MUMBAI: Screenwriters are finally getting the last word and it’s not a happy ending yet. Tulsea and Ormax Media have dropped the second edition of The Right Draft: 2026, shining a spotlight on India’s professional wordsmiths with hard numbers rather than hearsay. Building on the 2023 debut, the country’s first deep-dive into writers’ views of the entertainment machine, this update quizzed 254 screenwriters from every corner and corner office. The respondents span OTT series, theatrical films, TV fiction, non-fiction, docs, ads, gaming, micro-dramas and more, across generations and experience levels.

The headlines sting sharper than a rejected draft:

• Pay woes worsen 74 per cent now feel unfairly compensated (up from 63 per cent in 2023), 52 per cent report delayed payments (up from 40 per cent), and a whopping 78 per cent chase dues relentlessly.
  
• Credit crunch 54 per cent say writers don’t get fair billing, while 64 per cent note zero consistent industry standard for credits from producers or platforms.
  
• Scripts sidelined, In theatrical films, only 6 per cent believe producers value scripts over stars (with 83 per cent pointing to star power dominance). OTT shows a slide too just 62 per cent now see scripts prioritised or equal (down from 76 per cent).
  
• Mentorship drought, Access to solid mentors has plunged to 19 per cent (from 30 per cent), 76 per cent say there’s no real infrastructure to hone the craft, and only 38 per cent trust grievance systems.
  
• AI in the mix, 41 per cent use AI tools at least occasionally. Half don’t view it as a career threat, but 68 per cent worry producers now devalue human creativity because of it, and 50 per cent feel expectations for lightning-fast turnarounds assume AI magic.

Tulsea Media co-founder Chaitanya Hegde framed the purpose plainly, “With the second edition of The Right Draft, we wanted to deepen the industry’s understanding of what writers experience on the ground across pay, credit, feedback, nurturing structures, and now AI. The data points to some shifts and some stubborn constants. Our hope is that the report helps move conversations from perception to process, and toward more consistent, fair, and creator-friendly systems.”

Ormax Media founder and CEO Shailesh Kapoor echoed the call, “Writers sit at the core of the storytelling ecosystem, yet too many friction points remain structural rather than episodic. By measuring writer sentiment across key dimensions, The Right Draft is intended to be a practical input into how the industry can build stronger alignment, accountability, and creative ownership.”

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Structured across seven punchy sections The Right Pay, The Right Credit, The Right Feedback, The Right Value, The Right Nurturing, The Right Tools, and The Right Environment, the report isn’t just venting, it’s mapping the gaps so the industry might actually fix them.

For anyone who’s ever binge-watched a show and wondered about the brains behind the dialogue, this one’s a reminder: great stories start with respected storytellers. Until then, the draft remains anything but right.

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