iWorld
STB & MX Player partner to present interactive film ‘Lost and Found in Singapore’
Mumbai: Singapore Tourism Board (STB), in partnership with MX Player’s content arm, MX Studios is set to unveil the interactive film on an Indian OTT platform. Titled ‘Lost and Found in Singapore’, this innovative film introduces a choose-your-own path approach that invites viewers to actively shape the unfolding narrative against the backdrop of Singapore.
A first-of-its-kind initiative by an NTO in India, this film captures and blends the elements that define Singapore’s character, creating an immersive exploration. Seamlessly integrating triggers for engagement, the interactive component promises a captivating experience. This collaboration caters to evolving preferences, especially among young Indian travelers. As audiences seek innovative ways to engage with travel content, ‘Lost and Found in Singapore’ offers fresh, firsthand inspiration. Through active involvement, viewers connect with Singapore’s attractions, weaving entertainment and exploration. Just as the film empowers viewers, Singapore transforms ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences, showcasing the destination’s unparalleled essence. The film encourages repeat viewing to explore alternate storylines and facets of Singapore.
An MX Studios Original “Lost and Found in Singapore” intricately follows the journeys of an introverted solo traveler (Rithvik Dhanjani) and an adventure-seeking girl (Apoorva Arora), who champions friendship. Amidst Singapore’s iconic landmarks and hidden gems, their destinies rest in the hands of the audience. Viewers guide their choices, creating diverse paths and unique viewing experiences. This immersive collaboration caters to younger Indian audiences, blending entertainment with novel travel inspiration. Alongside, curated experiences like the Vespa Sidecar Tour through Joo Chiat and Katong, with its exploration of Nonyas, Babas, and Peranakans, Museum of Ice-Cream, Design Orchard and Bird Paradise at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, offer textured exploration, seamlessly resonating with modern explorers.
Singapore Tourism Board regional director, India, Middle East, South Asia & Africa, GB Srithar said, “We are pleased to partner with MX Player, bringing a unique experience to audiences across India through this pioneering film. As a leading lifestyle hub in the region today, Singapore is a n ever-evolving destination, and this dynamism is best showcased to discerning Indian consumers through equally innovative means. We believe that this partnership introduces a novel perspective of Singapore, introducing to the young Indian travellers the dizzying array of unique tourism experiences it offers. The interactive format deeply resonates with Indian viewers seeking innovative travel engagement, inspiring personalised journeys. Just as the film empowers viewers, Singapore transforms ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences, emphasizing our commitment to showcasing offerings that uniquely define the destination.”
MX Player spokesperson said, “Our viewers are always looking for dynamic and game changing storytelling on MX Player. This collaboration with the Singapore Tourism Board in creating the interactive short film, ‘Lost and Found in Singapore’ is one of its kind and introduces a new dimension to storytelling. We’re excited to bring audiences an engaging cinematic experience as it will allow viewers to actively select the narrative of their choice and will also showcase Singapore’s extraordinary trove of rich destination experiences through this film.”
Guided by the experienced hand of director Harsh Dedhia and the creative vision of writer Kanishka Singh Deo, this film promises an unforgettable experience. “Lost and Found in Singapore” stands out for its interactive element, inviting the audience to actively engage with the narrative.
From 25 August 2023, enjoy free streaming of “Lost and Found in Singapore”, only on MX Player!
eNews
How short, addictive story videos quietly colonised the Indian smartphone
A landmark Meta-Ormax study of 2,000 viewers reveals a format that is growing fast, paying slowly and consumed almost entirely in secret
CALIFORNIA, MUMBAI: India has a new entertainment habit, and it arrived without anyone really noticing. Micro dramas, those short, cliffhanger-driven episodic stories built for the smartphone screen, have quietly embedded themselves into the daily routines of millions of Indians, discovered not by design but by algorithmic accident, watched not in living rooms but in bedrooms, on commutes and in the five minutes before sleep.
That, in essence, is the finding of a sweeping new audience study released by Meta and media insights firm Ormax Media at Meta’s inaugural Marketing Summit: Micro-Drama Edition. Titled “Micro Dramas: The India Story” and based on 2,000 personal interviews and 50 depth interviews conducted between November 2025 and January 2026 across 14 states, it is the most comprehensive study of the category in India to date, and its findings are striking.
