DTH
Insat-4C for Sun’s DTH in April; Isro also plans first commercial launch
MUMBAI: Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is planning to launch Insat -4C in April, the satellite which Sun Group has booked for its direct-to-home (DTH) venture. The organisation will also conduct its first commercial launch of a foreign satellite in the second quarter of 2006.
“We are planning for the GSLV launch in April, which will carry Insat-4 C for augmenting DTH technology in the country,” Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram today on the sidelines of the national workshop on “Space Applications for Mankind”, organised by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.
Sun Group has expressed interest to take up to eight Ku-band transponders on Insat-4C. Speaking to indiantelevision.com from Bangalore, Isro contract management & legal services director SB Iyer said the rest of the total 12 Ku-band transponders in Insat-4 C would be shared between BSNL for village telephony and few news channels for digital satellite news gathering (DSNG). “BSNL will require a minimum of 2 transponders. The final allocation will depend upon how many transponders Sun decides to take,” he said.
Isro will foray into the commercial satellite business with the launch of the Italian low orbit scientific satellite “Agile” to outer space aboard PSLV C-8. Speaking about the maiden commercial initiative, Nair said India’s launch vehicles were cost-effective. “It will be a great opportunity if Isro can capture at least 10 per cent in the satellite launch business worth $ 2 billion in the international market,” he said.
India’s successful testing of an ‘air-breathing’ engine technology in Russia for 10 seconds at ground level has significantly reduced the cost of launch vehicles. Rockets now carry fuel and oxidisers, whereas for air-breathing engines using hypersonic technology, lesser quantity of oxidisers is required.
By the time GSLV Mk-3, which could carry a 4 tonne payload, was launched in 2008, the cost of access to space could be reduced to USD 10,000 per kg of payload. According to Nair, the launch technology would be commercially feasible if the cost was reduced to USD 1000 per kg of payload. The PSLV and GSLV rockets would be launched from the first and second launch pads at Sriharikota respectively.
Iyer, in an earlier interview to this website, had revealed Isro’s plans to enter into a niche market segment with launch of foreign small satellites having six-capacity Ku-band transponders from India.
“This is aimed specifically at the developing countries. In many countries like Malaysia and Thailand, there is a demand for such satellites. A part of the capacity augmentation will be through launch of such small transponder satellites. The satellites will be launched from India. We will be able to tap customers who have need for limited capacity,” he had said.
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.
