DTH
Siticable to be partner for Sterling DTH TV joint venture?
Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) announced yesterday that it was setting up a DTH television joint venture with Sterling group’s C.Sivasankaran. According to sources, the actual vehicle is likely to be ZTL’s cable networking company Siticable.
The thinking within the ZTL is that since is Siticable already has its distribution infrastructure (team of people) in place, it would be better if it participates in the project.
The extent of equity is not known because the DTH notification passed last week does not permit existing broadcasters and cable TV companies from investing more than 20 per cent in DTH service provider. ZTL chairman Subhash Chandra has protested against this clause and is lobbying hard to have it changed.
I&B minister Sushma Swaraj has said that the restriction is essential to prevent the emergence of vertical monopolies in broadcasting.
One tends to believe that one has not heard the last of the joint venture; other equity partners may also be lured in. Both Chandra and Siva will have their work cut out for them giving shape to the jv as both are involved in the broadcasting business, should the government not revoke the equity restriction clause.
Yesterday, Sivasankaran, told local financial daily Business Standard: “We are happy to join forces with country’s leading content provider Zee Network. We have already signed agreements for channels such as the Sun Network, Udaya and Asianet. We also have an in principle undertstanding with established foreign and Indian channels to be on the DTH platform…served with a DTV card which will have a one-time cost as low as Rs 995.”
The simple version of the DTH set-top box will be available to the household at less than Rs 5,000 per box, Sivasankaran told Business Standard.
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.
