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Peepshow TV journalism – How far is too far?
Sex for survival, sex for jobs, sex for promotions (in the Indian Air Force the phrase is sex-for-stripes), sex for sex sake. And now, following the India TV “sexposés”, enter sex for TRPs into the sex lexicon?
The media has been abuzz with India TV’s ‘sting operation’ that first exposed has-been Bollywood baddie Shakti Kapoor and later stung TV superstar Aman Verma. Both these worthies were caught on camera asking for sexual favours from the same woman – an undercover journalist posing as an aspiring actress.
And this is just the beginning. There are many more “stings” still to unfold in this tale. As the man behind India TV Rajat Sharma says, “Just wait and watch for more stings to come.”
The channel management claims that it is on a mission, trying to expose what “everyone knows about but no one openly talks about” — the casting couch syndrome in the entertainment industry. But then many feel the way in which the channel has been going ahead with the operation is unpardonable and actually makes it the real villain of the story. Some have called it a “cheap ploy to garner eyeballs in a rather cluttered market”, while others maintain it’s an ugly turn the channels wars are now taking.
Let’s just do a brief recount of the entire sting. The girl makes persistent phone calls to the actor and addresses him flirtatiously by his first name and later invites him late at night to her hotel room. According to Shakti Kapoor she served him drinks and took him through a systematically planned seduction but the channel maintains that it was really Kapoor who asked for drinks and tried to get close to her.
Here perhaps we will never get to know what the truth is; as the real footage rests with the channel; and obviously a lot of it would have been edited. But the journalist got really lucky and an inebriated Kapoor threw around names of bigwigs in the industry like Subhash Ghai and Yash Chopra as examples of those who also use the ‘casting couch’ to have their way with women.
In its second sexposé on Aman Varma, the same ploy has been used.
The reactions to the sexposés have been at two extreme ends of the spectrum. There are those who believe exposing the casting couch will definitely work in favour of working women as people indulging in it will probably think twice. Critics however, see it as plain voyeurism and a clear and unambiguous violation of the right to privacy. Claims of investigative journalism notwithstanding, the crux of the matter is the channel’s strategy to garner eyeballs and the manner in which the salacious footage was telecast was all about getting TRPs.
Says media commentator, Kaveree Bamzai, “The channel seems to be looking to brand itself as India’s first tabloid channel.” But then, as some media planners point out, sleaze and sex do not necessarily equal eyeballs.
Though we will have to wait a while to see whether the series of stings will actually drive up the channel’s ratings in the medium to long term, there is no denying the ‘market buzz’ that the channel has generated. The channel seems to have found its place under the spotlight.
But then does the end justify the means? Media observers feel sting operations like the one Tehelka conducted are justified since that was all about exposing corruption at high levels. Perfectly justified in an area where the government machinery has failed and it’s all for the greater public good.
Putting things in perspective, managing director, BAG Films Anuradha Prasad says, “We are living in times when the line seems to be becoming very thin between sensationalism and investigation. So, it is now each to its own as far as accountability and editorial judgment goes.”
But definitely the competition seems to be hotting up. TV news is an evolving medium and has definitely moved away from being just about straight news. We are living in the times of Page 3 journalism, where sizzle sells and ‘breaking news’ at any cost seems to be the mantra to get an edge over the competition. Sting operations of different sorts seem to be on the agenda of many news channels.
Though refusing to comment directly on India TV’s operation Star News Editor, Uday Shankar says, “It’s definitely not ethical on my part to judge what the other channel has done. We have conducted various operations on some of our programmes like Red Alert. It was about the flesh trade that operates in the glamour world. But in this case we had covered the faces of the people involved. So, it is not all about putting a single person on the hot seat who can face social ostracism and isolation. Because that’s the worst kind of punishment.”
So what does Tarun Tejpal, the man behind the sting of all stings, the Tehelka exposé have to say about all this? “First off, I would like to clarify that I am in no way associated with them (India TV’s sting). Though I have not seen the recent Aman Verma expose all I can say is we would never indulge in operations that take on individuals. And in a situation like this, the way it has been portrayed, it is very difficult to establish who’s right and who’s wrong. Clearly for us sting operations are all about significant issues and things which affect public life and we would never do things like these.”
Prurient interest, salacious gossip. Daily bread and butter stuff that Britain’s celebrated tabloids thrive on. India TV looks to be positioning itself as the country’s first purely tabloid news television channel. And getting a hook in the already cluttered mindspace of the TV viewer. In the final analysis, that’s what this all sound and little of worthwhile substance sting operation is all about. Or so we believe.
In this context, Irving Wallace’s novel, The Almighty immediately comes to mind. The head of a newspaper, The New York Record, is driven by a single obsession: toppling the leader, The New York Times. All’s fair in his book and he stoops at nothing to achieve his ambition. Even hiring terrorists and resorting to espionage to create news.
And being the first to always publish it in his newspapers, twisting destiny to suit his own needs and desires. His megalomania leads him to believe that he is God, The Almighty – that he can change his fate. But he realizes too late, he cannot, and finally comes to an end in a chopper crash.
Thankfully, such a scenario still remains in the realm of fiction. But who knows, with competition being what it is, where all this will lead. Just how far is too far?
Is there a lesson in this for all those in the TV news business? Probably. And are those who are living by the sting, aware that they too could be stung if someone else turns the camera on 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.