Sixty-five per cent of viewers discovered micro dramas within the last year. Of those, 89 per cent stumbled upon the format through social media feeds, primarily Instagram and Facebook, without ever searching for it. The algorithm did the heavy lifting. Discovery, as the report puts it bluntly, is algorithm-led, not intent-led.
The typical viewer journey begins with accidental exposure while scrolling, moves through a cliffhanger-driven incompletion hook that makes stopping feel unfinished, and is reinforced by algorithmic repetition until habitual consumption sets in. Only then, when a platform asks for an app download or a payment, does the viewer pause. Trust, not content quality, determines what happens next, and many simply return to the free feed rather than pay. It is a funnel with a wide mouth and a narrow neck.
The numbers on consumption tell their own story. Viewers spend a median of 3.5 hours per week watching micro dramas, spread across seven to eight sessions of roughly 30 minutes each, peaking sharply between 8pm and midnight. Daytime viewing is snackable and low-commitment, squeezed into morning commutes, work breaks and coffee pauses. Night-time is where the format truly lives: private, uninterrupted and, for many viewers, socially invisible. Ninety per cent watch alone, compared to just 43 per cent for long-form OTT content. Half the audience watches during their commute, well above the 37 per cent figure for streaming platforms, a direct reflection of the format’s low time investment advantage.
The audience itself breaks into three segments. Incidental viewers, comprising 39 per cent of the total, are passive consumers who stumble in and rarely seek content actively. Intent-building viewers, the largest group at 43 per cent, are beginning to form habits and seek out episodes but remain cautious. High-intent viewers, just 18 per cent, are the ones who download apps, tolerate ads and occasionally pay: skewing male, younger and urban.
What audiences want from the content is revealing. The top three genres are romance at 72 per cent, family drama at 64 per cent and comedy at 63 per cent, precisely the same top three as Hindi general entertainment television. The format rewards emotional familiarity over complexity. Romance in particular thrives because it demands low cognitive investment, needs no elaborate world-building and plays naturally into the private, pre-sleep viewing window where inhibitions lower and emotional intimacy feels safe.
The most-recalled shows, led by Kuku TV titles such as The Lady Boss Returns, The Billionaire Husband and Kiss My Luck, share a common narrative DNA: rich-poor conflict, hidden identities, power imbalances, melodrama and cliffhangers that make stopping feel physically uncomfortable. Predictability, the research warns, is fatal. Each episode must re-earn attention from scratch.
The terminology question is telling. Despite the industry’s embrace of the phrase “micro drama,” viewers have not adopted it. They call the content “short story videos,” “short dramas,” “reels with stories” or simply “serials.” One respondent from Chennai said bluntly that “micro sounds like a scientific word.” The category is at the stage that OTT occupied in 2019 and podcasts in the same year: widely consumed, poorly named and not yet crystallised in the public imagination.
Platform awareness remains alarmingly thin. Only three platforms, Kuku TV at 78 per cent, Story TV at 46 per cent and Quick TV at 28 per cent, have crossed the 20 per cent awareness threshold. The rest languish in single digits. This creates a trust deficit that directly throttles monetisation: viewers who cannot remember which app they used are hardly primed to enter their payment details.
Yet the appetite is clearly there. Sixty-five per cent of viewers watch only Indian content, drawn by the TV-serial familiarity of the storytelling, the comfort of Hindi as a shared language and the sight of actors they half-recognise from decades of television. South languages are rising fast: Tamil, Telugu and Kannada together account for 24 per cent of first-choice viewing. And AI-generated content, still a novelty, has landed better than expected: 47 per cent of viewers call it creative and unique, with only 6 per cent actively rejecting it.
Shweta Bajpai, director, media and entertainment (India) at Meta, called micro drama “a category that is rewriting the rules of Indian entertainment,” adding that the discovery engine being social distinguishes this wave from previous content formats. Shailesh Kapoor, founder and chief executive of Ormax Media, was characteristically measured: the format, he said, is showing “the early signs of becoming a distinct content category” and, given how closely it aligns with natural mobile behaviour, “has the potential to scale very quickly.”
The format’s fundamental mechanics are working. It enters lives quietly, through boredom and a scrolling thumb, and burrows in through incompletion and habit. The challenge now is monetisation: converting a category of highly engaged but deeply anonymous viewers into paying customers who trust the platform enough to hand over their UPI credentials. The story, as any micro-drama writer knows, is only as good as the next cliffhanger. India’s platforms had better have one ready.
