DTH
Videocon d2h files for IPO to raise Rs 700 crore
MUMBAI: For the past couple of years, the stockmarkets have been going through rough weather dampening an entrepreneur’s desire to raise funds through the initial public offering (IPO) route. With a new government in place, and optimism returning, the queue has once again started being formed outside the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi) of those going in for IPOs. Shemaroo Entertainment earlier this month approached the public and now it is the turn of the direct to home (DTH) service provider Videocon d2h which has finally made its filing with Sebi to raise Rs 700 crore.
This is the second time the firm has proposed to go public. It had previously filed documents in December 2012 and had received a go ahead from SEBI but did not go ahead with the public float.
Seven banks – including UBS, Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, SBI Capital Markets, Yes Bank, IDBI Capital will manage the share sale.
As per the statement issued by the company, “The price band and the minimum bid lot will be decided by our company in consultation with the joint global coordinators and book running lead managers.”
The company is also considering a preferential issue of up to 5,000,000 Equity Shares, aggregating up to Rs 50 crore with certain investors.
“Our Company will complete the issuance and allotment of Equity Shares pursuant to the Pre-IPO Placement, if any, prior to the filing of the Red Herring Prospectus with the RoC. If the Pre-IPO Placement is completed, the Issue size will be reduced to the extent of such Pre-IPO Placement, subject to the issue size constituting at least 10 per cent of the post-Issue paid-up Equity Share capital of our Company,” the notice also stated.
The company plans to spend a portion of the Net Proceeds of the issue towards acquisition of set-top boxes, outdoor units and accessories thereof from TEL, a Videocon Group entity.
“We propose to utilise Rs 350.83 crore of the Net Proceeds towards acquisition of set-top boxes and outdoor units from TEL,” the statement added.
The company is also looking to spend Rs 175 crore of the net proceeds to repay loans. “We may utilise a part of the Net Proceeds to repay/prepay certain term loan facilities availed from IDBI Bank Limited and ICICI Bank Limited, which are associates of the JGCBRLMs, IDBI Capital and I-Sec, respectively, and YES Bank, one of our JGCBRLMs.” The amount left will be used for other general corporate purposes.
The company commenced DTH operations in July 2009 and has grown its subscriber base from 0.44 million gross subscribers as of 31 March 2010, to 11.21 million gross subscribers, as of 30 June 2014, which represents approximately 16.2 per cent of the total DTH subscriber base in India.
For the first quarter of 2015 the company has approximately 27 per cent incremental market share of the DTH subscriber base in India.
The total income of the organisation for the three months ended 30 June 2014 was Rs 537.7 crore, during which time it generated net loss of Rs 78.15 crore. The firm has clocked a net loss of Rs 2,126 crore over the last five years.
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.
