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HT Media needs to rethink ‘No TV Day’
MUMBAI: Hindustan Times is back with its ‘NO TV Day’ initiative. The campaign in its third year, now invites Mumbaikars (who, according to them, are the only ones owning a TV set) to switch off their TVs and celebrate quality time with family and friends through a wide range of activities specially put together by HT Mumbai (Does that mean Mumbaikars also do not know how to organize activities for friends and family and need an HT Media to do it for them?).
The Facebook page of the campaign has many ads put together to promote the “Apna TV Band Karo Campaign.” Bollywood actor Imran Khan is seen saying he enjoys cooking on ‘NO TV Day’ – not surprising considering the number of films he has been doing (or he rather did).
Another activity suggested is the ‘Get Fitter Mini Marathon’ at Carter Road, Bandra. Located in the western suburbs of Mumbai, it seems to insinuate that Mumbai can get fitter only at Bandra man (Read: the common Bandra lingo).
The ‘Head to Adlabs Imagica and Get Amazed’ has a number of postings on the page because maybe Essel World is now passé and not so amazing anymore.
Jokes apart, the campaign is being planned at a time when IPL mania has gripped the country. Why is the HT Media management trying to spike the viewership of Sony Entertainment’s most expensive and revenue generating product in the city of cricket lovers?
Is it a case of sour grapes with HT Media? Publication houses like India Today, DNA and the Times of India have their own channels but HT doesn’t. Maybe not now! But it surprisingly did so once in the late nineties. The Hindustan Times had started a Hindi entertainment channel, Home TV in collaboration with Pearson group of London which soon shut shop. And now with its ‘switch off your TV’ HT is behaving like a kid throwing tantrums.
What’s also concerning is that HT Media’s No TV Day coincides with No Tobacco Day this time. Are they not really very different products? TV definitely is not equal to tobacco.
The dynamic audio visual element of the TV medium allows its viewers to consume content as it comes alive on a screen immediately and live. It informs, it entertains, it engages, it educates, it connects and it is an integral part of our lives.
As compared to this, newspapers take an entire day to publish information that has probably expired and has been dust binned. May be some of their analyses are pertinent and different, but in the era of paid content that’s something you have to really seek out. The world over newspapers are being given a decent or indecent burial. And TV and the digital medium are continuing to grow and thrive. In India, however, that’s not the case and newspapers are showing that they have a lot of legs.
Yes, the intent behind the HT Media initiative – get families and each one of us out together doing things they and we normally don’t – is laudible. But why hit out at the medium of TV? Why call it ‘No TV Day’ when calling it “HT Media’s Family Day out” would do just as well. Then do we really need a special day to spend time with our families? And will HT Media decide what we should do with ours?
The campaign also suggests that one can help a great deal in protecting the environment by turning off the TV for a day. HT has also organised ‘Nature Trails’ on ‘NO TV Day’ in Goregaon, in the western part of Mumbai. Can it ensure that the participants will not leave behind a trail of plastic bags, bottles and other wastes as they trudge along?
At indiantelevision.com we believe it makes more sense to watch TV in order to protect the environment. After all no trees are cut to make newsprint when you watch TV.
HT Media managers would do well to take their communications seriously. Imagine what could happen if the channels were to take the anti-TV messaging to heart and were to organise a No Newspaper Day nationally? It could lead to a loss of crores for the whole newspaper industry. Imagine what would happen if TV channels were to go online alone to promote their shows and for their TV guides? Again a loss of crores would hit the industry. Imagine if TV manufacturers were to cancel advertising in newspapers for a day? Again the impact would run into crores.
It’s possible that HT Media’s campaign may also be costing the TV industry some viewership (though many doubt that). Hypothetically let’s say it is, that means the ‘No TV day’ would be impacting TV channels’ revenues. The question is why are TV channels taking all this lying down? When probably they are among the bigger spenders in the newspaper’s pages.
The appeal from all of us at indiantelevision.com to HT Media is that its managers should avoid using the term ‘No TV Day’ and coin something more positive and family oriented instead. It will be just as fun for its readers in Mumbai.
(We at the Indiantelevision.com group live and breathe audiovisual content – both on TV and online. But we also love newspapers. We believe they are relevant. At least for a few years. We also believe that HT Media’s ‘No TV Day’ campaign is a case of misdirected and wrongful communication, though it has been organised in good faith and with a good intent to bring families together.)
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.
