WAVES OTT set for next expansion phase as Prasar Bharati invites bid to onboard PMU
Marketing and user growth will form another critical area of responsibility. The PMU will guide creative partners and agencies in developing comprehensive promotional strategies that cut across mass media, community outreach, and digital channels.
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Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to onboard a Project Management Unit (PMU) that will drive the next phase of growth for its OTT platform WAVES. Since its launch in November 2024, WAVES has recorded more than 3.8 million downloads and 2.3 million registered users.
With the new initiative, the broadcaster aims to position WAVES as one of the leading global OTT players while ensuring it becomes the most preferred digital destination for Indian audiences.
The PMU will provide strategic, operational, and analytical support across multiple areas including content, technology, marketing, user acquisition, distribution, and revenue generation. The primary goal is to accelerate user growth to over 10 million registered users within a year, while maintaining long-term sustainability through consistent retention strategies and high-quality content delivery.
Pubcaster's Growth Mandate
Prasar Bharati expects the unit to ensure that at least 70 percent of registered users remain active on a monthly basis, drive a fivefold increase in advertisement revenue within the first year, and develop a sustainable financial model over a two-year period. This model will rely on diversified revenue streams such as advertising video-on-demand (AVOD), subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), content syndication, and strategic partnerships. In addition, the broadcaster wants the PMU to strengthen WAVES’ brand visibility, improve its share of voice in the media, and enhance recognition in both domestic and international markets.
The scope of work outlined in the RFP is wide-ranging. On the content side, the PMU will evaluate proposals for their suitability on OTT platforms, curate monthly calendars based on analytics and user trends, identify genre and language gaps, and recommend acquisition priorities.
It will also review performance data to optimize future programming and adopt global best practices for content diversification and metadata management. For distribution and monetization, the PMU is expected to identify potential alliances with telecom companies, smart TV manufacturers, and app bundling partners, while also designing strategies around subscription, freemium, and hybrid models. The unit will support negotiations for global content deals and syndication opportunities and provide recommendations for ad pricing and inventory management.
Marketing strategy
Marketing and user growth will form another critical area of responsibility. The PMU will guide creative partners and agencies in developing comprehensive promotional strategies that cut across mass media, community outreach, and digital channels including influencer partnerships, festive campaigns, and event-led activations. It will track performance using key industry metrics such as customer acquisition cost, daily and monthly active users, and engagement rates.
Recommendations for loyalty programs, gamification, and referral models will also be part of its remit. On the technology and analytics side, the PMU will monitor user behavior, churn rates, and sentiment while also testing new features and design changes to improve content discoverability and personalization. Continuous analysis of app store feedback will ensure that platform responsiveness and recommendation engines are regularly enhanced.
The proposed resource plan outlines a team of six experts who will lead this effort. These include a Project Director with more than 20 years of experience in leadership and strategy, a Content Strategy Lead with expertise in evaluation and scheduling, a Monetization and Partnerships Lead specializing in distribution and revenue models, a Marketing and Growth Advisor focusing on user engagement, an Analytics and KPI Monitoring expert with technical experience, and a Project Coordinator to manage inter-agency operations and documentation.
To maintain institutional efficiency, the PMU will work closely with internal teams across technology, content, distribution, and marketing. It will prepare regular executive briefs, dashboards, and progress reports for the Chief Executive Officer, the Board, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The output goals include ensuring that 80 percent of newly onboarded content achieves engagement benchmarks, promoting inclusivity and regional diversity through multi-language content, and creating high-impact strategic alliances with both domestic and international partners.
Qualification process
The initial engagement will run for two years and may be extended by an additional year depending on performance and evolving organizational requirements. The bidding process will follow a two-stage evaluation, beginning with a prequalification round in which bidders must prove their legal compliance, financial stability, and absence of blacklisting. Only those who pass this stage will move on to the technical evaluation, where they will be assessed on their experience with large-scale consulting projects in the OTT, media, and entertainment sectors, including at least one major OTT project.
The evaluation will use a Quality-cum-Cost Based System (QCBS), giving 80 percent weightage to technical assessment and 20 percent to financial bids. Bidders will be required to achieve at least 70 marks in the technical evaluation to qualify for the financial stage. Final rankings will be determined by combining technical and financial scores, with the highest-scoring bidder awarded the contract.
Prasar Bharati is looking to build on WAVES’ early success and ensure the platform’s long-term competitiveness in an increasingly crowded OTT market. The emphasis on user growth, revenue diversification, and strong governance highlights the broadcaster’s ambition to establish WAVES as not only a national leader but also a global player in digital entertainment.
