DTH
Telecomm ’07 core committee narrows down on themes, issues
NEW DELHI: The second core committee meeting of the Telecomm 2007, held on Friday, has narrowed down the theme of this year’s Summit and Exhibition (November1-3, Mumbai) as either “Role of telecom and IT: changing lifestyles”, or “Role of telecom and IT as economic multiplier.”
The theme, either way, would be consumer-centric. This is a broad consensus that emerged at the meeting, which also decided on having eight conference sessions.
These would be E-governance (including education, health, etc.); two sessions on the more complex issues of New Generation Network and WiMax; another two sessions on the emerging technology of IPTV / mobile TV, with emphasis on content provider; spectrum and infrastructure sharing; need for a new telecom policy initiative; and investment opportunities and challenges in the sectors.
The meeting, chaired by former BSNL CMD Prithipal Singh, has sent the recommendations to the chairperson, who will finalise the issues and the main theme.
Most of the speakers followed the initial argument of Satya Narayan Gupta, chief regulatory advisor (SAARC region) of BT Global Services, who said that the theme has been more or less settled by the government, with the I&B minister’s slogans of 2007: Year of Broadband and Trai’s slogan of 2007: Year of the Consumer.
What emerged at the Core Committee meeting, in which indiantelevision.com was also an invitee, is a fair merger of the two slogans, as is reflected in the theme as well as the special attention, in the form double sessions, for the topics of NGN and WiMax and two for IPTV and mobile TV.
There was considerable discussion on the lack of enough data and services not reaching the people in the languages they understand. In fact, one speaker pointed out that the Edusat, created at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore, is yet to achieve its basic targets.
Indra Mohan, president of India-tech, an industry association for international techno-economic cooperation, said that there was need for technology that can bridge the two Indias: urban and rural.
In fact, Sanjeev Kumar Seth, Deputy Director General (Commercial), BSNL, bluntly asserted that all the talk about teledensity of 11 in India is a distorted image, and especially in rural India, it will not be more than 2.
NK Mohapatra of Midas Communication Technologies Pvt Ltd said there is a failure in adequate data generation, and held that in the absence of a proper data delivery system, telecom would become a bottleneck.
Mohaopatra also raised the important point of why financing agencies are not investing in telecom infrastructure business. He said that these institutions have shown a remarkable reluctance in investing, because they must have realised that the returns are much too low.
Mohapatra raised the issue of ferreting out what ails investment, and this was supported by many industry leaders attending the meeting, leading to the decision on a full session on challenges and opportunities in investment in the sector.
Prithipal Singh pointed out also to the vast expansion of the telecom sector, and yet, stressed that there were too many problems in customers getting adequate service. “The mobile service quality in the second phase of the mobile sector growth is not at all what the first phase had given,” he said.
The organisers also announced the rates for sponsorship in four categories: Diamond (Rs seven lakh); platinum (Rs 4.5 lakh); gold (Rs 3’5 lakh) and silver (three lakh).
The organisers have asked the participants to give written notes on specific topics under the issues for discussion at the conference, and also suggest names of the experts who would head the various discussions.
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.
