DTH
TAM equipped to measure ratings on any platform
MUMBAI: Tam is ready to measure telivision ratings on any delivery platform – direct-to-home (DTH), broadband or conditional access system (Cas).
Once a minimum penetration level is reached, all that remains is the signals that track viewing. Primarily, the analog signals received from the cable operator’s end are changed into digital signals via the set-top-boxes (STB) on any of the above mentioned platforms and hence makes tracking possible.
Nielsen Media Research media technology group director John Hall explains, “The philosophy of measurement is to keep it as simple as possible where one meter technology can cover all platforms. That’s the easiest in terms of maintenance and operations. But from a capability standpoint, what we actually deploy is based on the needs of the market place. In a broadband market, for example, there is interactivity and if the market demands that we report interactive behaviour, we have techniques to do that. That might be a different adaptation of our meter system than just a more simple approach of just channel data collection.”
However, qualitatively tracking ratings for different platforms is more of an engineering in terms of sample, reporting and maintenance for accurately reporting the penetration of any particular platform, Hall says.
Adds Tam media research vice president operations Joydip Kapadia: “Penetration is an important part of measuring but as far as the technology is concerned, all pictures come on television in the form of digital images. So primarily it is a digital signal. Whether the platform is DTH or broadband or Cas, monitoring is the same. Ultimately the picture that comes on the screen is digital. We have the technology that monitors digital picture, what ever the platform is.”
Tam is ready for any platform. Says Tam India CEO LV Krishnan, “Whether it is broadband or Cas, we are moving from an analog system to a digital environment. Our two big technological hubs are Florida and Australia. So if tomorrow, DTH falls into place, we’re ready. If broadband comes in, we’re equally ready. And if Cas falls into place, no problem. That’s our entire focus.”
Nielsen has wide reach in the sophisticated US market where they have the ability to measure Personal Video Recorders (PVR) and time shift viewing. Says Krishnan, “Our country is not yet familiar with the concept of PVRs but you never know when it can come here. Today PVRs have touched 15 per cent penetration in the US and we think India might start looking at it too in due time. So we want to be one step ahead and be prepared for whatever new technology that will come in.”
Once STBs come in, the name of the game will not be analog signals anymore; it will be digital signals only. So keeping that in mind, would there be new peoplemeters? “We have technology available for all kinds of platforms. The basic peoplemeters remains the same,” says Kapadia.
Adds Hall: “A small software change or an additional plug-in would be all that would be required.”
Is Tam tracking the viewership of Zee’s DTH service? “No, we are not tracking Zee’s DTH as yet. That’s because it is in a nascent stage and penetration needs to start happening. When it happens and we reach mass of about three per cent to five per cent of the total 85 million homes, we will start tracking it. It needs to have a good sampling size,” says Krishnan.
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.
