New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has invited licensed satellite television channels to join its OTT platform, WAVES, as part of a fresh push to expand its live channel bouquet and deepen broadcaster collaborations. Eligible channels will be onboarded for a one-year period, with applications due by December 1, 2025.
Under the new commercial structure, participating broadcasters will receive 65% of the net advertising revenue generated from their clean feed on WAVES, while Prasar Bharati will retain 35%. Net revenue will be computed after deducting the public broadcaster’s operational costs, including transcoding, CDN usage and commissions paid to agencies involved in dynamic ad insertion.
A key technical prerequisite for applicants is the provision of an SCTE-35/ad-marker enabled feed. These markers allow Prasar Bharati to automatically detect and insert advertisements during break windows. Where inventory cannot be fully monetised, the remaining slot will feature promotions for Prasar Bharati or for the channels onboarded to the platform.
Only linear satellite channels with valid permissions or licences from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) will be considered. Broadcasters may apply solely for channels they own and hold licences for. Applicants must also provide clear, verifiable documentation establishing their channel’s genre and language. Any inconsistency or ambiguity in these details will render the application ineligible.
Once eligibility is established, channels will be ranked based on the DAVP rate card, with preference going to those commanding the highest DAVP rates within their respective categories and time bands. Selected channels will receive a Letter of Allotment, following which they must sign a formal agreement with Prasar Bharati within 15 days and submit all technical specifications required for integration with WAVES.
Applications must be submitted in the prescribed format (Annexure-1) with all supporting documents (Annexure-2) via email to [email protected]. Broadcasters have been advised to review Clause 112, “Streaming Collaboration with Satellite Channels and FAST Channels,” detailed in Chapter 11 of the Prasar Bharati Content Sourcing Policy 2024, for the full terms and selection criteria.
The initiative marks Prasar Bharati’s latest effort to strengthen its digital offering by bringing more live television content to its in-house OTT service.
