Comment
Absence of regulation is as bad as over regulation :Uday Shankar CEO Star India
All of us took stewardship of our companies in the last two decades, when robust economic growth created an air of optimism and confidence in the country, and about India in the world. We gather today in the midst of an extremely turbulent time for the Indian economy. Beyond shrinking GDP growth and falling currency, what is truly remarkable is that the spirit of optimism seems to have been replaced by one of apprehension and despondency.
It is therefore appropriate that this industry forum has as its theme, renewal and innovation. In my mind, the forces that unleashed our exciting growth story are the very same as those that can inspire innovation and renewal in our industry. And at its heart is our willingness to be resolutely open to the world, to new capital and to new talent. But no renewal can happen, either in our economy or in our industry, if we are not brazenly open to new ideas.
It is in this context that I had made the point a few months ago that there is no media industry without free expression. If anything, the last few months have proven to us that there is no Indian growth story without free enterprise. Because free expression and free enterprise go together. Our ability to improve the lives of millions of Indians is firmly tied to our ability to unshackle businesses; in allowing them the space and the imagination to create new products and services.
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Every time we have made it a bit easier for entrepreneurs to conduct business, we have generated enormous dividends through growth and new jobs. Every time we have made it easier for investors to bring in capital, we have created new markets and services. |
In many ways, the dramatic economic reforms of 1991 were accidental. It did not emerge from a strong national consensus that we needed to change the direction of our post-independence path. It came from a shocked polity that opened the country for business only when there was no other conceivable option left on the table. And, yet, that accidental moment created the space for a new generation of Indian entrepreneurs whose enterprise and initiative not only created wealth but resulted in millions of new jobs. It also helped India achieve a near double digit annual growth triggering a social transformation the pace of which, if sustained, was capable of lifting India out of poverty in a generation. Today, there is a vociferous debate in play on whether India can afford a $22 billion food program.
What is truly remarkable is it is evidence of how much distance we have moved. Two decades ago, the topic would not even have come up!
Of course, business cycles can ebb and flow. But, what stalled India’s growth and employment creation was our remarkable ability as a country to create a web of processes, regulations and norms that make it extremely difficult for entrepreneurs to conduct business. And in a hyper competitive global economy, where countries actively nurture promising sectors and constantly renew themselves to attract new investments, we really run the risk of being left behind.
While skepticism about reforms could have been justified 20 years ago, what is surprising is that we are still debating the value of reforms and unshackling businesses when our own recent history is the most compelling testimonial to the power of entrepreneurship. Every time we have made it a bit easier for entrepreneurs to conduct business, we have generated enormous dividends through growth and new jobs. Every time we have made it easier for investors to bring in capital, we have created new markets and services.
Nowhere is this dichotomy more prevalent than in the media and entertainment industry. Twenty years ago, the real face of liberalisation for most Indians was the appearance of dish antennas on roofs. It was a compelling signal to the world outside that India was open for business. We were ready to embrace new ideas, wherever they originated. And we were confident enough in our own identity to be open to new worlds.
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(L-R) Walt Disney India MD Ronnie Screwvala, Star India CEO Uday Shankar, I&B Minister Manish Tewari, CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee
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And in that period, the industry saw a remarkable transformation in its size and in its scale. From one state run broadcaster with limited reach and less than five hours of daily content, we now have over 800 channels telecasting more than half a million hours of original content to 700 million viewers. From around 3,000 newspapers in 1991, we have grown to more than 80,000 newspapers today, with most of the growth coming in the vernacular languages. Our movie industry has grown 20 times. The industry has evolved from a disorganised community dominated by a few players to a highly competitive sector that is increasingly better organised and better run. From 750 million in 1991, it is now an industry worth 15 billion dollars. It supports six million jobs directly and probably twice more indirectly. It has both facilitated and absorbed new technologies. And, it has created a compelling platform to showcase India to the world. So much so that last year we set ourselves an ambitious target of $100 billion for the sector. And, yet, this spectacular success in serving the Indian consumer and in creating employment has not been met with more reforms and more openness. Surprisingly and frighteningly, we seem to have regressed in many ways. Successive governments have created a web of policies and regulations which while they may have had the honorable intent of protecting the consumer has had exactly the opposite effect.
Today, I would like to call out two big challenges the combination of which have had stifling impacts on innovation in the industry.
Our television viewers today have easy access to global content, whether through online portals, through network broadcasters who are airing shows closer and closer to global launch dates, or simply through piracy. This has brought about a burning need for innovative, original content. However, for an industry that boasts of over half a million hours of original programming every year, how much of it is innovative content that we are proud of having brought on to the screen?
The reason is simple. Our ability to charge for content has nothing to do with the scale of our investments in it. If a bold producer does decide to risk capital on cutting-edge, new idea, today he has no liberty to price his creative work. Why then should he take a risk when he stands no chance of getting a decent return on his investment even if his production becomes a blockbuster success? The result is tired, stagnated, insipid content for the consumer. No policy has done more damage to this industry than that of price controls on television content.
