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Why we need good news today!
MUMBAI: The commonly-held belief is that if you turn on any news channel, you will be rattled by the high-decibel cacophony that has become common as garden amongst the invited on-air guests and anchors during prime time. Every guest tries to outshout the other and the anchor, even as the latter raises his or her voice to be heard and play master conductor of the croaking symphony of voices.
That’s on the so-called debate shows, on which supposedly suave and erudite journalists behave worse than the colourful loudmouthed politicians whenever they meet in the house for a parliamentary session.
The so-called national conscience keepers have for some time now become the providers of everything but the truth about what’s going in the world around us, and in faraway distant lands. Political agendas, half-truths, opinions, poorly-researched reports, propaganda are spewed out daily during news bulletins on certain news channels. The intent: keep viewers and lay citizens guessing about the rightness of any action and development – thus confused – and envelop them in a shroud of fear by highlighting the impending danger.
Can we blame the news providers totally?
Not all of them have taken the same tack, but the entire news genre has got tarred and feathered with the same brush. But those who do, say it’s the masses of viewers who have forced them to take this path.
Ordinary plain vanilla news and events do not really interest the common man is what they quip. But plant some controversy behind any news item and lo and behold the junta in hordes switch to news from the drama shows that they love to watch on general entertainment channels. Not just that: they stay glued to the news on telly as if their very lives depended on it. And the ratings hit the moon!
For the advertising dependent broadcasters this means heavy showers of moolah from advertisers who are looking to reach millions of viewers with their brand and product communications in the shape of TV commercials.
Can this vicious perception about Indian news be broken? A laudable effort is being made by the TV Today group with the announcement of Good News Today (GNT). Not much is known about what its content will be. But its base line is that it will stay away from the negative tonality that has stained the Indian news television sector.
The country and its 1.3 billion citizens do need many good doses of good news. The past 18 months have seen the world go through the agony of the rampage of the murderous novel coronavirus, not knowing who it will infect and kill or at least lay to waste. Millions have died, even more have been infected and many in multiples of that have had their economic stability totally upended, leading to trauma not experienced by any generation before. Depression is commonplace, sibling clashes have risen, the divorce rate is going up as the family fabric is stretched and strained under the pressure of being locked up in closed spaces without much social contact apart from our near and dear ones.
Yes, the world is in trouble, economies are in shambles. Yes, all is not right with our finances. Yes, the way the virus and the world is being managed could be better. But do we need to be reminded about what is wrong daily? Is there nothing that’s right with our lives? Are there no good tidings for us? Has humanity lost its humaneness totally? Is there no goodness left in those that govern us?
We all know the answer to this. Over the various millennia, it is always the good that has prevailed. Usually, it appears as if the bad is getting the upper hand. But then from nowhere comes a savior, who gives hope to the suffering millions and even billions. And good triumphs.
All of us remember Reader’s Digest. It was a compendium of articles and stories about how individuals overcame adversity; of heroes. It was a publication which I would rush to read, because it gave me hope as a youngster and in the early stage of my professional career. Even today it inspires me when I flip through its pages.
Do I want to hear more and more rounds of Modi-bashing from rival parties who want to show his government and the efforts it is taking to build a new Bharat or India in bad light? Do I want to hear more about Modi and his team defending their actions or going on the offensive against the opposition? Do I want to hear that the world we are living in is totally corrupt? And that we have no hope?
Yes, I would like to be informed about developments and announcements that impact our lives. But without it being distorted by prejudices and vested interests. I would also like to hear about the good that is being done. I would like to hear about progress, about the improvements in our lives. About those who are sincerely working to better the lives of the common Indian. Whether it is a local councilor or a district collector or a state legislative member or a national parliamentarian or even a worker or a policeman.
The English thinker and author James Allen once said: “You are what you think.”
The Buddha said: “You are what you have been; and you shall be what you do now.”
Hopefully, a news channel focusing on the good all around us and the attempts to build a better tomorrow will help in our shift towards a REAL better tomorrow.
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.
