DTH
Online video streaming increasingly being used by TV viewers to play catch up: NBC Study
MUMBAI: NBC.com has released new research on its NBC Rewind streaming video player. 78 per cent of its online users have watched an episode they had missed on broadcast television, expanding the reach of NBC Entertainment programming on the Net.
Further, 26 per cent have re-watched an episode after watching the broadcast and 34 per cent used the online player to watch a show they had never seen before. In addition, Rewind users built upon NBC Primetime’s already upscale audience by skewing younger, more male and higher educated than average television and internet audiences.
NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, digital content, cross network strategy president Jeff Gaspin says, “Our viewers responded strongly to the streaming video on our site. Contrary to conventional wisdom, consumers are ready to watch long-form entertainment on the web and we plan on making more available. We’re especially encouraged by this research and believe that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg on this new platform.”
Since NBC Rewind’s debut on October 1, 2006, 6.9 million unique users have streamed nearly 42 million full-episode videos. The average time spent per visit in December 2006 averaged 35 minutes for NBC Rewind — the third straight month the figure had increased. Usage of NBC Rewind helped make NBC.com the number one broadcast network website in December 2006 and the third ranking television site overall, behind AOL TV and MSN TV and ahead of Yahoo!TV and ABC.com, according to comScore Media Metrix.
From an advertising perspective, 81 per cent recall the pre-roll ads after two or more exposures. And 72 per cent agree that Rewind ads are less disruptive than traditional advertising while over 40 per cent agree that ads are easy to remember, seamlessly integrated and caught their attention.
More than 60 per cent of users always watch the full episode when viewing in on Rewind.
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.
