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TV and the waves of change
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
Every now and then, men of great wisdom have paused and looked upon their world as it existed then and made one of two pronouncements; condemning emerging technology to the realm of the ‘useless‘ or declaring mankind‘s attainment of all that had to be attained, the peak of technological advancement by the human race.
In 1977, Ken Olson, Founder President of Digital Equipment Corp said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”. There is no evidence that people want to use these things,” said the San Francisco Examiner in 1984 on an experimental pointing device called ‘the mouse‘.
In circa 1991, cable TV arrived in our homes, and it opened up a whole new wonderland to the ‘Desi Alices‘. Most condemned it to the useless. Who needs 24-hours television? Why pay for this when a simple antenna gets us the TV we need, for free? My B&W television is happy with this signal quality…go talk to the Merc owners !!
They say time, tide – and technology – wait for no man. There indeed was a market and it swept away the cynics.
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Dish antennas, big and small, from the terraces of multi-story apartment blocks to scores protruding defiant from the thatched roofs of slum clusters; unlike the mobile phone revolution, this is certainly not the invisible variety |
The world of entertainment continues to transform. Every day the Indian consumer is sensing a new whiff of entertainment experience and she loves it. Video on demand is becoming mass. Music has moved from cassettes to MP3. Betas are giving way to DVDs. LCD TV has reached the countryside and today we can boost of being one of the largest market globally of new TVs in both LCD and traditional colour television categories. Yes, if you have guessed what I am leading you up to then, you are right. The digital wave is fast spreading itself into our souls and its manifestation can be seen in the highly dynamic world of cable transmission too.
The statistics bear me out. Pay TV homes already at 74 million in 2007, are expected to expand to 115 million in 2012. Cable TV boom continues to grow at 5% and analogue mode continues to dominate with 60% of the market share. But, what each is looking up to is clearly the manner in which content will be experienced by the new age consumer. The teenager that was ‘content transmission through analogue cable distribution‘ has grown up into a strapping young digital adult and this experience is visible as much from inside as the outside of the house.
Dish antennas, big and small, from the terraces of multi-story apartment blocks to scores protruding defiant from the thatched roofs of slum clusters; unlike the mobile phone revolution, this is certainly not the invisible variety.
Of the various digital broadcast platforms, DTH is evidently most established and aggressive. The aggression of the existing five players is not just directed at grabbing share from each other, but as much driving an agenda of converting the unconverted. DTH sector at this time is touching the 21 million mark from 4 million in 2007, expected to be consumed by more than 100 million television viewers in 2009- 2010 from the glittering megapolis to the sleepy hinterland.
With all this data heavy information if anyone is thinking that this is the death of analogue cable. Well think again. Traditional cable TV is here to stay and thrive but will have to reinvent itself. It is not the one to easily relinquish its early-mover advantage and therefore is changing face too.
The introduction of CAS in the year 2006 set the tone for the ‘digitalization‘ of cable. With its partial introduction in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, most major MSOs put together have already seeded over 0.6 million set top boxes. The government plans to extend CAS to another 51 cities. The large outlay on the laying of fiber optic network and high quality amplifiers has already secured traditional cable TV‘s leadership position in the world of broadcast.
It is my hypothesis that more than the regulations themselves, the vociferous demand for better quality picture and inescapable competition from the sky will ensure rapid upgradation and relegation of ancient technology to the annals of history.
These, in all their magnitude and scale are still today‘s developments.
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We are also the world‘s largest and the fastest growing mobile phone market. Voice anywhere drove the first phase of the telecom revolution. Will “content anywhere” drive the next? |
Knocking on the door is the new and energized Internet – now ready to carry television content with it to the millions of homes, it has already penetrated. The megacorps like Airtel, MTNL and BSNL have already started their IPTV services – Delhi and Mumbai first, and now at least 10 other towns. The game plan between the them is over 50 key cities in the next five years.
When broadband today reaches 4.38 million homes, you may not see this part of the digital revolution as prominently as you do in case of the dish antennas, but this is the silent wave of evolution ready for the sweep.
What the future holds in its lap is the next stage, when we will question the very need for a television set. Viewing content on mobile phone is doing the rounds. MTNL has rolled out 3G. Doordarshan in collaboration with Nokia, Spice Telecom, Qualcomm and Samsung are just some of the stakeholders expected to play a dominant role in nursing this new technology.
We are also the world‘s largest and the fastest growing mobile phone market. Voice anywhere drove the first phase of the telecom revolution. Will “content anywhere” drive the next? An answer that the future holds up its sleeve. Let‘s wait and watch!
(Dinesh Jain is the CEO of Zee Turner. The views and the opinions expressed are those of the writer. Indiantelevision.com may not necessarily subscribe to them wholly or partly.)
MUMBAI: 2025 will be remembered as the year India’s OTT industry stopped chasing scale for its own sake and began reckoning with how audiences actually consume content. Completion rates fell, patience wore thin and the limits of long-form excess became impossible to ignore. In this guest column, Pratap Jain, founder and CEO of ChanaJor, traces how micro-drama moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, why short-form fiction emerged as a retention engine rather than a trend, and how platforms that respected time, habit and emotional payoff were the ones that truly grew up in 2025.
If there is one thing 2025 will be remembered for in the Indian OTT industry, it’s this: the industry finally stopped pretending.
Stopped pretending that bigger automatically meant better.
Stopped pretending that viewers had endless time.
Stopped pretending that scale without retention was success.
