The Indian government yesterday said that public broadcaster Prasar Bharati’s primarily subscription-free streaming platform, WAVES OTT, is gaining popularity and is presently also focusing on expanding globally apart from strategizing to up its revenues from overseas markets.

“The (WAVES OTT) platform is currently in a growth and expansion phase, with a steadily increasing international user footprint. Revenue streams from international markets are being progressively developed through strategic partnerships,” Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting L. Murugan said yesterday in Lok Sabha (Lower House).

Replying to a unstarred question from a fellow parliamentarian Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam related to over-the-top (OTT) sector’s contribution towards India’s soft power by enabling global access to Indian stories, creative talent, cultural heritage and independent filmmaking, the Minister added that public broadcaster’s streaming platform had further strengthened this sector’s “outreach” by making available Doordarshan and All India Radio’s rich content within India and worldwide.

“WAVES OTT has introduced a framework to support emerging filmmakers and creators, providing them with a technology-driven distribution platform to reach diverse global audiences,” Murugan stressed.

WAVES OTT, launched in November 2024, has advertising as its main source of revenue and, according to Murugan, focuses on
democratising access to public broadcasting content across India and globally.

“User growth has shown a significant upward trend with more than 80 lakh (80,00,000) downloads users in the first year of launch. This reflects the rising demand for multilingual Indian content and public service media on digital platforms,” the Minister stated.

The streaming platform supports interfaces in 10+ languages including Hindi, English, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and Punjabi, and hosts content in 26+ languages.

Giving an overview of the general OTT landscape in India, Murugan quoted industry estimates —FICCI-EY Media & Entertainment industry report 2025 — to say the video subscription revenues grew at 11 percent in 2024 to reach Rs. 9,200 crore. The number of users paying for streaming content, he added, were estimated to be between 9.5-11.8 crore.

Dwelling on another part of the question on government initiatives on combatting  content piracy, Murugan said the newly inserted Section 7(1B)(ii) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (as amended in 2023) and
Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act empowers the Central or the federal government to take remedial action against intermediaries hosting pirated film content.