Prasar Bharati to launch its streaming platform on Nov 20

New Delhi Indian public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is gearing up to launch its own streaming service at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa on November 20, its top official said. The streaming platform, which has been in the works for a little over a year, is scheduled to be inaugurated by Information and Broadcasting minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and will host all the archives from Prasar Bharati, including from Doordarshan and All India Radio, chairperson Navneet Kumar Sehgal told HT.

The chairperson declined to share the name of the service or its logo and said that it will be unveiled on November 20. HT, however, has learnt that Prasar Bharati has bought five to six domain names from which the final choice will be made. Apart from a logo, the service will also have an audio identity, like Netflix’s “tudum”.

The streaming platform will be simultaneously released for Android on Play Store, for iOS on App Store, and as a website. It has been built by the PSU RailTel while AWS is the content delivery network (CDN) and cloud service provider, Sehgal said.

According to the tender released by PB in September 2023, the cloud service provider must have an initial storage capacity of 500 TB which is scalable based on growth and demand in the next five years. The CDN provider, who must be a MeitY empanelled cloud service provider, must also provide disaster recovery tools. The CSP must also provide about 1 PB (1 PB = 1,000 TB) for deep archival storage.

Content will be available in standard definition, high definition and 4K. The service will be able to serve 10 million users concurrently initially and will be scalable up to 100 million crore according to the tender.

“This streaming platform has all our archives. There are four ways in which it differs from other streaming platforms. First, the platform has clean content that is meant for families which they can watch together. Second, it will have games for kids as an app within an app. Third, we are offering online shopping of goods and services through ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce). And fourth, it will have live sports,” Sehgal said.

In March, Prasar Bharati, ONDC and the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) had signed a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding “to bundle broadband services with OTT and e-commerce platforms for the rural India riding on BharatNet infrastructure under the USOF”.

The focus of the platform, according to Sehgal and others is to provide “clean”, family-friendly content. This comes as streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and AltBalaji have repeatedly come under government and legal scrutiny for “objectionable” content that is deemed to be unfit for children.

Apart from the archives, the platform will stream live TV, including sports. Exclusive content for the streaming platform has also been commissioned and licensed by the public broadcaster.

Prasar Bharati has tied up with producers such as Eros Now and Lionsgate to provide their content as paid apps-in-app. In August 2024, Prasar Bharati had sought proposals for application-in-application integration of OTT apps (like the Eros Now app is integrated within Apple TV+), gaming apps, educational apps or others apps on a revenue share model on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. The apps could apply for either SVoD (subscription-based video on demand), AVoD or TVoD (transaction backed VoD).

HT has learnt that content on the streaming service will primarily be classified into two age categories – kids and adult.

It will be offered primarily as a free service whose revenues will come from advertisements (AVOD, or advertising-based video on demand) but premium plans will also be introduced. Sehgal declined to share details of the paid plans.

According to the September 2023 tender, the streaming service will run ads both before and in the middle of both live and on demand content. Ads will be personalised and targeted based on user profiles and preferences, content type and metadata, geography and demographics, and device capabilities and types. The platform will allow for real-time analysis of ad usage and statistics.

The ad server that Prasar Bharati will use will be able to run public service messages, programmatic ads, and direct campaigns. The platform will give advertisers details of how their ads performed. To run programmatic ads, the platform will use optimisation algorithms to maximise fill/sell-thru rates, and results for ad campaigns. The platform will also be able promote content and channels.

In its tender, PB had sought solutions to provide streaming services for either an individual user or a family user (with a maximum of five profiles).

Prasar Bharati had also required the solution to offer support in major Indian languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kanada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, and Gujarati from the first day. “Wherever required use of artificial intelligence should be made to transliterate the language in any of the Indian languages to begin with which may be further expanded to majorly spoken foreign languages,” the tender read.

The service provider must also provide subtitling services for both the archives and live events. As per the tender, solution provider will set up on a media ingestion room on Prasar Bharati’s premises from where content will be uploaded to the cloud so that it can be streamed. This room will also have the tape library, local central storage, transcode server, and editing and quality control workstations.