What began as a quiet reset in 2023 and a cautious correction in 2024 turned into a very visible shift in 2025. Business models matured. Content strategies tightened. And most importantly, platforms started aligning themselves with how Indians actually watch content, not how the industry wished they would.
At the centre of this shift was micro-drama—not as a trend, but as a behavioural inevitability.
When OTT finally understood the time problem
For years, long episodes were treated as a marker of seriousness. A 45–60 minute runtime was almost a badge of credibility. Shorter formats were pushed to the margins, labelled as “snack content” or “mobile-only.”
That belief quietly collapsed in 2025.
What platform data showed very clearly was not a drop in interest—but a drop in patience. Viewers weren’t rejecting stories. They were rejecting commitment.
Across platforms, the same patterns appeared:
* First-episode drop-offs on long-form shows kept increasing
* Completion rates continued to slide
* Viewers were sampling more titles but finishing fewer
At the same time, shows with episodes in the six to 10 minute range started showing the opposite behaviour: higher completion, higher repeat viewing, and stronger daily habit formation.
Micro-drama didn’t win because it was short. It won because it respected time.
Micro-Drama didn’t arrive loudly. It took over quietly.
There was no single moment when micro-drama “launched” in India. It crept in through dashboards and retention charts.
By mid-2025, it was clear that viewers were happy watching four, five, sometimes six short episodes in one sitting—even when they wouldn’t finish a single long episode. Romance, relationship drama, slice-of-life conflict, and grounded comedy worked especially well.
This wasn’t disposable content. It was compressed storytelling.
In shorter formats, there was no room for indulgence. Every episode had to move the story forward. Weak writing was punished faster. Strong writing was rewarded immediately.
Micro-drama raised the bar instead of lowering it.
Where ChanaJor naturally fit into this shift
ChanaJor didn’t pivot to micro-drama in 2025 because the market demanded it. In many ways, the platform was already built around the same viewing behaviour.
From the beginning, ChanaJor focused on short-to-mid-length fictional stories that felt close to everyday Indian life—hostels, rented flats, office romances, small-town relationships, young people figuring things out. Stories that didn’t need heavy context or cinematic scale to connect.
What worked in ChanaJor’s favour in 2025 was clarity:
* A clearly defined audience
* Tight episode lengths
* Storytelling that prioritised emotion and pace over spectacle
While several platforms rushed to copy global micro-drama formats, ChanaJor stayed rooted in familiar Indian settings and conflicts. That familiarity mattered. Viewers didn’t have to “enter” the world of the show—it already felt like theirs.
Why audiences started responding differently
One of the biggest misconceptions going into 2025 was that audiences wanted shorter content because their attention spans had reduced. That wasn’t entirely true.
What viewers actually wanted was meaningful payoff per minute.
On platforms like ChanaJor, episodes didn’t waste time setting the mood for ten minutes. Conflicts arrived early. Characters were recognisable within moments. Emotional hooks landed fast.
A typical consumption pattern looked like real life:
* One episode during a break
* Two more before sleeping
* A few the next day
This is how viewing habits are built—not through marketing spends, but through comfort and consistency.
Viewers came back not because every show was a blockbuster, but because they knew what kind of experience to expect.
2025 was also the year OTT faced business reality
The other big change in 2025 was on the business side. Subscriber growth slowed. Discounts stopped hiding churn. Customer acquisition costs rose.
Platforms were forced to ask harder questions:
* Are viewers finishing what they start?
* Are they returning without reminders?
* Is this content worth what we’re spending on it?
This is where micro-drama began outperforming expectations. A well-written short series could deliver sustained engagement without massive budgets. It didn’t peak for one weekend and disappear—it stayed alive through repeat viewing.
Platforms like ChanaJor benefited because they weren’t chasing inflated launch numbers. The focus was on consistency and retention, not noise.
Failures Became Visible Faster
2025 also exposed weaknesses brutally.
Several platforms assumed micro-drama was a shortcut—short episodes, quick shoots, instant traction. What they discovered was that bad writing fails faster in short formats than in long ones.
Viewers dropped off within minutes. Episodes were abandoned mid-way. Weak stories had nowhere to hide.
Micro-drama didn’t forgive laziness. It amplified it.
The platforms that survived were the ones that treated short storytelling with the same seriousness as long-form—sometimes more.
OTT Stopped Chasing Prestige and Started Chasing Habit
Perhaps the most important shift in 2025 wasn’t technical or creative—it was psychological.
OTT stopped trying to look like cinema. It stopped chasing validation through scale and awards alone. It began behaving like what it actually is in people’s lives: a daily companion.
Platforms like ChanaJor found their space here because that mindset was already baked in. The goal wasn’t to dominate a weekend launch. It was to quietly become part of someone’s everyday viewing routine.
That shift changed everything—from release strategies to how success was measured.
What 2025 Ultimately Taught the Industry
By the end of the year, three truths were impossible to ignore:
* Time is the most valuable thing a viewer gives you
* Retention matters more than reach
* Format must follow behaviour, not ego
Micro-drama didn’t take over because it was fashionable. It took over because it fit real life.
Looking Ahead
Micro-drama is not replacing long-form storytelling. It is redefining the baseline of engagement.
Longer shows will survive—but only when they earn their length. Short-form fiction will continue to evolve, becoming sharper, more emotionally confident, and better written.
Platforms like ChanaJor have shown that it’s possible to grow without shouting—by understanding the audience, respecting their time, and telling stories that feel real.
2025 wasn’t the year OTT became smaller. It was the year it became smarter.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
