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Andhra Pradesh: A chaotic news market
According to the Ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB), there are nearly 800 satellite channels in India, of which about half are news channels. With an already crowded market, an increasingly loud general election has added to the number of news channels mushrooming across the country.
Andhra Pradesh, which till recently was in turmoil because of the imminent bifurcation into Telangana and Seemandhra, is no exception. Counted as the state with the highest number of satellite TV channels, the last one year has seen newer additions (V6 News, Express News, 10TV and ETV3) to the existing list (ETV2, TV9, TV5, NTV, Mahaa News, HMTV, Studio N, Raj News Telugu, I News, 4TV, Sakshi TV, Gemini News, 4TV, Vanita TV, ETV Urdu, CVR News, ABN Andhra Jyoti, the now shut Zee 24 Gantalu).
It is not as if the number of TV viewing homes is on the rise but that doesn’t deter these newbies from popping up. Indeed, AP has the highest number of cable TV homes in India at 15 per cent. At a national level, channels are deploying cost-cutting measures but in AP, newer channels are being spawned. So, what is the survival strategy of these channels? Apparently, they are all backed by political muscle though no politician will openly come out in support of them. More than anything, it is about party views being propagated through the media, sometimes openly sometimes subtly.
Only two of the 20-odd channels – TV9 and TV5 – have major market share, followed by the likes of ETV, NTV and Sakshi TV. According to local people, YSR Congress funds Sakshi TV, NTV and TV5, while V6 is backed by six politicians affiliated to Congress. Rumours are that ideologically, HMTV seems pro-Telangana though may not be backed by any party while ABN Andhra Jyoti is pro-Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Let’s not forget Gemini News of the Sun group under Kalanidhi Maran who has the backing of DMK leader M Karunanidhi. The office of Telangana News channel is actually located within the headquarters of the party office in Hyderabad. Now that’s called risk! According to the public, only TV9, Raj News Telugu, CVR News and the newly launched Express TV are apparently among the channels without political bias.
Again, owning a channel may be a power trip but running it is an altogether different ballgame. Approximately Rs 1.2 to Rs 1.5 crore per month is required to run a channel in the state and this includes cost of infrastructure and technology and staff salaries. On the other hand, revenues don’t exceed Rs 70 lakh and typically, a channel takes nearly three years to break even (under good financial condition), which means an initial investment of Rs 40 crore is required.
25 per cent of the Rs 1,000 crore advertisement market is from news channels. Of which, the top five news channels make up for Rs 200 crore while the smaller channels scramble for the left over Rs 50 crore. The ones with high viewership such as TV9, sources say, command up to Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 for a 10 sec slot. On the other hand, the not-so-high-on-viewership channels get just about Rs 600 for every 10 sec. Channels with political backing rarely have to bother about ad revenue since money will flow in anyway…
In such a scenario, it is not surprising that rumours of channels unable to pay their employees have been doing the rounds. While Raj News Telugu has been stuck in revamp for months, ETV has already launched its Telangana-specific channel, ETV3.
With 80 per cent of the state being dominated by Hathway Cable and Datacom, distribution woes are not unheard of. And yet, channels keep growing year on year.
To add to it, soon, many new Telangana centric channels will crop up to add to the existing chaos. The existing channels will be rearranging their distribution and editorial strategies to suit the needs of two states.
It’s time channels realised that the market is oversaturated before it’s too late. Surely the MIB can look into the state of news broadcasters in the state and rethink before giving out licences like freebies.
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.
