Prasar Bharati invites hindi news channels to join Waves OTT platform

New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has issued a notice inviting news and current affairs national channels of the Hindi language to get onboarded on the Waves OTT platform. The government-owned OTT platform will only entertain channelsthat are presently available on DD FreeDish. The pubcaster has sought applications latest by March 24, 2025, by 5 PM. 

Valid for a period of one year, the onboarding will be made on a condition the channels provide SCTE-35 ad marker-enabled feed of their channel to the pubcaster. The ad marker that Prasar Bharati has mentioned is a protocol that is embedded to signal the insertion of ads. These markers enable an extended control over content insertion points and facilitate targeted advertising. 

The pubcaster, in the notification, mentioned that the news and current affairs channels need to signal the start and end timing of the advertisement breaks. 

Elaborating on the details, Prasar Bharati mentioned that the successful channels, whose feed is carried on the Waves OTT platform, will function on a revenue-sharing basis. According to this, 65% of the net ad revenue will go to the channel, while the publisher will receive 35% of the total revenue generated from inserting the advertisement. 

The public broadcaster defined the net revenue as “the revenue earned from the channel after adjusting all costs borne by Prasar Bharati for the respective channel, such as transcoding cost, CDN cost, and commissions  of the ad agency hired for ad insertion.” 

In addition, channels that have the “highest rate under all time bands” among the news and current affairs category, as per the Bureau of Communications (DAVP) rate card, will be selected for streaming on Waves OTT, the pubcaster said. 

Throwing light on the functionality, Prasar Bharati stated that the advertisements on the news and current affairs national Hindi channels will be inserted by the public broadcaster. In case Prasar Bharati is not able to fill the entire ad duration, the remaining duration will be utilised by the government-owned broadcaster for its own promos, along with those of the streaming channels. 

The contract, valid for a year, will be initiated from the date on which the channel is placed on the Waves OTT platform.