DTH
Tata Sky launches interactive educational service
MUMBAI: Education is the next happening thing in India. Tata Sky in partnership with Tata Elxsi and Tata ClassEdge plans launch an interactive educational service. As part of the deal, Tata Elxsi is supporting the development of content that is specially developed to suit modularised learning programs and made available via Tata Sky’s active plus portfolio of value added services. It will produce interactive educational content for science students from classes V to VIII with lessons mapped to their syllabus.
Tata Sky Classroom is an educational service launched by Tata Sky along with Tata ClassEdge. It aims at assisting tutoring young viewers in an engaging manner with animated video content providing a fundamental understanding of core concepts in Science and Maths subjects.
“Tata Sky Classroom will help children in understanding core concepts which are really the key building blocks for future learning as we see this as a clear need gap. The service is aligned with children’s school syllabus and covers over 500 topics, delivered in an interesting and interactive format. With the objective to provide the best-in-class educational experience for kids, Tata ClassEdge with their expertise in the field was the perfect fit. Some of the best schools in India are currently using multimedia solutions from Tata ClassEdge to augment classroom learning. We plan to now make these accessible to our subscribers at an affordable price,” said Tata Sky chief commercial officer Pallavi Puri.
This interactive service has been launched and is now available to all subscribers.
“We are excited to partner with Tata Sky and make available our innovative learning content to children in the comfort and convenience of their homes. Tata Sky Classroom will enable learning of the core concepts of Science & Maths in an engaging manner so that a child understands the fundamental principles and is able to access this anytime of the day. This partnership will further support our vision of educating 10 million students annually by 2025,” added Tata ClassEdge chief commercial officer Rajesh Khandagale.
“Interactive content is increasingly being leveraged to help create effective learning experiences for school children, enabling easier understanding, improved comprehension and knowledge retention. Tata Elxsi’s award-winning digital and interactive content creation capabilities, coupled with its deep expertise in broadcast technologies, enables operators and broadcasters expand their portfolio of value added services, develop new revenue streams and discover new audiences, through compelling and differentiated content,” said Tata Elxsi SVP marketing and strategy Nitin Pai.
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.
