iWorld
JioCinema announces major kids entertainment foray
Mumbai: This Children’s Day, JioCinema, India’s ultimate destination for entertainment, announced its foray into Kids entertainment with a dedicated ‘Kids and Family’ offering. With a stellar content offering spanning over 3000 hours of some of the best known franchises from across the world and biggest Indian IPs, the platform will cater to young audiences across Tiny Tots, Kids, Pre-teens and will also house content for the entire family to enjoy together.
Creating India’s single largest destination for Kids’ entertainment with over 100 top Toon franchises, 300+ Series and Movies spanning DIY, comedy, adventure, and action genres, JioCinema promises fun, thrill and nostalgia, to every child across the country, with popular content available in 5+ Indian languages.
From Anime to superheroes, to mythos, spanning local and global favourites, JioCinema brings the largest offering of kids’ network content from Viacom18 including Motu Patlu, Shiva, Rudra, Chikoo aur Bunty, Pinaki and the Bhoot Bandhus, The Twisted Timelines of Sammy & Raj, Kanha – Morpankh Samrat, among others. Raising the bar with premium global series such as Harry Potter, Transformers, HBO Storybook musical, The Looney Tunes Show, Super Mario Bros, Justice League War World, Garfield, Tin Tin, Trollstopia, Zig & Shark, Peppa Pig, Pokémon, and movies like Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Teen Titans Go, Polar Express, Lego Ninjago, The Flintstones, Boss Baby, and a lot more, JioCinema promises to entertain kids and those young at heart with thousands of hours of magical content. Through strategic partnerships with leading local and global studios including Cartoon Network Studios, Dreamworks, EOne, The Pokémon Company & Animaccord, among others, the offering will add fresh content every week.
Further exemplifying its commitment to providing a safe and wholesome family entertainment experience, JioCinema is including a ‘Kids and Family’ profile in every account, granting children access to only age- appropriate content. Recognizing the significance of screen time among children, the ‘Kids and Family’ profile is combined with a unique ‘PIN’ based ‘Parental Control’ mechanism. With advanced algorithms and cutting-edge technology, the profile will allow parents to customize the content access based on their child’s life stage, giving them complete control.
On creating a wholesome entertainment ecosystem for kids and their families, a JioCinema spokesperson said, “At JioCinema, we are deeply committed to building a one-stop destination for all things entertainment. We are invested in understanding Indian audiences and their preferences and continue to evolve as the preferred source for all their entertainment needs. Our newly added Kids and Family category will unlock access to millions of families across India and enrich family consumption. With the best content from India and around the world, available in multiple languages, we aim to be inclusive and an enabler of wider consumption with fewer barriers’’.
Headlining the rollout of the kids and family slate is the enthralling Pokemania festival, marking an exciting chapter for fans of the beloved Japanese Pokémon franchise. As the exclusive home to over 1000 episodes and 21 movies, JioCinema will be celebrating the fervor surrounding the enchanting poke-monsters with a brand-new season unveiled every Thursday, starting on 16 November, with Season 12.
iWorld
Micro-Dramas Surge in India, Redefining Mobile Content Habits
Meta-Ormax study maps rapid rise of short-form storytelling among 18–44 audiences.
MUMBAI: Micro-dramas aren’t just short, they’re the snack that ate Indian entertainment, and now everyone’s bingeing between the sofa cushions. Meta, in partnership with Ormax Media, has released ‘Micro Dramas: The India Story’, a comprehensive study unveiled at the inaugural Meta Marketing Summit: Micro-Drama Edition. The report maps how the vertical, bite-sized format is reshaping content consumption for mobile-first audiences aged 18–44 across 14 states.
Conducted between November 2025 and January 2026 through 50 in-depth interviews and 2,000 personal surveys, the research reveals that 65 per cent of viewers discovered micro-dramas within the last year proof of explosive adoption. Nearly 89 per cent encounter the format through social feeds and recommendations, making algorithm-driven discovery the primary engine rather than active search.
Key viewing patterns show a median of 3.5 hours per week (about 30 minutes daily) spread across 7–8 short sessions. Consumption peaks between 8 pm and midnight, with additional spikes during commutes and work breaks classic “in-between moments” that the format fills perfectly. Around 57 per cent of viewing happens in ambient mode (while doing something else), and 90 per cent is solo, enabling more intimate, personal storytelling.
Romance, family drama and comedy lead genre preferences. Audiences show growing openness to AI-generated content, 47 per cent find it unique and creative, while only 6 per cent say they would avoid it entirely. Regional languages are surging after Hindi and English, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada dominate consumption.
Meta, director, media & entertainment (India) Shweta Bajpai said, “Micro-drama isn’t a passing trend, it’s rewriting the rules of Indian entertainment. In under a year, an entirely new category of platforms has emerged, built audience habits from scratch, and created a business vertical that is scaling fast.”
Ormax Media founder-CEO Shailesh Kapoor added, “Micro-dramas are beginning to show the early signs of becoming a distinct content category in India’s digital entertainment landscape. When a format aligns closely with how audiences naturally engage with their devices, it has the potential to scale very quickly.”
The study proposes ecosystem-wide responsibility, universal signposting of commercial intent, shared accountability among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents, built-in safeguards, and formal media literacy in schools.
In a feed that never sleeps and a day that never stops, micro-dramas have slipped into the cracks of every spare minute turning 30-second stories into the new national pastime, one vertical swipe at a time.
