DTH
Singh panel report: no speedy impact on DTH
NEW DELHI: The recommendations of the NK Singh panel on FDI that the media cap of 20 per cent in a DTH venture should be hiked to 49 per cent is highly unlikely to have any immediate impact on the proposed plans of those players – Rupert Murdoch and Subhash Chandra – interested in entering the KU-band DTH TV service sector in India.
According to broadcasting industry observers, the reason that such recommendations would not have an immediate is impact because the government will take its own sweet time in accepting the suggestion and subsequently directing the various departments and organizations to act on the suggestions.
But it has been accepted by the industry that certain sections of the government – NK Singh is with the Planning Commission, which is a government body – have at least acknowledged the fact that mere policies would not attract private players , specially FDI. The case of DTH is an example. The policy was announced late 2000, but till date no player has even firmed up its plans to enter this sector.
The Planning Commission had earlier also observed that the media cap of 20 per cent in a DTH venture should be relaxed and the policy guidelines relaxed as the whole policy had failed to create any sign if life in this sector. Apart from saying that the ministry was looking into the suggestion, information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj or the government has done precious little in this regard.
Even if everything is hunky-dory and the government gives all necessary permissions in a jiffy, after having co-opting suggestions on relaxation in FDI caps in a DTH venture, the final okay can come only sometime in the fourth quarter of this calendar year, industry experts have opined.
Even with relaxed FDI norms, a DTH venture will still need Indian partners who have an appetite for pretty investments in a venture where the gestation period is long.
Coupled with other things which need to be put in place, even Star, probably, cannot start a DTH venture before the first quarter of 2004. If work is done at a break-neck speed, the DTH venture may get off the ground sometime during the last quarter of 2003.
A typical DTH venture will need investment between $ 400 – 500 million and various studies undertaken in India have indicated that any company starting a DTH venture in India would be fortunate if it manages to corner a couple of million subscribers with three years. Considering the investment involved and the slow pace of cobbling together a decent subscriber base, a DTH venture will take that much long to even reach the level of operational profits.
Though Star executives can raise a toast to the positive recommendations of the NK Singh panels, it is Subhash Chandra and his satellite company that has to be watched where DTH is concerned.
ASC Enterprises Ltd, implementing the Agrani satellite project, is one of the two applicants that have sought permission for a DTH venture from the government. The other is Space TV, an affiliate of Star India Ltd.
Though sources in ASC Enterprises Ltd today told indiantelevision.com that the Singh panel report does not have any immediate bearing on the company’s plans, Star sources indicated that it is a positive step forward, but lot more needs to be done and clarified.
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.
