iWorld
Thailand’s video industry leaders optimistic about future at AVIA conference
Mumbai: Over 150 industry leaders gathered in Bangkok for the Asia Video Industry Association’s (AVIA) Thailand in View conference, for a day of discussions centered around the state of video in Thailand, the Supremacy of Content and Boosting Advertising Revenue, before closing off with a keynote address on the Big Picture.
There was much optimism on the future of video and content, with many speakers agreeing that it was indeed Thailand’s time on the world stage. In his welcome address, Sompan Charumilinda, executive vice chairman, True Visions Group, said that in a world where content was resonating and spreading across borders, we’ve now seen the success of Asian, and Thai content, with its heritage of content production second to none.
Commissioner Pirongrong Ramasoota of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), Thailand, expanded on the potential for Thailand, sharing that soft power was now a major national strategy, to address the lack of unified regulations and the lack of a strategic database of its creative and content centre, for effective policy execution. With 11 sectors to focus on, from film and gaming to fashion, although it was too early to predict its success, it was certainly a welcome direction. Commissioner Pirongrong also added that its key role was to regulate as well as promote the audio and video landscape, to make it fit for purpose in the digital age, economically, socially, and culturally. With the strength of the Thai industry lying in the diversity of its content, the NBTC was also looking to promote content that reflected diversity and cultural uniqueness, and with the potential to be coproduced with other countries as well.
Content was also a key focus for the streaming platforms. Kanokporn-Jay Prachayaset, country manager, WeTV Thailand, Tencent Thailand, shared that while growth has slowed down post-pandemic, WeTV remained optimistic, pursuing local originals more aggressively, and taking another step into producing original variety content. And for both iQIYI and WeTV, AI was already in play, increasing efficiencies and cost reductions, with Parnsuk (Poppy) Tongrob, country director for Thailand, iQIYI, adding that “iQIYI is AI presented by creative talent.”
Winradit (Win) Kolasastraseni, president, Digital Media, True Digital Group, also said that production was not just for the Thai audience, but for a global audience. However, what you do next after investing in local content was key, with a need to increase the value creation upstream to further downstream in distribution and monetization. “People are now recognizing that Thai can be a Korean option or even a better version,” said Win.
For Danny Chung, head of talent and content development, THEBLACKSEA, there were technical hurdles that needed to be overcome such as infrastructure and government assistance, which was essential to the growth of Korean content and culture to the world. While there was no lack of content, there also needed to be the exchange of opportunity. “Neighbours within Asia have their own strengths and weaknesses, we can help each other, and give our pool of talent global visibility and the platform to access the rest of the world,” said Chung.
However, with piracy remaining a scourge in Thailand, Sirapat Vajraphai, director of copyright office, Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), Thailand, placed emphasis on public awareness to understand the importance of copyright to reduce copyright theft. The general population has to understand that it is illegal and hurting the ecosystem and the creative economy, and ultimately hurting the consumer. And with creative content changing at a very fast rate and moving into streaming, what the DIP is doing is to enhance the fundamentals to match what is changing, and trying to change the law to place special emphasis on the rights of actors and how they can be better protected for streaming and online.
Expanding on the topic of showcasing Thai soft power to the world, BEC World president of TV business and executive director Surin Krittayaphongphun said that soft power was very important for the entertainment industry and for its content to travel the world, and soft power was the weapon to bring more visitors in and showcase the country as well. For Birathon Kasemsri Na Ayudhaya, chief content strategy, investment & partnership officer, CP Group and True Corporation, soft power was about building brand love for Thailand. “Soft power is created by emotional value and emotional connection and video is the intersection of every form of emotional communication,” he added.
However, not all video was perceived equally, as shown in the results of AVIA’s Thailand consumer research on usage and attitudes towards mass and premium OTT platforms, presented by AVIA CEO, Louis Boswell. Although mass platforms, such as social media and user-generated content, marginally outperformed premium OTT at the category level in terms of having high-quality content, this result was driven mainly by two high-volume UGC platforms. When looked at as individual services, Seven of the top 10 platforms ranked as having the highest quality content were premium OTT. Furthermore, when it came to the highest attention levels, six of the top 10 services were premium OTT. And for video platforms that Thai consumers would recommend, seven of the top 10 platforms were premium OTT.
For Rathakorn Surbsuk, head of addressable TV Solution – Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam Cluster, GroupM Nexus, premium was not just talking about the price, but also the quality of content, and a safe environment for brands, with content produced by professionals. Said Surbsuk, “Clients can open their stores anywhere, but they would choose the right environment and the premium location that offers quality. . . in order to differentiate themselves from competitors and position themselves in the right place that reflects positively for the brand.” He also predicted that in three years’ time, the level of spending on premium OTT will grow five-fold.
Closing off the conference with his view on the future of content was the group chief executive officer of The One Enterprise, Takonkiet Viravan. “For Viravan, each project had to have a different balance between commercial and art to be successful, and it was becoming more and more important today, as you could no longer depend just on local advertising. With the need to go international, the content should be Thai as the selling point, but the execution and the style of storytelling needed to skew more towards western and international preferences, as a good balance. Although it was more of a challenge, it also gave more opportunities to tell different stories that appealed to different people,” he said. “You have to know your product and know which demographic it will appeal to. You have to put it where the viewers are,” added Viravan. And with the strong ecosystem that One Enterprise had as a content creator and distribution channel, coupled with the launch of their own OTT platform, OneD, producing their own originals to attract the streaming audience, Viravan remained cautiously optimistic for the future.
