DTH
TATA Sky ShortsTV acquires much acclaimed short films from Terribly Tiny Tales
MUMBAI: TATA Sky ShortsTV, the world’s only TV channel dedicated to short films, has acquired 18 shorts from Terribly Tiny Tales (TTT).
The service features the best short movies from India and around the world, including hours of award-winning movies. This acquisition will further bolster ShortsTV’s repertoire of Indian shorts and offer an opportunity for the burgeoning audience of short films in India to enjoy some of the commended films such as ‘Kheer’ and ‘El’ayichi’, among others, on television for the first time.
Sharing details on the same, Mr. Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive of Shorts International Ltd said, “TTT is one of India's largest and most celebrated storytelling platforms and we are delighted to partner with them. Each film is a simply narrated beautiful story and I am confident that they will receive a warm response from our audience.”
He further added, “We are the largest curator of short form content in the world and aim to help viewers easily find the best short movies by packaging them in a viewer-friendly manner and a commercial free environment. This acquisition of films from TTT is a step towards our endeavour to feature the best short films from India on our service.”
Anuj Gosalia, CEO of Terribly Tiny Tales said, "Partnering with ShortsTV is a great way for TTT to bring our memorable short stories to a new and relevant audience. ShortsTV is a reputed curator of the world’s finest shorts and for our films to find a place in their catalogue is a win for the stories we choose to tell. We see this as a long standing and meaningful partnership as we move ahead."
Watch ‘Kheer’, starring Anumpam Kher on Monday 14 January at 21:00; ‘Deuce’, starring Mandira Bedi on Monday 21 January at 21:00; and ‘El’ayichi, starring Nimrat Kaur on Monday 28 January at 21:00. All on TATA SKY ShortsTV – channel HD 112 and SD 113.
About ShortsTV:
· ShortsTV is operated by Shorts International Ltd, the world’s leading short movie entertainment company
· With over 5,000 titles, Shorts International has the world’s largest library of shorts available on TV, online and in theatres, including award-winning and star-studded live action, animated and documentary shorts from around the world
· ShortsTV is the world’s only 24/7 HD TV channel dedicated to short movies. It is available in approximately 70 million households across the US, India, Latin America, the Netherlands, Belgium and Serbia
· In 2018, ShortsTV launched the ShortsTV App which marries the linear ShortsTV feed with the functionality of the Internet, at the click of a button on a viewer’s remote control. Using advanced machine-learning algorithm technology, the ShortsTV App enables viewers to either watch TV or to create, control and personalize their own TV channel, engineered to their desired genres or moods
· Online, ShortsTV offers hundreds of the world’s best independent shorts for download on iTunes in 92 countries, as well as on Amazon Instant Video (UK, US and Germany), Google Play (US and Canada) and Verizon and Frontier (US)
· Since 2006, Shorts International has exclusively presented the ‘Oscar Nominated Short Films’ theatrical release in cinemas across the US, South America, Europe, Australia and South Africa
· Shorts International is headquartered in London, England with offices in Los Angeles and Mumbai. The company is led by Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive, and is owned by Shorts Entertainment Holdings, with AMC Networks as a significant minority shareholder
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.
