DTH
Star India, Airtel Digital TV bury the hatchet
MUMBAI: Direct-to-home (DTH) operator Airtel Digital TV and Star India, in the aftermath of a public spat, have joined hands and reached an agreement.
“Airtel Digital subscribers will continue to get uninterrupted access to all of Star’s programmes including Vivo IPL, following an agreement reached between Star and Airtel. Both parties would like to assure their subscribers that the two companies are committed to bringing more and more high-quality content and experience to their consumers,” Star India tweeted on Saturday.
The move will ensure that the Airtel Digital TV consumers will get access to Star India channels, which includes the Indian Premier League (IPL) telecast on Star Sports network.
News Update: Airtel Digital subscribers will continue to get uninterrupted access to all of Star’s programmes including Vivo IPL, following an agreement reached between Star and Airtel. https://t.co/oRpZuNdUuF pic.twitter.com/llKguAECQq
— Star TV Network (@starindia) March 31, 2018
Earlier, both parties had decided to opt for reference interconnect offer (RIO) or a la carte deal as the negotiations on renewal was not moving forward. Had the agreement not been reached, Star channels would have been removed from Airtel Digital TV’s packages.
The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had directed Star and Airtel to either enter into a negotiated agreement before 31 March or else go the RIO deal will come into effect from 1 April.
After the TDSAT order, the two parties indulged in a virtual slugfest running ads and scrolls accusing each other of being unreasonable. While Airtel accused of increasing prices of its channels Star retorted back by asking Airtel Digital TV subscribers to switch to other platforms to get Star channels without any additional cost.
The agreement between Star and Airtel had expired on 31 October. The previous agreement was extended by Star during the period of negotiation.
Also Read:
Airtel Digital TV hits back at Star India
Airtel Digital TV disconnects Star India channels
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.