Thailand in View is proudly sponsored by Gold Sponsors True Visions and True Visions Now, and Silver Sponsors A+E Networks Asia, Akamai, NAGRA and PubMatic.
eNews
How short, addictive story videos quietly colonised the Indian smartphone
A landmark Meta-Ormax study of 2,000 viewers reveals a format that is growing fast, paying slowly and consumed almost entirely in secret
CALIFORNIA, MUMBAI: India has a new entertainment habit, and it arrived without anyone really noticing. Micro dramas, those short, cliffhanger-driven episodic stories built for the smartphone screen, have quietly embedded themselves into the daily routines of millions of Indians, discovered not by design but by algorithmic accident, watched not in living rooms but in bedrooms, on commutes and in the five minutes before sleep.
That, in essence, is the finding of a sweeping new audience study released by Meta and media insights firm Ormax Media at Meta’s inaugural Marketing Summit: Micro-Drama Edition. Titled “Micro Dramas: The India Story” and based on 2,000 personal interviews and 50 depth interviews conducted between November 2025 and January 2026 across 14 states, it is the most comprehensive study of the category in India to date, and its findings are striking.
Sixty-five per cent of viewers discovered micro dramas within the last year. Of those, 89 per cent stumbled upon the format through social media feeds, primarily Instagram and Facebook, without ever searching for it. The algorithm did the heavy lifting. Discovery, as the report puts it bluntly, is algorithm-led, not intent-led.
The typical viewer journey begins with accidental exposure while scrolling, moves through a cliffhanger-driven incompletion hook that makes stopping feel unfinished, and is reinforced by algorithmic repetition until habitual consumption sets in. Only then, when a platform asks for an app download or a payment, does the viewer pause. Trust, not content quality, determines what happens next, and many simply return to the free feed rather than pay. It is a funnel with a wide mouth and a narrow neck.
The numbers on consumption tell their own story. Viewers spend a median of 3.5 hours per week watching micro dramas, spread across seven to eight sessions of roughly 30 minutes each, peaking sharply between 8pm and midnight. Daytime viewing is snackable and low-commitment, squeezed into morning commutes, work breaks and coffee pauses. Night-time is where the format truly lives: private, uninterrupted and, for many viewers, socially invisible. Ninety per cent watch alone, compared to just 43 per cent for long-form OTT content. Half the audience watches during their commute, well above the 37 per cent figure for streaming platforms, a direct reflection of the format’s low time investment advantage.
The audience itself breaks into three segments. Incidental viewers, comprising 39 per cent of the total, are passive consumers who stumble in and rarely seek content actively. Intent-building viewers, the largest group at 43 per cent, are beginning to form habits and seek out episodes but remain cautious. High-intent viewers, just 18 per cent, are the ones who download apps, tolerate ads and occasionally pay: skewing male, younger and urban.
What audiences want from the content is revealing. The top three genres are romance at 72 per cent, family drama at 64 per cent and comedy at 63 per cent, precisely the same top three as Hindi general entertainment television. The format rewards emotional familiarity over complexity. Romance in particular thrives because it demands low cognitive investment, needs no elaborate world-building and plays naturally into the private, pre-sleep viewing window where inhibitions lower and emotional intimacy feels safe.
The most-recalled shows, led by Kuku TV titles such as The Lady Boss Returns, The Billionaire Husband and Kiss My Luck, share a common narrative DNA: rich-poor conflict, hidden identities, power imbalances, melodrama and cliffhangers that make stopping feel physically uncomfortable. Predictability, the research warns, is fatal. Each episode must re-earn attention from scratch.
The terminology question is telling. Despite the industry’s embrace of the phrase “micro drama,” viewers have not adopted it. They call the content “short story videos,” “short dramas,” “reels with stories” or simply “serials.” One respondent from Chennai said bluntly that “micro sounds like a scientific word.” The category is at the stage that OTT occupied in 2019 and podcasts in the same year: widely consumed, poorly named and not yet crystallised in the public imagination.
Platform awareness remains alarmingly thin. Only three platforms, Kuku TV at 78 per cent, Story TV at 46 per cent and Quick TV at 28 per cent, have crossed the 20 per cent awareness threshold. The rest languish in single digits. This creates a trust deficit that directly throttles monetisation: viewers who cannot remember which app they used are hardly primed to enter their payment details.
Yet the appetite is clearly there. Sixty-five per cent of viewers watch only Indian content, drawn by the TV-serial familiarity of the storytelling, the comfort of Hindi as a shared language and the sight of actors they half-recognise from decades of television. South languages are rising fast: Tamil, Telugu and Kannada together account for 24 per cent of first-choice viewing. And AI-generated content, still a novelty, has landed better than expected: 47 per cent of viewers call it creative and unique, with only 6 per cent actively rejecting it.
Shweta Bajpai, director, media and entertainment (India) at Meta, called micro drama “a category that is rewriting the rules of Indian entertainment,” adding that the discovery engine being social distinguishes this wave from previous content formats. Shailesh Kapoor, founder and chief executive of Ormax Media, was characteristically measured: the format, he said, is showing “the early signs of becoming a distinct content category” and, given how closely it aligns with natural mobile behaviour, “has the potential to scale very quickly.”
The format’s fundamental mechanics are working. It enters lives quietly, through boredom and a scrolling thumb, and burrows in through incompletion and habit. The challenge now is monetisation: converting a category of highly engaged but deeply anonymous viewers into paying customers who trust the platform enough to hand over their UPI credentials. The story, as any micro-drama writer knows, is only as good as the next cliffhanger. India’s platforms had better have one ready.
