Micro-dramas and the infinite scroll economy

WHEN A YOUNG office-goer in Mumbai heads back home in a crowded local train, there is a good chance she is not opening Netflix or YouTube but a one-minute episode of a drama about a betrayed wife plotting revenge or a billionaire heir falling in love with a small-town girl. By the time she reaches her destination, she has watched 20 episodes. The micro-dramas that have her hooked have become one of the biggest business opportunities in the digital entertainment economy. Vertical, serialised fiction designed for smartphones, micro-dramas have exploded into the mainstream, sparking a rush among startups, streaming giants, production houses, creators, brands, and investors eager not to miss what could become India’s next major media category. JioHotstar launched Tadka in April, ZEE has partnered with Bullet, and Amazon MX Player has introduced Fatafat, alongside standalone players such as Kuku TV and StoryTV, which are scaling aggressively. Balaji Telefilms and Lionsgate Play are evaluating the category. For users, that fragmentation means juggling four or five apps to follow different stories — much like the early days of ride-hailing or food delivery. What’s behind this rush? First, the big platforms cannot lose the smartphone-first viewer who spends 3.5 hours a week on micro-dramas to a Kuku or a StoryTV, particularly when the viewer discovers micro-dramas on social feeds. Second, the content economics are dramatically more forgiving than premium OTT, allowing experimentation without betting the studio on a single ₹50-crore series. Third, the vast cohort of users who will happily spend ₹20-30 to unlock the next episode rather than shell out ₹999 a year for an OTT subscription. For incumbents, micro-drama is less a creative pivot than an audience-and-monetisation hedge. With titles such as Boss Bahu, CEO Se Romeo, Mitti Ka Sher, and Startup Junoon, these dramas have 30 to 100 episodes each, with most viewers paying after the first few free episodes. Bharath Ram, chief product officer at JioStar, whose unit JioHotstar launched Tadka in April, says, “The autoplay-led, feed-first experience helps reduce friction between discovery and viewing, allowing users to move seamlessly through episodes and stories within a single session.” Not every streaming company is convinced. Monika Shergill, vice president (content), Netflix India, says the company remains cautious. “Short-form content — we are still exploring and thinking that through,” Shergill says. “Most platforms are not designed to have short-format content... Streaming platforms are designed for long-form engagement. It is more of a social media phenomenon.” Legacy OTT platforms were built around premium, long-duration viewing, in which users spend hours binge-watching a series. Micro-drama platforms, by contrast, are designed around high-frequency engagement, algorithmic discovery, rapid experimentation, and scrolling. According to Lumikai’s State of Interactive Media Report 2025, India’s micro-drama market reached $300 million in 2025 — its first meaningful year of scale — with 450 million app downloads and 100 million monthly active users. The category could scale to $4.5 billion by 2030. A Meta-Ormax Media report, Micro Dramas: The India Story, found that 65% of audiences discovered the category within last year. Viewers spend a median of 3.5 hours weekly across multiple short sessions. A BDO India report reckons the addressable opportunity could reach 300-500 million daily viewers. The business of micro-drama If OTT disrupted television through on-demand viewing, micro-dramas could disrupt OTT through speed, frequency, and lower production economics. “A traditional OTT series can cost ₹5-50 crore, take six to 12 months to produce, and release as a one-time event,” says Sachin Singh, head of Kuku TV. “A micro-drama typically costs ₹15-20 lakh, is produced in four to six weeks, and is designed for continuous, daily consumption.” “OTT consumption is largely binge-driven, while micro-drama consumption is slot-based — during commutes, breaks, or short downtime windows,” Singh says. “This embeds the platform into daily routines rather than compete for long-form attention.” And monetisation changes. When OTT platforms launched in India, most initially experimented with advertising-led models. But the maths did not work. Digital video CPMs (cost per minute) in India typically range from ₹100-300, which translates to a few rupees of ad revenue per viewer over a 30-40 minute episode — nowhere near enough to recover the ₹50 lakh-to-several crore per-episode cost of a premium original. Even at YouTube-scale inventory, long-form prestige content cannot sustain itself on advertising alone. That structural gap is what forced Indian OTT players into