What is amazing is that we have compelling evidence in the same industry that shows that abolishing price controls can dramatically improve consumer choice. Freeing up ticket pricing in cinemas created the foundation for a dramatic improvement in the quality and diversity of movies that came to the market. Without raising costs substantially for the price conscious consumer, it has financed a generation of content that has appealed to both niche and mass audiences.
It is difficult today to avoid the persistent debate about the quality and health of news channels. But, there is no question at all that it is the restrictive tariff regime that has prevented news broadcasters from producing high quality content for an audience that is much smaller than that available for general entertainment or sports. Ironically, a regime that was brought to protect the consumer has ended up doing the most damage to consumer choice and quality.
Even more frightening than price control is the creeping controls on free speech. For a country that prides itself on its deep democratic ethos, the last decade has been characterised by a creeping inclination to impose controls on speech and expression. It may have started with opposition to a book but controls on expression seem to mark new grounds every year. Small film makers who decide to invest in off-beat movies are plagued by having to defend their movies in litigation because a minority is offended by it. Films cleared by the censor board are banned by state governments, and often blocked by non-state actors under the threat of violence. TV shows attempting to break through the clutter find their characters’ voices beeped out. Even the titling of a movie as the Dirty Picture seems to be an open invitation to trouble. The result is work that is so mundane that it sparks no questions, elicits no debate and pushes no creative boundaries.
This month, Star will launch Mahabharat on television. It is a show that we have made with a lot of passion and on a scale and grandeur that has never been seen on television to date. And, yet, a few days before the launch, what worries me the most is not the quality of the series. What keeps me awake is that some lunatic fringe somewhere in the country would raise some absurd objection to the show.
It is no surprise then that this tyranny of the minority has now reached the central halls of Parliament. Today, a small but vocal group can claim both the moral high ground and have the political legitimacy to hold to random India’s legislature for a session, a day and sometimes more. This should not come as a shock at all. For, behind this practice, is the very same culture that we have nurtured and indulged for too long. The culture that grants legitimacy, cover and sometimes state protection to the very few who are offended or bothered by the expression of another group, and who can take to the streets and can vandalise private and public property with impudence. It should not be surprising that when we start putting limits on new ideas and free expression in our cultural space, they will find their way into our political and economic spaces too.
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It is difficult today to avoid the persistent debate about the quality and health of news channels. But, there is no question at all that it is the restrictive tariff regime that has prevented news broadcasters from producing high quality content for an audience that is much smaller than that available for general entertainment or sports. |
The collective impact of regulation and the creeping tyranny of the minority have stifled innovation in our industry and, dare I say, in the economy as whole. At 15 per cent, we may grow at thrice the rate of the GDP but that is more a reflection of our topline economic growth than the health of our industry. At this rate, it will take us another 15 years to hit $100 billion in value and by then, we will be just three per cent of the world media market. This is just unacceptable.
Make no mistake. I am definitely not arguing for a world without regulation. History has taught us that free enterprise is well served by clear rules and policies. Absence of regulation is as bad as over regulation.
But what is desperately needed is a consensus on what to regulate and how much. It is this lack of consistency in regulation that is impacting multiple industries. At exactly the moment when our economy is poised for the next big leap, we have found a way to make it harder and harder for our companies to innovate, to create new products and services, and to find new markets.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do hope that over the next two days, as we explore new ways to grow our sector, the resounding message from this Summit is that, as a sector and as a country, we will remain stubbornly open to new ideas and committed to expanding the spaces for free expression.
MUMBAI: 2025 will be remembered as the year India’s OTT industry stopped chasing scale for its own sake and began reckoning with how audiences actually consume content. Completion rates fell, patience wore thin and the limits of long-form excess became impossible to ignore. In this guest column, Pratap Jain, founder and CEO of ChanaJor, traces how micro-drama moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, why short-form fiction emerged as a retention engine rather than a trend, and how platforms that respected time, habit and emotional payoff were the ones that truly grew up in 2025.
If there is one thing 2025 will be remembered for in the Indian OTT industry, it’s this: the industry finally stopped pretending.
Stopped pretending that bigger automatically meant better.
Stopped pretending that viewers had endless time.
Stopped pretending that scale without retention was success.
What began as a quiet reset in 2023 and a cautious correction in 2024 turned into a very visible shift in 2025. Business models matured. Content strategies tightened. And most importantly, platforms started aligning themselves with how Indians actually watch content, not how the industry wished they would.
At the centre of this shift was micro-drama—not as a trend, but as a behavioural inevitability.
When OTT finally understood the time problem
For years, long episodes were treated as a marker of seriousness. A 45–60 minute runtime was almost a badge of credibility. Shorter formats were pushed to the margins, labelled as “snack content” or “mobile-only.”
That belief quietly collapsed in 2025.
