to provide TV show programming to online video service YouTube.
Media companies like Viacom Inc. and General Electric’s NBC Universal are making their programming more widely available on the Internet, but have failed to land distribution deals with YouTube over deal terms and copyright concerns.
Viacom in early February demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips from the service.
Still, the internet syndication of traditional media companies’ programming will be a small part of the estimated $655 billion of annual media revenue in 2010.
The IBM report estimated the music industry will have lost a staggering $85 billion to $160 billion in revenue between 1999 through 2010. It also concluded that the music industry will have to sort out the legal fights regarding use of digital media.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” according to the report’s findings.The growth rates are on a compounded annual growth basis.”We’re not moving from black and white to color TV — from one steady state to another,” said IBM’s global media and entertainment strategy leader in an interview to the media last week.”We’re moving from an era of stability to an era of constant change.”
Growth rates are higher for new media businesses, but traditional media sales will still play the biggest role with estimated annual sales growth of 5 percent to $340 billion by 2010.
So called “walled communities,” or networks such as cellphone and cable networks that offer viewer-created programming and revenue from cable and satellite subscriptions and advertising, will rise by 10 percent to $240 billion by 2010.
‘New platform aggregators’ such as YouTube and MySpace, are expected to rise by 16 percent to $50 billion.
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.
