DTH
Involve MIB in transponder allocation to DTH, says House panel
NEW DELHI: The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has expressed that no meeting of the INSAT Coordination Committee (ICC) has taken place despite the fact that leasing of transponders to direct-to-home operators involved the information and broadcasting ministry as much as it concerned the Department of Space.
In its action-taken report relating to its fortieth (2016) report on the subject, it has said that interactions, even if formal, between officials of DoS and MIB during the said period is entirely different from that of a decision taken in the meeting of ICC consisting of secretary-level officers of the concerned Departments as stipulated under SATCOM Policy.
The Committee, while finding no merit in the DoS contention that it acted based on the “delegated powers” of ICC, said the Department cannot overrule the norms prescribed in SATCOM Policy.
The Committee, therefore, reiterated its earlier observation that DoS did not follow the prescribed procedure and exceeded its sphere by taking unilateral decisions bypassing the mechanism on issues which were beyond its mandate and wanted to be apprised whether any punitive action has been taken in this regard.
At the same time, the Committee regretted that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had failed to give its action taken reply on the observation of the Committee last year, and reiterate its earlier recommendation that all the stakeholders be involved in the sound planning and judicious decision for allocation of transponder capacity, paving way for a more transparent approach which would help in re-building of trust and faith of DTH service providers in the DoS and the Ministry.
The Committee while noting from the reply of the DoS that the ICC meetings are being regularly convened as and when required wanted to be apprised of the total number of meetings held after 2011 and the capacity earmarked by the ICC for allocation to non-governmental users.
The Committee observed from the reply of the DoS that MIB is a member of the ICC and fully aware of the formal mechanism as part of the deliberation in the 67th meeting of the ICC that “all applications for TV uplinking and space segment requirements are being forwarded to DoS for clearance before licenses are issued”. The Committee was of the ‘considered view’ that forwarding of all applications for clearance is again different from allocating satellite capacity without earmarking for non-governmental users by the ICC.
The Committee highlighted that since DTH was a broadcasting service, it came directly under the purview of MIB as it was responsible for all matters relating to broadcasting in the country. According to the SATCOM policy, all allocations were made by DoS with the approval of the ICC. Being a· member of the ICC, MIB was also involved in satellite capacity allocation. Since the ICC was not convened, MIB and other members were inadvertently left out of the decision making process. The Committee was “shocked to note the lackadaisical approach of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting as it remained a mute spectator while DoS was flouting norms by directly allocating satellite capacities and the MIB even did not bother to intervene for convening the ICC of which it was a member”.
The Committee was of the view that it was high time that the different wings of the Government be proactive in their approach and keeping in view the national interest, coordinate properly for taking decisions which were crucial both commercially and strategically.
The Committee recommended that the Ministry as well as DoS make sincere and concerted efforts to convene the ICC meetings regularly so that all the relevant stakeholders were involved in the sound planning for allocation of transponder capacity thereby paving way for a more transparent approach which could help in re building of trust and faith of DTH service providers in the DOS and the Ministry.
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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.
