DTH
Videocon d2h receives shareholder, Competition Commission nod for merger with Dish TV
BENGALURU: The Saurabh Dhoot led Videocon d2h Limited (Videocon d2h) has informed the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) that its equity shareholders have thought it fit and given consent by the requisite majority to the scheme of arrangement for amalgamation of Videocon d2h with Subhash Chandra’s Dish TV India Limited (Dish TV) and their respective shareholders and creditors. In pursuance to the Order of the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal, dated 22 March, 2017, the meeting of the shareholders was held on 9 May in Mumbai. The company intends to file the company petition with the Hon’ble National Company Law Tribunal seeking sanction of the scheme.
Further, Videocon d2h has also informed the SEC thaton 9 May 2017 it has received a letter dated 4 May 2017from the Competition Commission of India, approving the proposed combination of Videocon d2h with Dish TV.
Videocon d2h is a Nashdaq listed company, while Dish TV is listed on the NSE and BSE in India and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in the form of GDRs’. The merged entity, Dish TV Videocon, will have a joint management structure with Jawahar Goel as its Chairman and MD and a vice-chairman and deputy managing director nominated by Videocon D2H shareholders.
According to a Dish TV press release, following the closing of the merger transaction, the merged entity will be renamed as Dish TV Videocon Limited (Dish TV Videocon). Dish TV Videocon shall issue 857.791 million (85.7791 crore) shares as consideration for the Scheme and the Vd2h shareholders shall be allotted 2.021 new shares of Dish TV Videocon for every one share held in Vd2h subject to certain adjustments. This would result in Dish TV shareholders owning 1,066.861 million (106.6861 crore) existing shares or 55.4% of Dish TV Videocon, and Vd2h shareholders owning 857.791 million (85.7791 crore) new shares or 44.6% of Dish TV Videocon.
Dish TV Videocon will be led by Jawahar Lal Goel as Chairman and Managing Director, combining the strength of senior and operating management teams while offering further career growth opportunities for employees of the two merging companies. The Vd2h principals shall have the right to nominate two directors on the Dish TV Videocon Board, one of whom shall be cice chairman and the other a deputy managing director.
The merger is expected to create a leading cable and satellite distribution platform in India. Dish TV Videocon would serve 27.6 million (2.76 crore) net subscribers in India, as of September 30, 2016 on a pro forma basis, out of a total of 175 million (17.5 crore) TV households in India highlighting significant room for growth.
At the close of the merger transaction, the current promoters of Dish TV shall continue as promoters of Dish TV Videocon. The Dish TV principals are also in discussion with the Vd2h principals to purchase some of the Vd2h principals’ shares in Dish TV Videocon post the amalgamation, details of which are likely to be finalised soon.
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.
