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India’s micro-drama boom is rewriting the OTT playbook
DELHI: At 1 AM, 23-year-old Priya Sharma is glued to her phone, bingeing a revenge thriller in 90-second episodes. She is far from alone. Over 80 million Indians are now hooked on micro-dramas, bite-sized, mobile-first narratives that are turning India’s OTT industry on its head.
Vikrant Khanna, founder and CEO of Mogi I/O, calls it India’s latest entertainment gold rush. In a LinkedIn post, Khanna wrote that a Re 1 trial can quickly turn into Re 300-plus monthly spends, and that the biggest battle for attention is no longer on TV screens but in the palm of the hand.
The market is crowded and fiercely competitive. More than ten platforms are vying for viewers, each with a different strategy. Some are chasing volume, Netflix-style. Others are going cinematic, HBO-style. A few are spending twice the traditional TV budgets on vertical-first content. Talent is following the money, with TV stars and Bollywood actors increasingly headlining micro-dramas, drawn by creative freedom and strong paychecks.
Pricing psychology is driving engagement. Platforms charge Re 1 for a seven-day trial, leveraging cliffhangers, emotional hooks and multiple storylines to convert casual viewers into paying subscribers. Many users come for a single show and stay for months.
China’s micro-drama market offers a blueprint, growing from $500 million in 2021 to $9 billion in 2025. India has the advantage of a larger population, mobile-first behaviour and a deep daily-soap culture. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are expected to fuel the next phase of growth.
Content itself is evolving. While early micro-dramas focused on romance, family drama and revenge, high-octane action is now moving vertical, with large casts, real stunts and cinematic ambition. Episodes remain under 60 seconds, dropped daily, but series span 30–45 minutes cumulatively — a new kind of daily soap designed for habit, not appointment viewing.
Khanna stresses that micro-dramas are more than a trend. They are a business model shift — built for mobile, monetised through emotion rather than subscriptions, and increasingly powered by AI and data. For viewers like Priya in Lucknow, scrolling at 1 AM is already normal. For creators, investors and platforms, the micro-drama moment is only just beginning.
Vikrant Khanna is a seasoned P&L leader and entrepreneur with rich experience across FMCG, telecom, virtual retail and Internet businesses. He founded Mogi I/O, a B2B video-tech venture that compresses video size by up to 50 per cent while streaming buffer-free, high-quality content. Mogi leverages these IPs to provide no-code video apps across mobile, web and TV, helping OTTs, broadcasters, publishers and edtech platforms monetise content efficiently.
Before Mogi, Khanna launched BoomAGift, a gifting-on-the-go app for low-ticket items, which has since pivoted into Mogi. He also held leadership roles at Homeshop18 as COO and at Bharti Airtel, where he led youth marketing campaigns, digital strategy and the sponsorship of India’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix.
India’s OTT future, Khanna says, may no longer be written in hours. It could be written in 60-second episodes.
eNews
Paisabazaar launches Credit Premier League 2.0
Nationwide campaign rewards highest credit scores with Rs 1 lakh top prize.
MUMBAI: When credit scores become a national league, even your CIBIL report starts feeling like it’s playing in the IPL and Paisabazaar has just kicked off the second season. Paisabazaar, India’s leading marketplace for financial products and the country’s largest free credit score platform, has announced the return of the Credit Premier League (CPL) 2.0, a fun, nationwide initiative to recognise and reward individuals with the highest credit scores.
Building on the success of the first edition, CPL 2.0 introduces higher rewards and broader participation. The individual(s) with the highest credit score in the country will win Rs 1 lakh, while state champions will each receive Rs 10,000. Additionally, all participants from the winning state, the one with the highest average credit score will also be rewarded.
All winnings will be credited directly to winners’ PB Wallet, allowing them to pay credit card bills, recharge mobiles, or settle utility bills seamlessly on the Paisabazaar platform.
Paisabazaar CEO Santosh Agarwal said the campaign aims to make credit awareness more engaging and mainstream. “With CPL, we are bringing together engagement, gamification and rewards to make conversations around credit scores more mainstream,” he noted. “Our focus remains on building a financially aware and credit-healthy Bharat.”
The first edition of CPL saw over 5.5 million participants, with the highest individual score touching 861. Delhi recorded the highest average credit score of 746.
Consumers can participate simply by checking their free credit score on the Paisabazaar platform or app. The CPL leaderboard and rankings will be available exclusively on the Paisabazaar App.
In a country where financial dreams are serious business, Paisabazaar has found a smart way to turn credit scores into an exciting game – because when your financial health gets rewarded, everyone wants to play.
