eNews
“We invest in creating unique, authentic, engaging and high-quality content:” Jist’s Rishi Pratim Mukherjee
Mumbai: In today’s digital age, the way we consume news and entertainment has evolved dramatically. With the rise of digital platforms and social media, millennials and Gen Z prefer accessible, engaging, and informative content that simplifies complex news and entertainment topics. This shift has not only transformed how content is delivered but also how it’s consumed.
Amidst this trend stands Jist Media, a dynamic digital news and entertainment company that has redefined content creation. Jist is founded by Rishi Pratim Mukherjee (co-founder & CEO), Sattvik Mishra (co-founder), and Nitin Narang (co-founder). Since its inception in January 2023, Jist has captivated over five million followers with its innovative approach to simplifying news and making it accessible through a mix of short and long-format videos. With a staggering 1.2 billion views and a reach of 3.5 billion, Jist has quickly emerged as a leading player in the digital media landscape, resonating deeply with a young, curious audience eager for meaningful and engaging content.
Indiantelevision.com caught up with Jist Media co-founder & CEO Rishi Pratim Mukherjee to gain more insights on the latest developments at Jist, their business model, and much more…
Edited Excerpts:
On the inspiration behind the creation of Jist and the journey since its launch; and some of the latest developments at Jist
Jist (India), is a digital news and entertainment company that creates videos to explain the world to young, curious audiences – particularly millennials and Gen Z. Our platform aims to empower users through accessible, authentic, engaging, and informative video content. With a dedicated team of 40 plus talented individuals, we consistently produce 250 plus original videos per month, catering to the preferences of audiences who have a penchant for video content consumption.
Our primary focus is to cater the audiences who have a preference for video content consumption. Over the past year, our social media channels including Facebook, Instagram and X have reached 1.2 billion views per year and amassed five million followers. This tremendous growth is a testament that there is a growing audience for meaningful content that is merely not serving news in a static manner but providing genuine value by making sense of the news cacophony surrounding today’s digital natives. This overwhelming response gives us the confidence to keep making content for our audience and continue to reimagine storytelling via multiple digital formats.
Latest developments – Jist is currently leveraging branded content partnerships. It has begun taking nascent steps in monetising its content by partnering with marquee brands like Invideo AI, Iqoo, Baazi Games, JB Power Consultants, and Rockford (Modi Illva India Pvt Ltd).
On Jist setting itself apart from other digital news and entertainment platforms
We invest in creating unique, authentic, engaging and high-quality content that caters to the diverse needs and interests of our audience eg – entertainment, health, lifestyle, politics, economy and sports among others. As mentioned above, our social media channels including Facebook, Instagram and X have reached 1.2 billion views per year and amassed five million followers. We are committed to meeting the evolving preferences of our viewers by providing them a seamless and enriching experience on the devices of their choice.
We prioritise quality engagement metrics over mere quantitative indicators.
On Jist’s business model and the strategies to monetise your content effectively
Jist operates on a digital content business model, focusing on curating and creating original video content in both short and long formats. Targeting a community of over five million millennials and Gen Z followers, Jist produces infotainment content that makes news simple, fun, and accessible. Since its launch in January 2023, Jist has garnered 1.2 billion views and a reach of 3.5 billion (in 2023 alone). Jist is currently leveraging branded content partnerships. Jist has begun taking nascent steps in monetising its content by partnering with marquee brands like Sprite (Coca Cola) Titan Eyewear, Invideo AI, Iqoo, Baazi Games, JB Power Consultants, and Rockford (Modi Illva India Pvt Ltd).
On strategies that Jist has implemented to rapidly grow its user base
We invest in creating unique, authentic, engaging and high-quality content that caters to the diverse needs and interests of our audience eg – entertainment, health, lifestyle, politics, economy and sports among others. The platform reached a significant milestone in 2023, surpassing 700 million viewers across its social media platforms, and are thrilled to see the continued growth in viewership throughout the year. We are committed to meeting the evolving preferences of our viewers by providing them a seamless and enriching experience on the devices of their choice.
What content consumption trends are you noticing among millennials and Gen Z and how does Jist tailor its content to meet the preferences of younger audiences
In recent years, there has been a notable transformation in the content consumption pattern of the youth in India, particularly for news and entertainment. According to a report by Global data company YouGov, young consumers between 25-34 years will be driving streaming growth in India. As consumer content consumption patterns continue to evolve, we at Jist News are committed to adapting our content creation approach including leveraging innovative digital storytelling formats, enhancing our presence on social media platforms, and exploring opportunities in the growing streaming market to deliver engaging and relevant content that resonates with our audience.
● Our focus is on providing editorially curated news content that offers perspective and important contextual cues, making sense of the noise for our audience in a language and format native to their digital experience, ensuring both relevance and engagement.
● Ensuring the authenticity of information is paramount to us. Our editorial team led by Rahul Shrivastava, who comes with decades of experience in esteemed news organisations like NDTV and India Today, upholds classical fact-checking and journalistic rigour to meet the highest standards of credibility and reliability. Our editorial team is mentored and moulded constantly to present content that meets the highest journalistic standards.
● While entertainment content, especially scripted fiction, remains popular among Indian youth, there is a noticeable shift towards consuming more informative and issue-driven content. This indicates a growing interest among the youth in understanding and engaging with important social, political, and cultural issues.
● The rise of over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms has transformed the way Indian youth consume entertainment, with on-demand viewing becoming the norm over traditional appointment-based TV watching.
● We prioritise quality engagement metrics over mere quantitative indicators. Metrics such as organic views, video completion rates, average watch time, and the quality of user comments are considered more meaningful in assessing the effectiveness and impact of its content on the audience.
We recognise this shift in preferences and strive to provide content that not only entertains but also informs and educates its audience. By delivering well-researched, authentic, and digestible news content, Jist News aims to simplify complex topics and make them more accessible to the digitally savvy youth.
On some of the most successful IPs Jist has created so far and future IPs that we can look forward to, from Jist Media
Our most produced content IP is Answered, helmed by in-house anchors Nimisha Wahi and Nishtha Pandey, vertical format video explainer that is Reels first. Each video has an average duration of 120-240 seconds, focusing on crunching information on key topics trending in the news and connecting information dots for our audience, providing them with context of the topic. We handle the entire production process in-house, garnering 15 million monthly views from this content alone.
In addition to this, all our original interviews – HotSpot (politicians), Townhall (actors, celebs), Spotlight (social media influencers) which are approximately an hour (for YouTube), are sliced into pithy highlight chunks for our reels and shorts section.
Our IP – Townhall, interview series, features celebrities from the entertainment industry(featured so far – Richa Chaddha, Bhumi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, etc.).
It is one of our most popular formats and has rapidly gained traction and garnered 100 plus million views over the past year.
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.
