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TV News and Facebook Live
Television’s last bastion – live news – could be under threat. At least if one goes by the traction that two events got when they were broadcast live on social media last week. These were not shot with fancy news cameras by specialist videographers; they were shot using simple smart phones. The broadcast platform: Facebook, which has more than a billion users world wide and more than 150 million in India.
The first was when Lavish Reynolds opened up her Facebook Live app and started filming her boyfriend Philando Castile bleeding to death after being shot by the Falcon Heights, Minnesota police in their car at a traffic stop. And she kept continuously reporting from the aftermath of the scene. Apparently, the cops had stopped Castile’s car as it had a broken taillight. And they had asked him to bring out his ID and licence. Castile, Reynolds, states during the broadcast informed the police that he had a licensed firearm, but he was reaching in his pocket for his wallet to bring out his ID. The policeman, despite being informed of this, pumped four bullets into him, Reynolds says.
That video on Facebook has got more than 5.6 million views at the time of writing.
And it led to protests and rallies against police violence across the US of A the next day.
In Dallas, bullets rang out loud and clear during one of the rallies protesting police brutality. Six policemen were shot at by a sniper – Micah Xavier Johnson – from a building. Five of them died. Others were injured. Johnson who holed out against the policeman in a garage was later killed with the help of a robot and an explosive device.
The action on the streets, with the police scrambling around, was filmed by Michael Kevin Bautista and streamed live on Facebook. The video had been watched 5.6 million times once again at the time of writing. Michael got instant fame, getting onto CNN, BBC Radio, CBS, the Washington Post and TMZ apart from a host of other news outlets.
While a large chunk of TV viewers in the US have switched to OTT and VOD services, for their entertainment, cutting off their cable TV connections, most of them are still relying on TV channels for news. This is because TV broadcast helps make understanding news developments easier. But the fact is that news and its analysis is dependent on the slant that producers, reporters, owners – some with vested interests – give it.
Media observers say that the two developments mentioned above could be the fore bearers of the new age of un-curated, raw, reportage of developments – or news – as they happen on the ground during crime scenes, war, accidents, acts of violence or what have you. What would make this kind of reportage interesting is that it would be presented without any bias or agenda.
Imagine the scenario: lay Facebook users the world over whipping out their phones, filming incidents and reporting on them live. This could run into thousands and even hundreds of thousands. With viewers possibly running into millions as happened in the case of Reynolds and Bautista. The numbers could be higher too. Take Candace Payne who went live on Facebook, filming herself wearing a Chebacca mask and cackling away. The video has until the time of writing grossed 150 million views.
What could the emergence of tools such as Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope mean for Indian news TV? There’s disruption waiting to definitely happen with Indian news channels. Some amount of cynicism has crept in among those in the know about the way news is being presented by a majority of the news outlets. There’s always doubt on top of most viewers minds as most TV news channel promoters either have political or economic linkages or leaning.
The time could not be very far when Facebook Live could really start kicking in India. India is a mobile first nation with more than 250 million smart phone owners and around the same number surfing the net on their phones. Around 150 million young and old alike are always logged onto their Facebook accounts.
Give it a thought: if even 10 per cent of them tune into a development shot by a Facebooker and streamed live, the numbers would be more than the viewers than what the top TV news channels attract.
Clearly this is a phenomenon waiting to happen. Again and again. All it would require is a trigger or triggers. And a million news channels would suddenly pop up on Facebook. Giving out unadulterated, independent updates of developments.
In such a scenario a few questions need to be answered. Are not the regulations for broadcast news TV pretty rigid? Will the government seek to regulate and monitor the millions of Facebook live streams? Should it do so at all? Television news broadcast has a code of conduct, some of which is being followed. Could a new code of conduct be put in for Facebook Live news bearers? And will it be followed? How will that happen?
There are many other queries that could need an answer.
For that it’s over to the ministry of information and broadcasting. And if needed to the Telecom Regulatory of India.
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.