subscription-heavy or freemium models within a few years of launch. Conventional pre-roll ads do not fit a 60-second episode — instead, platforms run rewarded-ad unlocks, where a viewer watches a short ad to access the next episode free, while brands are increasingly written directly into the script. Netflix, tellingly, has refused to roll out its ad-supported tier in India even after launching it across the U.S., the U.K., and other major markets — the cost-per-minute economics here simply do not justify it. Micro-drama platforms invert this equation. With per-episode production costs running to a few lakhs, a daily launch cadence, and viewing concentrated in 60-90-second loops rather than 40-minute blocks, the cost-per-minute of content is a fraction of that on OTT. That allows monetisation through smaller, more frequent transactions — and crucially, makes ad-supported and pay-per-episode models mathematically viable in a way they never were for long-form OTT. So a Kuku TV user pays roughly ₹399 a quarter for unlimited access, a Bullet user buys small coin packs via UPI to unlock episodes one by one, and a Fatafat viewer pays nothing at all. Unlike OTT platforms, which rely heavily on subscriptions and advertising, micro-drama apps are experimenting with subscription video on demand (SVOD), advertising video on demand (AVOD) and transactional video on demand (TVOD). Users watch a few free episodes, reach a cliffhanger, and pay to unlock subsequent episodes. It’s more like gaming reward mechanics than traditional television. Rohit Jain, president, Lionsgate Play, describes the format as a “gamified tokenisation model”. Subscription revenues still dominate. Ranjith Kumar, co-founder & CEO, Pratilipi, says subscription revenues account for 70-80% while micro-transactions fetch 20-30%. For Kuku TV, subscriptions are the dominant stream, anchored around quarterly plans. But Kuku has introduced advertising and microtransactions through StoRizz, where users can unlock individual episodes rather than committing to a full subscription. Amazon MX Player, by contrast, has launched Fatafat entirely free and ad-supported — a deliberate AVOD bet against the paywall-led incumbents. According to reports, Yash Raj Films and Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment are evaluating potential entries into the micro-drama space in 2026. So, why does SVOD dominate? The 70-80% share is not about consumer preference. It shows the ad-tech and micro-payment infrastructure around micro-drama is still immature. Subscriptions are simply the easiest revenue to harvest first. As more platforms enter the market, customer acquisition cost (CAC) is already climbing, and aggressive free-trial and discount strategies are starting to compress per-user subscription revenue. If India follows China’s trajectory — where TVOD and AVOD overtook subscriptions to drive a $7-billion category — the current sub-heavy mix may prove a transitional phase rather than a stable one. Chandrashekar Mantha, partner and leader, media & entertainment sector, Deloitte India, says retention will ultimately determine which platforms survive consolidation. Vibhor Gauba, associate partner at KPMG India, believes India could eventually resemble China. “Given the nature of Indian markets, TVOD and AVOD, in that order, are likely to be the sustainable models.” Azim Lalani, co-founder and chief business officer at Bullet, believes monetisation is increasingly embedded in storytelling. “We do not see AVOD, SVOD, or TVOD as separate models. We see them as distinct stages in the same user journey. Monetisation is not treated as a separate step. It is built into the storytelling.” Storytelling at software scale The companies building micro-drama businesses increasingly resemble technology startups as much as entertainment studios. Kuku TV deploys AI across ideation, scripting, production, post-production, and promotion, enabling it to launch “hundreds of micro-dramas every month across genres and languages.” KPMG’s Gauba estimates platforms are currently producing 300 to 500 releases annually, sometimes more than one launch a day. “Micro-drama production is more like a portfolio than one big bet,” says Sharath Chandra, co-founder of Chai Shots. Sameer Nair, MD, Applause Entertainment, says the streaming industry is getting reset. “The first phase — from zero to scale — is always the easiest. Now we’re at a plateau where everyone is recalibrating.” Platforms, he says, are moving away from expensive prestige dramas towards “hard-working programming” — telenovela-style storytelling, unscripted formats, and micro-dramas. “Content creation cannot be a charitable exercise.” That is one reason startups such as Kuku TV and StoryTV may currently be better equipped than legacy media companies. The single