Prasar Bharti Inviting Private Satellite Channels To Stream On Waves OTT With New Revenue Share Model

Prasar Bharati’s latest move isn’t just a routine notice. It’s a clear signal that the broadcaster wants WAVES to grow up into a serious, structured OTT ecosystem, and it’s doing that by opening the door to private satellite channels — but on its terms.

What Prasar Bharati Is Offering

At the centre of the offer is a clean revenue arrangement:

65 per cent to the channel and 35 per cent to Prasar Bharati, calculated after deducting essential operational costs — transcoding, CDN delivery, ad-insertion commissions, and similar overhead. The model is simple: bring the feed, Prasar Bharati handles the digital plumbing, and both sides share whatever the ads bring in.

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How Channels Will Be Picked

Prasar Bharati wants this filtered, not crowded. So it’s using DAVP rate cards (Bureau of Communication) as the ranking metric.

Channels in each genre — GEC, movies, news, sports, kids, devotional — will be sorted by their highest DAVP rate.

The top-ranked channel in each category gets the slot.

If a channel’s genre or language documentation is unclear, the application gets tossed immediately. The platform wants clarity, no ambiguity, no games.

Eligibility Rules

To even get in the door, a channel must:

Already be licensed or permitted by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for downlinking/distribution.

Apply strictly through the company that holds that licence.

In other words: no proxy entities, no sublicensing, no borrowed paperwork.

Technical Requirements

Applicants need to provide a clean linear feed with SCTE-35 or compatible ad markers. Without that, WAVES can’t insert ads or fill unused inventory with its own promos. For a broadcaster trying to build a digital business, this is non-negotiable.

How to Apply

Everything has to follow the official format — Annexures 1 to 4.

Required documents include:

- MIB permissions

- DAVP empanelment and rate cards

- Genre/language proofs

Deadline: December 1, 2025, 5 p.m.

Submission: ddfreedish@prasarbharati.gov.in

Selected channels will receive an allotment letter and will have 15 days to sign the formal agreement.

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The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just an onboarding exercise. Prasar Bharati is clearly trying to turn WAVES into a more competitive OTT destination — diverse content, predictable revenue, and a structure that avoids the wild-west chaos typical of many digital platforms. It’s a public broadcaster building a marketplace but keeping the guardrails strong.

If this works, WAVES could evolve into a credible hybrid: part public-service platform, part commercial OTT — with a curated lineup, steady monetisation, and a cleaner ecosystem than most ad-driven services.