This Monday’s OTT trade picture shows three different fronts in India’s streaming competition. SonyLIV is using live sport to create sustained daily engagement, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is investing further in its WAVES streaming platform, and ZEE5 is betting that AI, free content and better Connected TV discovery can make a large catalogue more valuable.
Platforms & Trade Sources Reviewed
Today’s review covered SonyLIV/Sony Sports Network, ZEE5, Prasar Bharati/WAVES and current reporting from The Economic Times, Business Standard, Financial Express, Times of India, ETBrandEquity and current media-technology trade coverage.
1. SonyLIV Begins a 16-Day Asian Games Streaming Play
What Happened
The 20th Asian Games are now underway in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and Sony Pictures Networks India holds the India and subcontinent media rights.
The Games run from September 19 through October 4, with coverage spread across Sony Sports television channels and SonyLIV. Digital coverage began September 17 because some competition started before the opening ceremony. DD Sports is also carrying selected television coverage through DD Free Dish.
Sony reportedly paid an estimated $3.5–4 million for the India/subcontinent rights. The package covers 41 sports, with cricket, badminton, hockey, athletics, wrestling and other high-interest events capable of drawing substantial Indian audiences.
Why It Matters
Live sport solves one of streaming’s hardest problems: getting viewers to come back at a specific time every day.
A drama might create eight hours of engagement and then end. A major multi-sport event can create morning-to-evening viewing for more than two weeks.
The Asian Games are particularly valuable because different sports appeal to different audience segments. A cricket viewer may arrive for India’s matches, while badminton, hockey, shooting, wrestling or athletics can keep that viewer inside the same streaming ecosystem.
India is also entering the Games after its record 107-medal performance at the previous edition, adding a strong national-interest story to the programming.
Business/Content Takeaway
Sports rights increasingly function as subscriber-engagement infrastructure, not simply premium programming.
For SonyLIV, the Asian Games can:
bring viewers into the app repeatedly, increase viewing hours, expose sports audiences to entertainment programming, create premium advertising inventory and reinforce SonyLIV as a destination for live events.
The important metric may therefore be less about one India match’s audience and more about how many viewers develop a SonyLIV habit during the 16-day event.
2. Prasar Bharati Puts Another ₹63.15 Crore Behind WAVES
What Happened
India’s public-service streaming platform is receiving a significant technology investment.
RailTel Corporation of India has received a ₹63.15 crore Letter of Intent from Prasar Bharati to provide additional features and services for the existing WAVES OTT platform.
The project is scheduled for completion by February 11, 2029.
WAVES represents Prasar Bharati’s attempt to extend its public broadcasting ecosystem into the OTT market rather than limiting Doordarshan and related content to traditional broadcast distribution.
Why It Matters
India’s OTT competition is usually discussed around private platforms—Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar, ZEE5 and SonyLIV.
WAVES introduces a different model.
Prasar Bharati already possesses decades of television and radio archives, national distribution relationships, public-interest programming and regional-language content.
The challenge is turning that enormous institutional catalogue into a modern digital product viewers actually choose to use.
The RailTel investment suggests WAVES is not being treated merely as an archive app. Continued feature and service development through 2029 points toward a longer-term platform strategy.
Business/Content Takeaway
India’s streaming ecosystem may eventually include a meaningful public-service OTT layer alongside commercial SVOD and AVOD services.
WAVES does not necessarily need to defeat Netflix or JioHotstar at blockbuster entertainment.
Its competitive advantage could come from areas commercial platforms do not prioritize as heavily: archival programming, public broadcasting, regional content, news, culture, education and national events.
The ₹63-crore order is therefore worth watching less as a technology contract and more as evidence that public broadcasting itself is becoming platform-based..
3. ZEE5 Wants AI to Solve Streaming’s Discovery Problem
What Happened
ZEE5 has begun rolling out a substantial redesign across mobile and Connected TV, with AI playing a much larger role in how viewers find content.
The revamped platform organizes programming into five main areas: Premium Entertainment, Free 5, KidZ, TV and Sports. AI-powered personalization is being used for recommendations and discovery, while a new AI support assistant handles questions involving subscriptions, playback, content access and devices.
More interestingly, ZEE5 CTO Pramod Prakash says AI is being applied beyond recommendations to areas including content processing, video summarization, subtitling and short-form previews. The company has also designed its Connected TV experience specifically for large-screen navigation rather than simply reproducing its mobile interface on television.
The free side is expanding too. Free 5 now spans films, series, news, micro-dramas, Korean and Chinese dramas, anime and creator-led content without requiring a subscription.
Why It Matters
Streaming platforms have spent years competing over who has the best content.
The next competition may increasingly be:
Who helps viewers find something they actually want to watch fastest?
That sounds like a UX issue, but it has direct financial consequences.
A large catalogue has limited value when users scroll for ten minutes and leave.
Better discovery can make older library content productive again, reduce subscriber frustration and create more opportunities to place viewers into niche categories they might never search for manually.
The Connected TV emphasis is particularly timely. India’s active CTV audience reached 206.9 million in 2026, up 60% year over year, according to the latest Ormax data.
Business/Content Takeaway
ZEE5’s strategy suggests AI’s first meaningful OTT impact may not be generating movies or replacing creators.
It may be much less visible—and commercially more immediate:
helping each viewer navigate thousands of existing movies, shows, languages and formats.
Combined with Free 5, the model also creates a funnel:
Free viewing → AI learns preferences → better discovery → more engagement → advertising opportunity → potential premium conversion.
That is a considerably broader strategy than simply adding an AI chatbot to an app.
The Bigger Picture
Put today’s three stories together and they reveal three different ways streaming services are trying to win attention.
SonyLIV: Give audiences something they need to watch now.
WAVES: Build a digital home for content audiences may not easily find elsewhere.
ZEE5: Use technology to help viewers find something they want to watch next.
And all three are addressing the same increasingly scarce commodity:
time.
India now has approximately 664.9 million OTT viewers, with paid subscriptions reaching 172.6 million and average online-video consumption at about 14.9 hours per viewer each week.
At that scale, simply acquiring another streaming user is no longer the whole game.
The harder task is earning another hour from the user you already have.
Short Trend Takeaway
India’s OTT market is moving beyond the simple subscription race.
The competitive advantages are becoming more specialized.
Live sport creates urgency.
AI creates discovery.
Free streaming creates reach.
Connected TV creates premium viewing time.
Public-service streaming creates a new distribution model.
That means the next phase of India’s OTT market may be less about which platform has the single biggest show and more about which platform builds the most useful viewing ecosystem around its content.
For audiences, that means more choice.
For streaming companies, it means the home screen itself is becoming as strategically important as the shows behind it.
Video Links to Watch
For official Asian Games streaming and event coverage:
For official ZEE5 programming, previews and platform content:
For Prasar Bharati’s official streaming service:
