‘First Bell’ online classes rake in Rs 15 lakh monthly as ad revenue

KOCHI: Kerala sat up and took note of ‘First Bell’, the online classes of State Education Department aired through KITE Victers Channel, when Sai Swetha teacher won little hearts through her beautiful narration of the tale of two kittens, Thanku and Mittu. Now, almost two months later, Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has earned over `15lakh a month from advertisement revenue through its YouTube channel.

According to KITE CEO Anwar Sadat, this is significant as advertisements are restricted. “Since the content is aimed at children, we opted for age-restricted advertisements. Even then, the channel managed to get an average of `15 lakh a month. Victers Channel had always aired educational videos and there were enough hits. But, after the First Bell classes, the hits skyrocketed. It was then that we decided to monetise it,” said Anwar Sadat. 

So far, First Bell has uploaded over 1,000 videos. “Now that the channel is a hit, we plan to include more videos on general subjects. We also plan to include classes on yoga and other extracurricular activities,” he said. The channel has more than 16 lakh viewers and over five lakh views every day. Around 442 terabytes of data have been reported from 141 countries. 

So far, through the First Bell programme, 604 classes were aired through the channel. Besides Malayalam, the channel airs 274 classes in Kannada and 163 in Tamil telecast through local cable networks in the state.
First Bell classes were launched on June 1 as an interim arrangement  in the backdrop of the state schools remaining closed due to Covid-19.