Comment
Peace TV saga & absence of rule of law
The Peace TV saga after the Dhaka terrorist attack just before Eid and the brouhaha created over availability of an unlicensed channel in Indian television homes highlights yet again rules and regulations have to be applied uniformly and stringently.
The Indian government woke up suddenly issuing gag orders on distribution platforms when the general media in the country went to town regarding Peace TV. The media alleged Peace TV and the Mumbai-based Islamic tele-evangelist Zakir Naik’s sermons aired on the channel could have instigated the Bangladeshi terrorists. All these allegations were based on some interpretation of a report in a Bangladeshi newspaper.
That the Bangla newspaper subsequently clarified its report stating categorically that it had never said the terrorists were `inspired’ by Naik’s sermons is a completely another story because the Indian media, by and large news channels, ignored the clarification.
However, the fact stands that Peace TV is not licensed to air in India and had been denied landing rights by the Indian government several times in the past. Still, the channel was available on Indian networks and the sermons online.
Similarly, several Pakistani TV channels too are available in some parts of the country (crackdown on illegal retransmissions do happen from time to time, government officials insist) as also Chinese radio stations in border areas.
So, the question is: how come an unlicensed TV channel officially denied permission to broadcast in India was still reaching Indian TV homes?
The answer lies in apparent laxity in implementing and upholding existing regulations on the part of Indian policy-makers, regulators and law enforcing agencies. In some cases it may also be local-level indulgences despite knowing that a certain regulation had been breached.
Because in India most such issues boil down to majority vs. minority yardstick with the victimisation syndrome kicking in — all in the name of certain democratic rights — regulatory breaches are overlooked or rule of the law not enforced. Until one such breach kicks up crap all round; like the Peace TV affair recently did.
Historically speaking, as India opened up to satellite TV revolution from early 1990s and rules were lax (downlink licence or landing rights were terms not known to Indian policy-makers then) many TV channels invaded the Indian skies and homes. Some of them were bad (read propagandist), some indifferent, but largely most were entertaining.
As successive Indian governments woke up to the power of TV propaganda in whipping up unpalatable frenzy and jingoism, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) started formulating rules and regulations to isolate TV channels, mostly uplinked from outside India, from entering Indian homes via cable or other distribution platforms, which were perceived as not conducive for India.
One such historic policy drafting also saw a Broadcast Bill being introduced in Parliament in 1996 where the draft stated that certain categories of organisations (like political parties, NGOs, religious bodies, advertising agencies, etc) would be barred from owning and running TV channels.
The Bill never got enacted into a law and since then half-hearted attempts by other governments to bring similar Bills in Parliament failed to get necessary traction; mostly owing to a superstitious belief that whichever government tries to regulate the broadcast sector went out of power in New Delhi.
Historical incidents, notwithstanding, it has also been observed in India that any proposed regulation relating to cable and broadcast sector having the potential to affect powerful lobbies like political parties or religious bodies or their proxies get swept under the carpet.
Take, for example, broadcast carriage regulator TRAI’s two recommendations on media ownership, made after wide consultations with stakeholders. I am told both the reports are gathering dust in some corner of MIB.
Apart from suggesting many other things on the ownership issue, TRAI said in a set of recommendations in 2014, “…given that about six years have elapsed without any concrete action being taken by the Government, the Authority strongly recommends that its Recommendations of 12 November 2008 and 28 December 2012 may be implemented forthwith.”
The regulator’s recommendations came after issues relating to media ownership issue and vertical monopoly were referred to it by MIB.
Emboldened by the fact that MIB had put its weight behind it, TRAI (again) recommended in 2014 that political bodies, religious bodies, urban, local, panchayati raj, and other publicly funded bodies, Central and State government ministries, departments, companies, undertakings, joint ventures, and government-funded entities and affiliates be barred from entry into broadcasting and TV channel distribution sectors.
The regulator suggested exit routes for existing entities already into business, adding such a debarment could be implemented through an executive decision by incorporating the disqualifications into rules, regulations and guidelines as necessary.
But by 2014, MIB had already licensed many news and religious/spiritual TV channels and distribution platforms owned/managed by political parties, religious bodies (in one case a temple’s management committee) and/or their proxies for operation at pan-India and State levels.
And so, even the 2014 TRAI recommendations remain ignored, while at another level technology has outpaced or threatens to make obsolete the Indian process of policy making.
A colleague, while outlining the potential of Facebook Live (and other such techs like Twitter’s Periscope), recently commented it’s matter of time when Facebook Live will kick into India, dipping into the country’s smart-phone user base (250 million on last count) to give birth to the possibility of “hundreds of news channels on FB dishing out unadulterated, independent updates of developments.” Very few in Indian government would be tracking developments like FB Live.
In an age when technology is moving faster than policy-making, flat-footedness of Indian policy-makers and our general apathy towards rule of the law will hasten policy chaos resulting in arbitrary decisions being implemented.
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.
