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Uday Shankar & Ishan Chatterjee’s masterplan to disrupt the sports ecosystem
MUMBAI: By partnering with Nielsen, Uday Shankar and Ishan Chatterjee have revolutionised the way advertising revenue is allocated in media. With all relevant consumption metrics now accessible, brands and managers can accurately measure the return on investment for ads on the JioHotstar platform.
Previously, advertisers relied on distributor and retailer feedback to gauge the impact of TV or OTT ad campaigns or simply trusted platform-provided figures on watch times and engagement. This lack of transparency led many senior marketing executives to lament that half their advertising budget was wasted—without knowing which half.
Now, with JioHotstar exposing detailed consumer engagement data, transparency is paramount. Competitors such as Sony, Zee5, and MX Player will face pressure to disclose their own engagement metrics, which are likely to fall far short of JioHotstar’s. With 50 million subscribers, JioHotstar’s numbers will set a new benchmark, challenging the credibility of figures previously reported by other streaming services.
Will Nielsen’s dashboards validate or debunk existing industry claims? Will this new transparency drive up unit pricing for OTT ad spots or cause a market correction?
Some believe smaller OTT platforms could benefit from JioHotstar’s initiative, as advertisers gain confidence in exploring alternative options.
“The battle for advertising video revenue is primarily between Alphabet, Meta, and other players, while retail commerce giants such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Swiggy are evolving into media powerhouses, attracting thousands of crores in ad spending. The first two dominate 70 per cent of India’s digital ad spend. Transparency measures like JioStar’s could shift investment from Alphabet and Meta to other video platforms as the ad market expands,” observes an industry expert.
To capitalise on this shift, Uday Shankar has launched sports channels in multiple languages in both standard and high definition. The true impact of JioStar’s transformation of the sports vertical will likely become evident later this year, as marketers, agencies, cable operators, aggregators, and DTH platforms assess the platform’s potential. Subscription and advertising revenue are expected to surge.
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Digital advertising has long been a black box, with advertisers investing heavily in Meta and Alphabet despite knowing there’s wastage—largely because of the strength of their data, even though it’s self-reported. In an effort to bring more transparency, Google has been encouraging third-party tech solution providers outside its ecosystem through programs like YTMP, where Channel Factory plays a role, particularly for YouTube advertisers. The recent Jio-Hotstar collaboration with Nielsen aims to shed light on consumption data, providing advertisers with third-party insights. However, since the study is commissioned by the media company itself, its credibility will be met with some skepticism—much like the trust advertisers place in Meta and Alphabet’s data. That said, it still offers a level of validation that could make investment decisions more confident. More importantly, this move could push other players to enhance transparency in their own data reporting, ultimately fostering a more accountable digital ecosystem Yesudas Pillai |
The BCCI has thrived on the IPL’s ever-increasing media rights value, pocketing Rs 48,000 crore in the 2022–27 cycle. However, the IPL has been a loss leader for JioStar, with revenue projections of Rs 4,000–4,500 crore for the 2025 season, meaning profitability remains elusive.
The recent merger aims to stabilise rights acquisition costs. Previously, Disney Star and Viacom18 engaged in aggressive bidding wars, inflating prices. With one less competitor, prices may better reflect market realities—unless Netflix, Eurosport, Prime Video, YouTube, Zee, or Sony enter the fray, not just for the IPL but for other sports properties, as India’s sporting interests expand beyond cricket.
(Sources suggest sports administrators are privately expressing concerns about the impending disruption, while smaller sports associations are eager for new opportunities.)
If rights prices fall to more realistic levels, the entire ecosystem will feel the effects. BCCI and ICC will have less revenue from central media and broadcast rights pools, reducing payouts to team owners. Consequently, player salaries will also decline as team owners rationalise spending. The days of cricketers commanding double-digit crore salaries, as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Hardik Pandya have, may be numbered.
The sports sector is on the brink of a transformation. On the infrastructure side, on the broadcast side, on the talent side – it is all waiting to explode. Production quality, engagement, and interactivity will reach unprecedented levels. It only took a nudge from the likes of Uday Shankar, Akash Ambani, and Nita Ambani. As the saying goes, the match isn’t over until it’s won—or lost.
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.
