iWorld
India leads the spot in highest engagement on Facebook during Tokyo Olympics
Mumbai: Scripting its best-ever Olympic performance, India won seven medals – one gold, two silver, and four bronze – at Tokyo 2020. If there were, however, a ‘loudest country engaging in Olympic-related banter on Facebook’ category, ranked by the number of people talking about it, the country would have won another gold!
According to data shared by Facebook reflecting trends on Facebook and Instagram between July 23 and August 8, India outshone countries like the United States and Brazil, emerging as the loudest country in the world to engage about the Games on the two websites.
Neeraj Chopra – the first track and field athlete to win an Olympic gold medal for India in the ‘Men’s Javelin Throw’ category – was the second-most mentioned athlete on Facebook and led the same spot on Instagram, globally. Interestingly, track and field was also the most mentioned sport over the course of the Games globally. Maximum conversations around the Games happened on 7 August when Chopra and Team USA won gold in the ‘Men’s Javelin Throw’ and ‘Men’s Basketball’ categories.
On Instagram, Neeraj Chopra (+2870814), PV Sindhu (+702778), and MC Mary Kom (+270104) were the biggest winners gaining the maximum number of followers since the start of the Olympics this year. Registering maximum increase in following by 1900 per cent on a global level, Chopra became the second most followed athlete over the course of the Games. His Instagram following stands at 2.6 million currently.
Other Interesting Global Trend
Tai Tzu Ying’s Facebook post thanking everyone for their support generated maximum interactions (1.3 million) during the course of the Games.
On Instagram, Brazil’s skateboarding athlete Rayssa Leal drove maximum interactions at 18.44 million. With 11 million views, the video depicting her skateboarding journey became the most-viewed video.
Overall, athletes gained more than 75 million followers on Instagram, driving over 410 million interactions and posting over 3000,000 stories, globally.
iWorld
Applause, Story TV team up to push microdrama content
Partnership to create premium short form shows for mobile first viewers
MUMBAI: Applause Entertainment and Story TV are betting on short attention spans with a long-term vision, joining forces to create a slate of premium microdramas for mobile-first audiences.
The partnership brings together Applause’s storytelling pedigree and Story TV’s fast-growing digital reach, with plans to co-produce and distribute bite-sized dramas across genres. As part of the deal, Story TV will also adapt the romantic thriller Hello Mini into a vertical microdrama format, signalling a shift in how stories are being reshaped for smaller screens.
Backed by the Aditya Birla Group, Applause Entertainment has built a reputation for high-quality content with titles like Scam 1992 and Criminal Justice. Story TV, launched in 2025, has quickly scaled up with a library of over 1,000 titles across languages and genres, riding the wave of mobile consumption.
Story TV founder and CEO Saurabh Pandey said, “Phones are now the primary screens for content consumption, and microdramas are evolving into a mainstream format. At Story TV, we are blending storytelling with technology to push this format further.”
He added that the collaboration with Applause Entertainment will help expand the reach of microdramas while introducing a layer of premium storytelling to the space.
Applause Entertainment chief business officer Prasoon Garg said, “At Applause, we have always focused on strong storytelling across formats. As microdramas gain momentum, this partnership allows us to explore the space with a platform that understands both the format and its audience.”
With mobile screens shrinking and content getting sharper, the collaboration hints at a future where storytelling is not just shorter, but smarter, designed to fit neatly into the scroll of everyday life.
