Comment
News as trivial pursuit
We have been rising to majestic heights in our indignation over the proposed Broadcast Bill. Control us? The mature, responsible, credible Indian media? Curtail our freedom? Nonsense! And then we are outed by the police. A fake ‘sting operation’ by Live India (née Janmat) TV ‘exposed’ Delhi schoolteacher Uma Khurana supplying schoolgirls for prostitution. A lynch mob attacked Uma and the police clapped her in jail. The drama was dutifully recorded by the media. Uma was swiftly sacked. A week later, we hear that she had been framed.
How shocking, said the media, but it’s an exception. We still don’t need your content code, thanks, we know what’s best. Keep your blipping Broadcast Bill away from us.
However, voluntary self-regulation is tricky. Maybe the Press Council of India should be expanded to include TV and radio and given some teeth – dentures would do – to effectively regulate the media. For as a mortified media professional I have to admit that this scam is not an isolated example of the media’s bad behaviour. Our determined move from news as information to news as entertainment has blurred both our vision and the once inviolable line between reality and drama. Now we offer gossip, titillation, trivia and unreal aspirations as news, brushing aside boring issues of social concern, trampling sensitivities, infringing privacy, tossing aside ethics and humanity in our effort to be the hottest honey-trap available.
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Media as a trivial pursuit erodes public trust |
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Take some big stories of the recent past: Uma is framed, ex-model Gitanjali is re-discovered as a beggar, athlete Santhi Sounderajan apparently attempts suicide, freed Sanjay Dutt goes to Vaishno Devi, freed Salman Khan goes home, and MPs and journalists continue to pick bones with Ronen Sen’s ‘headless chicken’. Meanwhile, floods claim almost 700 lives and affect millions in Bihar, and displace over 70 lakh in Assam; farmers continue to kill themselves in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. We gave them short, customary coverage like brief, dutiful visits to elderly aunts, and returned quickly to our riveting game of trivial pursuits.
Unfortunately, the freedoms we enjoy are for our role in educating and informing our audience, for helping them make informed choices that sustain democracy. Media as a trivial pursuit erodes public trust.
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We urgently need self-regulation by a representative body like the Press Council to get back to being a responsible and ethical media |
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And Live India’s scam is not even journalism, it is a criminal act of misrepresentation, using media as a weapon for personal vendetta, fabricating footage to wilfully defame and destroy a victim and incite violence. It doesn’t merit another debate on sting operations, this was not one. It needs to be dealt with as a crime.
But the other examples represent bad journalism. Former model Geetanjali Nagpal is spotted begging in Delhi. Instantly, she is headline news, portrayed as a drug addict. The media rips the last vestige of dignity off the unfortunate woman, invading her privacy, sensationalising, offering details of her private life, presenting speculation as fact. She turns out to be mentally ill, not an addict. We cannot look beyond gossip value, cannot discuss larger issues of mental health, social security or homelessness. (We have an estimated 18 million street kids, plus possibly as many adults as street dwellers, but they aren’t sexy enough.)
Santhi Sounderajan’s attempted suicide is gossip, too. Headlined as ‘Tainted athlete’ or ‘Sex-test failed athlete’ Santhi’s identity as an excellent sportsperson is erased by that of a curiosity of unspecified gender. After her failed gender test robbed her of her silver medal at the Asian Games last year, our media had shown no sensitivity. Even now, we don’t go beyond the curiosity factor to look at the third sex’s lack of rights and opportunities.
Ronen Sen’s fowl story illustrates irresponsible journalism again. Getting your source into trouble for the sake of a delicious quote harms the atmosphere of trust and openness essential for constructive journalism. And then, larger issues of strategic partnership were obfuscated as we lost our head over a chicken. It didn’t help citizens to take informed decisions on the nuclear issue. Such frivolous frenzy reduces democratic decision-making to taking sides based on ignorance and muscle-flexing. Besides, it showed an embarrassing ignorance of English idiom. ‘Running around like a headless chicken’ means thoughtless rushing about; it doesn’t imply you’re a chicken. Like ‘as cool as a cucumber’ doesn’t accuse you of being a cucumber.
Leading you through an exciting maze of trivia and gossip, the media confuses your priorities. So when a lowly constable hugs Sanjay Dutt he is instantly suspended, but no action is initiated against the policemen and politicians accused in the Bombay riots even after 14 years.
We are losing our grip. We urgently need self-regulation by a representative body like the Press Council to get back to being a responsible and ethical media. We cannot protect our own freedoms unless we protect the freedoms and rights of others.
(The Author is Editor, The Little Magazine. She can be reached at sen@littlemag.com)
This article was first published in DNA (Daily News & Analysis) on 11 September 2007.
(The views expressed here are those of the author and Indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to the same)
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.
