DTH
Sydus teams up with Bacardi for radio mobile service
MUMBAI: The spirits company Bacardi has launched Bacardi B-Live Radio for mobile. This is being done through a tie up with Sydus, which works in creating audio-to-mobile lifestyle expressions.
The service goes live next month and will take Bacardi’s spirit out of the bottle and onto mobile phones around the world. B-Live Radio is the world’s first brand-funded global digital music service, and will also be delivered via the web.
While traditional marketing strategies have been ‘push’, going from the brand out to the consumer, with Sydus’ BrandedRadio solution, consumers can ‘pull’ the Bacardi experience onto their mobile phones and enjoy the Baqcardi spirit and lifestyle, wherever they are.
Bacardi B-Live Radio combines two elements – the emotional connection of music, with the ubiquitous and extremely personal usage of mobile phones – to build a stickiness that is declining in traditional delivery mechanisms.
Sydus president Saumil Nanavati says, “Bacardi B-Live Radio is an innovative way to market to audiences globally, using new media to attract and engage today’s savvy consumer. Sydus is delighted to be a part of Bacardi’s innovative approach to reach out to its users, and we believe this is the start of the next big shift in lifestyle marketing, whereby brands can connect to a global audience in a cost-effective manner.”
Mobile marketing is rapidly emerging as an effective medium as brands target their customers via mobile phones. Bacardi, using Sydus’ technology solution, has taken a lead in demonstrating how a brand can reach out to its target consumers across the globe effectively, as compared with other marketing options, including the Internet.
Bacardi global brand director John Burke says, “We are happy to partner with Sydus to enable the Bacardi B-Live Radio service. This is a music service that extends Bacardi’s existing music properties and long standing experience in events. Being available both online and via mobile, we are investing in new mediums that have a real relevance to our consumer’s lives. Sydus’ technology will service strengthen our association with music by creating further opportunities for us to connect with our target consumer in a way that reflects our brand values”.
Bacardi B-Live Radio will play a mix of uplifting party classics from the world’s hottest dance floors with guest DJs selected from a global talent portfolio to produce exclusive mixes. At weekends, the content features the ‘best of the week’ and live recordings of Bacardi events across the globe. Bacardi has worked with independent experts to ensure content is selected with the correct audience in mind. All tracks must be socially responsible, avoiding any that feature foul language, incite racism or drug taking and excessive drinking.
B-Live Radio will stream Bacardi mixes 24×7 through the Internet, and via Sydus’ BrandedRadio solution, directly onto GPRS/Edge/3G-compatible mobile handsets, estimated at 85 million handsets worldwide. This spans 189 mobile phone handset models and variants that are compatible with Sydus technology. Listeners can download the radio player free of charge onto their phones from www.bacardibliveradio.com to tune in to the service, and share the application with family and friends using Bluetooth or infrared. Alternatively, the radio service can be accessed via the site wap.bliveradio.com.
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.
