DTH
Videocon d2h IIFA Weekend to air on Colors on 10 July
MUMBAI: The most awaited Bollywood extravaganza, Videocon d2h IIFA Weekend is all set to woo the viewers with its official television telecast. The evening of glitz and glamour brought together by Videocon and IIFA has raised the heat for its viewers with some mind blowing and scintillating performances. Hosts Shahid Kapoor and multi-talented Farhan Akhtar took the audience on a laughter riot with their everlasting wit and humor. From the glamorous stars that graced the green carpet to the crazy fans following for selfies, it truly was an affair to remember.
In its 8-year long-standing relationship, Videocon and IIFA have been growing from strength to strength, delivering nothing but excellence. Right from their inception, both have striven to deliver the best to a larger spectrum of audience. Both believe in constant innovation, adding variety and evolving in the field of entertainment.
Speaking on the occasion Videocon director Anirudh Dhoot, Director said, “It is an honor for us to present the IIFA Weekend for the 8th consecutive year. Videocon and IIFA share a bond that strengthens with each passing year. We look forward to adding many more years of togetherness and constant innovation, bringing in variety and evolving in the field of entertainment.”
This year at IIFA Weekend, Videocon showcased its commitment to deliver the best of technologies. Familiarizing the audience to its latest offering, heartthrob Fawad Khan and Karan Johar introduced the audience to Videocon Aryabot. The first Satellite AC, Aryabot runs on a platform that enables the device to align itself to one’s usage patterns and preferences, surveillances home and office premises, talks out the commands to the AC, and keeps check on power consumption on its own, besides various other intelligent features like auto-trouble shooting and auto call logging to the nearest service center.
Watch the action on Colors on 10 July, 18:00 hrs onwards.
List of the IIFA Award Winners
• Best Story- Juhi Chaturvedi from Piku
• Best Performance in a Leading role (Male) Award – Ranveer Singh from Bajirao Mastani
• Best Performance in a Leading Role (Female) Award – Deepika Padukone from Piku
• Best Direction- Sanjay Leela Bhansali from Bajirao Mastani
• Best Picture- Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Producers – Salman Khan, Rockline Venkatesh
• Debut Male- Vicky Kaushal for Masaan
• Debut Female- Bhoomi Pednekar for Dum Laga Ke Haisha
• Best Lyric Writer: – Varun Grover for Dum laga Ke Haisha in the film Moh Moh Ke Dhaage
• Best Female Playback Singer Award is Monali Thakur for Dum Laga Ke Haisha for the film Moh Moh Ke Dhaage
• Best Male Playback Singer Award: is Papon for Moh Moh Ke Dhaage in the film Moh Moh Ke Dhaage
• Best Music Direction- ‘Roy’ Meet Bros, Anjjan, Ankit Tiwari, Amaal Mallik
• Best Cinematography: Sudeep Chatterjee for Bajirao Mastani
• Best Screenplay: Kabir Khan, Parveez Shaikh, V. Vijayendra Prasad for Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Best Editing: A Sreekar Prasad for Talvar
• Best Performance in a Comic Role Award: – Male Deepak Dobriyal from Tanu Weds Manu Returns
• Best Performance in Negative role Award – Darshan Kumar for NH 10
• IIFA Jodi of the Year- Athiya Shetty & Sooraj Pancholi
• Best Performance in a Supporting role (Male) Award – Anil Kapoor from Dil Dhadakne Do
• Best Performance in a Supporting role (Female) Award: – Priyanka Chopra from Bajirao Mastani
• IIFA Woman of the Year- Priyanka Chopra
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.
