DTH
Yahoo! India Answers unveils ‘Ask the Planet’ series to its knowledge sharing platform
MUMBAI: Yahoo! India has unveiled a new series titled ‘Ask the Planet’ on its existing knowledge sharing platform Yahoo! India Answers, which acts as a forum and social community for its users.
The internet giant has zeroed in on India and following the launch of what they call the ‘social media search,’ with the ‘Ask the Planet’ campaign, Yahoo! has outlined a regionalization plan to be implemented within the first and second quarter of 2007. Similar to the localization of their messenger service ‘Indichat’ into eight languages, the company is also looking at expanding the ‘Ask the Planet’ series into several local languages.
The latest series has roped in Indian luminaries from myriad backgrounds to pose questions pertaining to education, health, law and enforcement, games and recreation, society and culture. This series will continue for a period of six weeks, allowing users to answer string of questions posed by these achievers. On the opening day, the first question was posted by the president of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam who asked, “What should we do to free our planet from terrorism?”
Taking the campaign forward, the company will conduct an All India School outreach program visiting 25 cities and urging kids to respond to the president’s question. Finally, president Kalam will select 10 lucky winners who will get the opportunity to go on an educational trip to the Silicon Valley. Additionally, the top 50 respondents will also get to interact with the president on a trip to Delhi. The winners will be announced at the end of February.
Besides, having the opportunity to answer questions posed by prominent Indians, the common man can even pose and answer the simplest of questions. What’s more, each registered user can earn points “reputation” for his participation.
Speaking at the launch Yahoo! India MD George Zacharias said, “We are delighted to bring ‘Ask the Planet’ Series to India. In line with the objective of Yahoo! Answers in creating a rich knowledge repository, the ATP Series will provide an innovative platform for the millions of Indians based on their real life experiences, to answer some of the biggest questions that touch our lives today.”
Yahoo! India Answers was initiated by Yahoo! in April 2006. Starting June 2006, Yahoo! began a series called ‘Ask the Planet’ on Answers where luminaries such as Dr. Stephen Hawking, former US vice president Al Gore, U2s Bono to name a few have asked questions on subjects ranging from survival of human race to eradication of poverty. The service currently exists in 16 languages across the world.
DTH
Prasar Bharati’s WAVES earns Rs 2.9 crore in first year
Platform scales content, users but monetisation gaps limit revenue growth.
MUMBAI: Big waves, small ripples at least for now. When Prasar Bharati launched its OTT platform WAVES at the 55th International Film Festival of India in November 2024, it pitched a bold vision: a homegrown rival to global and domestic streaming giants, blending video, audio, gaming and commerce into a single digital ecosystem. Five months into FY2024–25, however, the platform’s revenue stands at just Rs 2.90 crore, a figure that underscores the gap between ambition and monetisation.
On paper, WAVES looks anything but modest. The platform has ingested 13,608 titles, totalling 9,495 hours of content, with over 13,000 titles already live. It has streamed more than 575 live events from the Mahakumbh Amrit Snan and the 76th Republic Day parade to the Hockey India League, Kabaddi World Cup and Mann Ki Baat while offering 74 live TV channels and 12 radio channels. With over 10 lakh registered users and more than 200 content partners onboarded, the scale resembles that of a fully operational streaming service rather than a pilot project.
The architecture supporting this scale is equally robust. Built under Prasar Bharati’s Central Archives vertical, WAVES runs on a cloud-based infrastructure with DRM, encryption and an integrated analytics dashboard. It includes dedicated units for content ingestion, quality control, publishing, graphics, marketing and billing, and is distributed across platforms such as OTTplay, Tata Play and BSNL. The offering extends beyond video to include audio-on-demand, e-games and even e-commerce via ONDC integration.
Yet, the numbers reveal a core disconnect. Despite its scale, WAVES generated just Rs 2.90 crore in a market where India’s OTT industry crossed Rs 23,000 crore in 2024. A key bottleneck lies in monetisation infrastructure: subscriptions cannot currently be purchased within the app and must be completed via an external website. In a mobile-first country where over 95 per cent of OTT consumption happens on smartphones, this extra step creates friction that most users are unlikely to overcome.
Ironically, content is not the problem, it is the platform’s biggest strength. Prasar Bharati holds one of the world’s richest broadcast archives, including 45,154 hours of digitised Akashvani programming and 35,723 hours from Doordarshan. For WAVES alone, over 3,800 hours of archival content have been made OTT-ready, including classics such as Ramayan and Shaktimaan, alongside rare cultural recordings and historical broadcasts.
There are early signs that this library holds commercial potential. Revenue from archival content licensing rose sharply to Rs 3.38 crore in FY24, up from Rs 67 lakh the previous year. Meanwhile, free digital platforms continue to drive massive reach, the PB Archives Youtube channel clocked 119.78 million views and added 4,02,000 subscribers in FY2024–25, crossing 1.7 million in total, while DD News has over 5.84 million subscribers.
That, however, presents a strategic dilemma. While free distribution builds scale, it also conditions audiences to expect content at zero cost making it harder to transition to paid models. WAVES, designed as a hybrid AVOD-SVOD platform with advertising and subscription layers, is yet to fully crack this balance.
The broader challenge is not technological but strategic. In an ecosystem dominated by platforms offering seamless payments, aggressive pricing and high-budget originals, WAVES is still bridging the gap between being a content repository and a commercially viable product.
For now, the platform reflects both promise and paradox. It has the scale, the content and the infrastructure but until monetisation catches up, WAVES remains less a revenue engine and more a digital showcase of what India’s public broadcaster could become.
