DTH
Videocon d2h launches Active HD Hollywood Channel Services
MUMBAI: After the first 24-hour 4K Ultra HD multi genre channel in January, Videocon d2h Limited has launched a new active HD Channel – Active HD Hollywood Channel services for its subscribers. Skoda has been roped in as channel partner for this launch. This is a part of Videocon d2h’s ongoing commitment to provide unmatched viewing experience for its subscribers.
The channel – Active HD Hollywood Channel Services will be available on Ch No. 940 on its network. It will air handpicked Hollywood movies everyday at 9 pm. All High Definition subscribers of Videocon d2h will be able to avail it for free in the initial phase of launch. The service will be available on paid subscription basis from a later date.
Active HD Hollywood Channel Services will showcase a line up of critically acclaimed popular films. With new titles being released every day at 9pm, viewers can look forward to quality Hollywood movies, including such mega-hits as Pandorum, Broken City, Jobs, Astro Boy, Remember Me, A Single Man, Agoraa, The Women in Black, Blindness, Something Borrowed, The Conspirator, The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part -2, London Boulevard and Now You See Me among others.
“We have observed that there is a genuine requirement to watch highly acclaimed Hollywood movies in HD and there are very few catering to this opportunity”, said Videocon d2h executive chairman Saurabh Dhoot. “Not only are we launching a new premium Hollywood HD movie channel, but we’re bringing value to our consumers. This channel will definitely resonate well with the young audience,” he further added.
Videocon d2h CEO Anil Khera said, “We are excited to offer Hollywood movies fans across India access to high-quality entertainment in HD. With Active HD Hollywood Channel Services, we continue to provide high quality world class programming content delighting consumers. We are confident that our unique content offering of Hollywood movies in HD will make this an instant hit with subscribers.”
Speaking on the same Skoda Auto India sales, service & marketing director Ashutosh Dixit explained, “Skoda looks at innovative platforms that resonate with the brand’s image to connect with its audiences. The audience of the Active Hollywood HD channel largely overlaps with the kind of consumers our brand converses with. This association will benefit both brands and we expect good traction from this partnership.”
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.
