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BBC on the boil; some lessons for Prasar Bharati
BBC, the public broadcaster who benchmarks broadcasting audio and video signals all over the world, seems to be under siege. The British government has launched a Consultation paper to decide on the future of BBC’s Royal Charter.
A number of questions and ideas have rolled from non existence of ‘Codified set of values’ to ‘not reaching out to youngsters’ the world over who shifted to on line accessing from fixed TV viewing. The Green paper points out that the last Royal Charter is one of the most tumultuous and numerous issues have arisen placing BBC’s people and practices to a great deal of scrutiny.
“BBC is a public broadcasting organisation and it is right that it’s values should reflect the views of public. This charter review presents the opportunity to consult on what a potential set of values might be.”
BBC’s several headlines making failures from “excessive severance payments” to a “cancelled report on Jimmy Savile” have called into questions of BBC’s governance itself. A model based hence on the Trust, which presently chaired by Ms Rona Fairhead with more powers to censure BBC as also withhold funds, a new stand alone regulatory organisation like Public Service Broadcasting Commission are being considered.
There are some major lessons from the Green Paper for our own pubcaster Prasar Bharati (PB), which is many times bigger in infrastructure and manpower compared to the BBC but on whose model the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 was enacted. With some of the provisions yet not acted upon, the checks and balances originally intended by the framers of the Act remain inoperative till date making PB a polio child despite of its huge work force and wasteful expenditure on its obsolescent terrestrial network, which even rural India is not interested in.
An important provision like public funding through license fees does not exist in India whereas huge public funding continues to pay to the tune of about Rs 1500 crore annually on pay and related expenses of the huge establishment, which the government conveniently handed over to a presumably autonomous PB in 1997.
The major plan expenditure is on maintaining thousands of ineffective terrestrial TV and less effective AM and SW radio towers. But not a single practical Board resolution of PB like leveraging dormant assets to fund content, power to hire and fire with flexible recruitment rules for creative professionals and an Independent Servicing Body have seen the light since successive governments continued to administer PB as an adjunct of government. As far as the word autonomy goes, it is an ‘oxymoron’ that does not exist in real life as one of our former MOS, I&B once remarked.
BBC spends 97 per cent of its programme funding on children whereas PB spends only about eight per cent of its total expenditure on content itself across all its TV channels. The efforts on kids’ programme by PB is negligible. With its strong creative capabilities, BBC developed numerous programmes and sold off to the world commercially like Strictly Come Dancing, which fetched ?20 million giving no space to other commercial channels.
PB is yet to commercialise any programme worth its name and pose a challenge to commercial channels in the recent past for a variety of reasons. Despite huge infrastructure and equipment, there is no vibrant audit and monitoring mechanism on utility of its huge inactive studios and mobile camera units. The commercial codes and guidelines of course are self restrictive, inhibiting any novel initiative in PB.
It is time the government has a closer look at the Sam Pitroda Committee report, which has some workable suggestions. The government needs to review PB with objectivity as the functions to ‘educate, inform and entertain’ also needs lead funding for quality content. PB caters to the citizens of the nation and other commercial audio and TV channels to the consumers, but the pubcaster yet needs to net more eyeballs for passing public service messages and codified set of values enshrined in section 12 of the PB Act.
As the Green Paper on BBC voices concern on reaching the youth that accesses anything on line at the time of their choosing, PB needs to revolutionise web streaming its content of all its audio and video channels as of yesterday. For TV, it is DTH and for radio, it is FM in India today, but the survival depends more on content, the king.
The potential values British government looks forward to for the Royal Charter are, independence, impartiality, high quality, efficient value for money, transparency, distinctive status, diversity and representative of the views of public. All these imperatives are aptly applicable to our Public Broadcaster too. The best that could happen to PB is a strong professional and truly independent Board with an efficient monitoring mechanism and powers to intervene along with an executive set up with ‘real’ powers to handle this mammoth organisation with complete verticals viz. Technical, Marketing and International Relations in addition to Personnel, Finance and Accounts.
Less Government and more efficient Governance by PB itself could set the pubcaster right.
Note: The author of this article is former member (personnel) of the Prasar Bharati Board.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are purely personal views of the author and Indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to them.
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.
