DTH
Zee, govt may sign DTH licence agreement by next week
NEW DELHI: The Subhash Chandra-promoted ASC Enterprises, which has sought a licence from the Indian government to operate a KU-band direct-to-home (DTH) television service in India, is expected to sign a licence agreement with them some time next week.
According to a senior executive of Siti Cable, which is implementing the DTH project under the brand name Dish TV, “We have submitted the bank guarantee a few days ago and expect to sign the formal licence next week. Presently, the information and broadcasting ministry is understood to be preparing the necessary papers.”
The executive clarified that contrary to what has been reported in a section of the media, the formal agreement has not been signed yet.
Siti Cable is the cable arm of another Subash Chandra-promoted company, ZeeTelefilms Ltd.
Apart from ASC, other companies that have applied for a DTH licence include Space TV, a company promoted by Star India employees.
India’s pubcaster Doordarshan, which has got a government permission, expects its DTH operations to begin from April 2004. It will consisting mainly of DD channels and South Indian regional channels, though talks would be initiated with other private satellite channels – like Star and Sony – to join the platform on a revenue sharing basis.
The Siti Cable executive also said that DTH venture is likely to go on air by early October. “We are targeting to formally launch the service in the first week of October. Marketing activities are on at the moment.” The likely launch date is 2 October, which coincides with the anniversary of Zee TV.
The ASC-Siti Cable combine is also looking at making available the DTH service to consumers at a comparatively low cost — much lower than what has been touted by the industry. The industry, however, has cited global trends where DTH is a costly affair with niche and super-premium fare being aired through the service.
According to the Siti Cable executive, “The monthly subscription rates are still being worked out, but they will be competitive and comparable to cable service.”
The subscription fee for cable service in India, on an average, ranges between Rs 150 to Rs 450 (approximately between $ 3.50 to $9.60) per month.
It is also expected that to woo customers to the DTH service, Dish TV would keep the rates of the hardware needed for the service, including the dish and the box, to around Rs 5,000 (approximately $106). That would also include the one-time installation fee.
Earlier, ASC had petitioned the government to give it some relaxation on the the bank guarantee of Rs 400 million that had to be furnished before the licence was signed for a period of 10 years, as mandated in the guidelines.
ASC had said since no Indian bank gives a bank guarantee for such a long period, like in the telecom sector, it should be allowed to furnish a bank guarantee renewable every two years or so. The government had agreed to this request.
Dish TV is expected to be launched with 48 TV channels and this is expected to go up to over 100 in a year. Additionally, the first phase will have several radio channels in the first phase, apart from other value-added services like electronic programming guide and parental lock to keep the kids from watching unpalatable fare, if any. The number of channels on Dish TV is expected to go up to over 100 within a year of launch.
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.