What platform data showed very clearly was not a drop in interest—but a drop in patience. Viewers weren’t rejecting stories. They were rejecting commitment.
Across platforms, the same patterns appeared:
* First-episode drop-offs on long-form shows kept increasing
* Completion rates continued to slide
* Viewers were sampling more titles but finishing fewer
At the same time, shows with episodes in the six to 10 minute range started showing the opposite behaviour: higher completion, higher repeat viewing, and stronger daily habit formation.
Micro-drama didn’t win because it was short. It won because it respected time.
Micro-Drama didn’t arrive loudly. It took over quietly.
There was no single moment when micro-drama “launched” in India. It crept in through dashboards and retention charts.
By mid-2025, it was clear that viewers were happy watching four, five, sometimes six short episodes in one sitting—even when they wouldn’t finish a single long episode. Romance, relationship drama, slice-of-life conflict, and grounded comedy worked especially well.
This wasn’t disposable content. It was compressed storytelling.
In shorter formats, there was no room for indulgence. Every episode had to move the story forward. Weak writing was punished faster. Strong writing was rewarded immediately.
Micro-drama raised the bar instead of lowering it.
Where ChanaJor naturally fit into this shift
ChanaJor didn’t pivot to micro-drama in 2025 because the market demanded it. In many ways, the platform was already built around the same viewing behaviour.
From the beginning, ChanaJor focused on short-to-mid-length fictional stories that felt close to everyday Indian life—hostels, rented flats, office romances, small-town relationships, young people figuring things out. Stories that didn’t need heavy context or cinematic scale to connect.
What worked in ChanaJor’s favour in 2025 was clarity:
* A clearly defined audience
* Tight episode lengths
* Storytelling that prioritised emotion and pace over spectacle
While several platforms rushed to copy global micro-drama formats, ChanaJor stayed rooted in familiar Indian settings and conflicts. That familiarity mattered. Viewers didn’t have to “enter” the world of the show—it already felt like theirs.
Why audiences started responding differently
One of the biggest misconceptions going into 2025 was that audiences wanted shorter content because their attention spans had reduced. That wasn’t entirely true.
What viewers actually wanted was meaningful payoff per minute.
On platforms like ChanaJor, episodes didn’t waste time setting the mood for ten minutes. Conflicts arrived early. Characters were recognisable within moments. Emotional hooks landed fast.
A typical consumption pattern looked like real life:
* One episode during a break
* Two more before sleeping
* A few the next day
This is how viewing habits are built—not through marketing spends, but through comfort and consistency.
Viewers came back not because every show was a blockbuster, but because they knew what kind of experience to expect.
2025 was also the year OTT faced business reality
The other big change in 2025 was on the business side. Subscriber growth slowed. Discounts stopped hiding churn. Customer acquisition costs rose.
Platforms were forced to ask harder questions:
* Are viewers finishing what they start?
* Are they returning without reminders?
* Is this content worth what we’re spending on it?
This is where micro-drama began outperforming expectations. A well-written short series could deliver sustained engagement without massive budgets. It didn’t peak for one weekend and disappear—it stayed alive through repeat viewing.
Platforms like ChanaJor benefited because they weren’t chasing inflated launch numbers. The focus was on consistency and retention, not noise.
Failures Became Visible Faster
2025 also exposed weaknesses brutally.
Several platforms assumed micro-drama was a shortcut—short episodes, quick shoots, instant traction. What they discovered was that bad writing fails faster in short formats than in long ones.
Viewers dropped off within minutes. Episodes were abandoned mid-way. Weak stories had nowhere to hide.
Micro-drama didn’t forgive laziness. It amplified it.
The platforms that survived were the ones that treated short storytelling with the same seriousness as long-form—sometimes more.
OTT Stopped Chasing Prestige and Started Chasing Habit
Perhaps the most important shift in 2025 wasn’t technical or creative—it was psychological.
OTT stopped trying to look like cinema. It stopped chasing validation through scale and awards alone. It began behaving like what it actually is in people’s lives: a daily companion.
Platforms like ChanaJor found their space here because that mindset was already baked in. The goal wasn’t to dominate a weekend launch. It was to quietly become part of someone’s everyday viewing routine.
That shift changed everything—from release strategies to how success was measured.
What 2025 Ultimately Taught the Industry
By the end of the year, three truths were impossible to ignore:
* Time is the most valuable thing a viewer gives you
* Retention matters more than reach
* Format must follow behaviour, not ego
Micro-drama didn’t take over because it was fashionable. It took over because it fit real life.
Looking Ahead
Micro-drama is not replacing long-form storytelling. It is redefining the baseline of engagement.
Longer shows will survive—but only when they earn their length. Short-form fiction will continue to evolve, becoming sharper, more emotionally confident, and better written.
Platforms like ChanaJor have shown that it’s possible to grow without shouting—by understanding the audience, respecting their time, and telling stories that feel real.
2025 wasn’t the year OTT became smaller. It was the year it became smarter.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
