Comment
Media’s independence needs to be zealously guarded: Narayan Rao Executive Vice Chairperson at NDTV
Freedom of the media is a fundamental component of a vibrant democracy. It is what differentiates a democracy from a dictatorship and all forms of totalitarianism. Indeed a democracy cannot function without a free media while the latter can only exist in a democratic state.
As Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times during the First World War once said, “News is something someone somewhere wants to suppress”. As a free media in the world‘s largest democracy, it is our job to ensure that nothing ever gets suppressed. Also, dissemination of news is really the performance of a public service. We seek to inform and educate and to do it with independence….from Government and from revenue considerations. Our responsibility is not to the Governors but to the governed.
While a free media is an absolute need, it is also necessary to stress that with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility to ensure that one is always accurate and credible and respectful of the privacy of an individual.
It is in this need for freedom with responsibility that talk of regulation comes up every now and then. I would like to state with all the emphasis at my command that the only regulation that is acceptable in a democracy is self regulation. And by this I do not mean that each news organization regulates itself by following its own editorial policy and standards which would naturally be of varying levels from channel to channel, but to have a structured self regulatory mechanism that watches over a common expectation of what constitutes good, responsible journalism.
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While a free media is an absolute need, it is also necessary to stress that with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility to ensure that one is always accurate and credible and respectful of the privacy of an individual. |
I honestly believe that the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has made remarkable progress in this regard. We created a common code of ethics, a wonderful document of journalistic good practices and expectations, which is available for all to see on the NBA website. We then set up a News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) with a Chairperson and several eminent members to monitor and ensure that this code is followed by all our member channels. Our first Chairperson was the most ethical, learned and highly regarded, late Justice J S Verma. He ensured along with the eminent members, that the NBSA is truly independent. It also needs to be noted that the NBSA is the “standards authority” and not merely the complaints authority.
The aim is to improve standards of news broadcasting over a period of time and we are well on the path to realizing that aim. In probably the only such example of its kind in the world, every member channel carries a scroll several times a day, exhorting viewers to approach the NBSA if they have any complaint against a channel. The decisions of the NBSA can be seen on the NBA website and over time action has been taken against several of our channels. We also have some Editors sitting on the NBSA for fixed terms and on a rotational basis as it is believed that self regulation flourishes and standards improve when it is known that, among others who will look at the quality of your content, will be your own peers.
We will miss Justice Verma immensely. But the show must go on and I am honoured and delighted to announce that Justice R V Raveendran, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, has very graciously accepted our invitation to be the next Chairperson of the News Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Justice Raveendran brings with him incredible legal and judicial ability, a wealth of experience and outstanding reputation in upholding democratic institutions and values through strict and fair implementation of the law of the land. He very ably takes the baton from the late Justice Verma to chart out the next leg of our mission to establish that the media must function through structured self regulation.
In such a robust system where is the need for a media council? With all due respect to our Parliamentarians in the Standing Committee and some others, very erudite people who have pushed for such a Council, my counter question to them is what for? When we have the NBSA which is doing such magnificent work in an independent and strict manner, what is it that a media council will do? Who will appoint such a media council? Government? How can that be acceptable?
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We will miss Justice Verma immensely. But the show must go on and I am honoured and delighted to announce that Justice R V Raveendran, former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, has very graciously accepted our invitation to be the next Chairperson of the News Broadcasting Standards Authority. |
The media is the fourth estate, the fourth pillar of democracy, and has to be independent of the other three. And like the three zealously guard their independence of each other and safeguard their positions, as they must and should do, so should the media zealously guard its independence.
That in part means, no Government appointed body to oversee the media.
Some complain that the NBSA does not have statutory powers. I would urge that they only take a look at the NBA website to look at the powers that the NBSA has been given. These range from censure to asking offending channels to carry apologies, retractions and corrections on the same slot where the offense was first carried (if, for example, the offending story was in the 9 pm news, the retraction/apology has to be carried in the 9 pm news as well), a fine that can be up to Rs one lakh, and finally, the power to recommend to the licensing authority that the license of a particular channel should be suspended, even cancelled. Isn‘t that power enough?
(To take a dekko at some of the decisions that the NBSA has taken click here)
Also, it needs to be noted that in the Cable Act, when it comes to the advertising code, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has been mentioned as the standard under which advertising can take place. Similarly, for programming, why can‘t the same be the case with the NBSA for news and the BCCI for other categories of television? In fact this has been one of our long pending requests to the Ministry of I&B.
What is necessary is to ensure that all laws are implemented strictly and speedily by our courts. We have laws against defamation and libel but the general feeling is that there will be no decision in most such cases for 20 years. That can sometimes make our journalists complacent about essential things like accuracy. If one knows that the law will be applied with effect and expeditiously, one will be far more conscious of the need for absolute accuracy. We have the laws. Please implement them.
(The views expressed in the comment are in author‘s personal capacity and do not represent the corporate viewpoint)
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.
