NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharti, India’s public service broadcaster, is set to launch its over-the-top (OTT) platform by the end of this month. Although, the platform was initially reportedly set for a release in August this year, but it was later postponed. Prasar Bharti–will stream live channels, series and also archival contents on its OTT platform. The digital distribution service is likely to work as a revenue-sharing model and the Intellectual property rights will remain with the content creators.Prasar Bharati’s digital service is being launched at a time when the Indian market is already saturated with around 60 similar platforms. The upcoming OTT service will initially be available for free, likely for a period of about two years.“The content creator will have the Intellectual Property, and we will try the revenue-sharing model. It is not just normal content being available on it, there will be live channels running on it, we are creating a marketplace, and we will show archival content of the country. We have about 2,000 titles in our archives and we will bring that out,” Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Sanjay Jaju said at a press conference on Tuesday held in Mumbai. “OTT doesn’t mean that we will only show series. We will bring other archival content. We are hopeful that our subscription will increase, accordingly the popularity will rise, so we will have a tool to take our content globally,” Jaju added.He also highlighted that the extensive collection of images from the Photo Division, a unit under the ministry, will be made available on the platform.In August, Prasar Bharati issued bids for the integration of OTT, gaming, educational, or other applications through an application-in-application model based on revenue sharing. According to the tender notice for onboarding linear satellite channels to stream on the broadcaster’s OTT service, only channels that are permitted or licensed by the Ministry for downlinking or distribution are eligible to apply. Preparations for the launch of the digital service began last year, with Prasar Bharati inviting bids to design, develop, commission, operate, and maintain its own OTT streaming platform.
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