DTH
Tata Sky targets DAS Phase III areas with celebrity driven ad campaign
MUMBAI: In a bid to capture a chunk of analogue cable users in Phase III areas of Digital Addressable System (DAS), direct to home (DTH) platform Tata Sky has launched a celebrity driven ad campaign to generate awareness about digitisaton.
The ‘Missed Call’ ad campaign, which features actors Kangana Ranaut and Dhanush, aims to bring on board customers who are still on analogue cable.
With this campaign, Tata Sky is looking to target the 40 million households residing in 7,000 towns and cities, which will now witness the next phase of digitisation.
Tata Sky CCO Malay Dikshit said, “When we asked new Tata Sky subscribers on what motivated them to come aboard our platform, they gave us some brilliant insights on why they saw great value in getting Tata Sky at home. This campaign presents these insights in simple and direct narratives delivered through rooted and relatable characters played by Kanagna and Dhanush, both fine actors. This is our initiative to drive digitisation in DAS III markets.”
The series of three ad films with each actor, leaves viewers with a sense of realisation and a smile. It also highlights payment flexibility options such as daily recharge and various monthly subscription packs.
The ‘Missed Call’ campaign launched in the South with Dhanush is targeting 1200 towns that have been identified under DAS III and have the least DTH penetration. Tata Sky offers a range of innovative offerings and has been expanding its bouquet of channels across regional languages.
Commenting on the thought process behind the new communication, Ogilvy India ECD Sukesh Nayak said, “Tata Sky is the segment leader who is known for innovation and redefining the sector with its value propositions. The hard hitting, single take talkies are delivered by Kanagna and Dhanush, who play an average Indian consumer, who are delighted with a Tata Sky connection at home.”
Ensuring its reach is extended to the hinterland, Tata Sky has launched the campaign in 11 languages namely Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Odiya, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Bengali as well as in four dialects namely Manipuri, Bhojpuri, Marwadi and Tulu.
The ‘Missed Call’ marketing campaign includes TV, print, outdoors, cinema halls and radio.
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.