biggest structural disadvantage for incumbents is not creative — it is procedural. The commissioning, legal, and budget-approval machinery of a JioStar or a Zee was built to sign off on ₹10-crore-plus Originals through multi-level greenlight committees. That same machinery, when asked to approve a ₹15-lakh micro-drama every other day, becomes the bottleneck. “The business of micro-dramas is fundamentally built on two things,” says Vikram Malhotra, founder and CEO of Abundantia Entertainment. “One, evolving consumer tastes where attention spans get scarce, and the desire to consume content on the go is higher than ever. Two, ease, accessibility, diversity, and low-investment content consumption.” Ashish Pherwani, M&E sector leader at EY India, believes the format is creating an entirely new category. “Micro-dramas cater mainly to the escapism needs of youth. The short format makes for crisp and fast-paced storytelling, aligned to audiences with shorter attention spans.” The Meta-Ormax study found that nearly 89% of users discover micro-dramas through social feeds rather than active search. Discovery behaves less like Netflix and more like Instagram Reels or TikTok. “Micro drama isn’t a passing trend — it’s rewriting the rules of Indian entertainment,” says Shweta Bajpai, director, media & entertainment (India), Meta. “Audiences aren’t searching for micro dramas, they’re finding them in the feed.” Branded content Unlike traditional OTT advertising, where brands appear as pre-roll ads or sponsorships, micro-drama increasingly integrates brands directly into narratives. Vishaal Shah, co-founder of Moe’s Art, believes this could become one of the ecosystem’s biggest revenue opportunities. “Brands are moving from appearing in stories to owning the story itself.” His company’s “Anti-Agency” mockumentary series integrated founders and brands directly into episodic narratives instead of treating them as separate advertisements. “That’s where things shift from integration to participation.” The mechanics vary. At the lighter end, brands sponsor individual story arcs — a 10- to 15-episode mini-series where the product or service is woven into the plot rather than dropped in as a placement. At the deeper end, brands co-commission the entire narrative, with character professions, settings, and conflicts built around the brand’s category. Chandra of Chai Shots says brands are drawn to the format because it combines storytelling with frequency. Saurabh Pandey, founder and CEO of Eloelo, believes the next phase will revolve around interactive and community-led consumption. “The future of entertainment will not just be passive viewing. Audiences increasingly want participation, community, and real-time engagement.” Vernacular growth will accelerate the category. Rahul Kapoor, vice president, partnerships at The Trade Desk, says the category is becoming increasingly relevant for advertisers because it creates high-frequency engagement environments. Mautik Tolia, MD and CEO of Bodhi Tree Multimedia, says partnerships are “a natural extension” as platforms diversify beyond subscriptions and traditional advertising. India’s China moment? Much of the excitement comes from comparisons with China, where short-drama revenues crossed 50 billion yuan (around $7 billion) in 2024, overtaking domestic box-office for the first time. India, at $300 million, remains at a much nascent stage. “India’s micro-drama space is in an exploratory phase,” says Tanuj Garg, partner at Ellipsis Entertainment. “Unlike markets like South Korea, we don’t yet have a proven, scalable model,” he adds. Nitin Burman, chief revenue officer at Balaji Telefilms, believes the industry resembles the early OTT boom — driven heavily by investor funding and aggressive user acquisition. “There are a lot of investors pumping money into this sector because they feel they will get high returns.” But he expects a shakeout. Actor Jay Soni says, “People want to see everything in one minute, two minutes. Even a second’s lag and they scroll. My TV performances are different. My film performances are different. My micro-drama performances are different.” The micro-drama boom may still be in its infancy, but the behavioural signals are already difficult to ignore. The format is creating new viewing habits, new monetisation models, and a new storytelling grammar. It is also forcing India’s entertainment ecosystem to rethink what audiences want in an age of fragmented attention. Most industry executives agree on one thing: micro-drama is unlikely to replace OTT, cinema, or television. It is creating an entirely new behavioural layer within India’s entertainment economy — built, unmistakably, for the scroll generation.

Micro-dramas and the infinite scroll economy

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