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Story TV CEO Saurabh Pandey
The attention economy has found its new champion in India, in the form of micro-dramas, a format designed especially for the mobile generation. Micro-dramas, defined as ultra-short, serialised vertical video episodes, can range between one and six minutes. Fast-paced storytelling and cliffhangers are the backbone of micro-drama content.
In conversation with afaqs!, at the launch of India's first reality micro-drama titled Sach Ya Kalesh, Saurabh Pandey, founder and CEO of Story TV, a popular micro-drama app in India, unpacks the vision behind the platform and the surging trend of snackable, narrative-driven entertainment.
Reels meet OTT storytelling
“Story TV was actually conceived with a very simple idea,” Pandey explains, “that we have always consumed content vertically on mobiles, but can we really marry the same fun scrolling experience of Instagram Reels with the rich storytelling that OTT apps bring in? Could there be a format around that?”
According to Pandey, the content needed to be distinctly Indianised. “Because an Indian audience is not going to understand Korean or Chinese sensibilities. You're going to have to bring things which are desi, which are things that we understand, aspire to, and relate to,” he adds.
The platform focuses on delivering one-minute episodes, featuring micro-drama series that comprise 50 to 60 episodes each. “We want to be the one-minute entertainment app of India,” he asserts.
The ‘snackable’ sweet spot
In a world saturated with social media and long-form OTT content, why do micro-dramas work? Pandey credits two main factors: the need for snackable, on-the-go entertainment and shrinking attention spans.
"If I ask you what the last reel you saw was, you'll probably not remember... And you must have spent a couple of hours a week deciding what OTT series to binge on,” he observes. “So there has to be something midway.”
For the average Indian spending a part of their day commuting or taking short work breaks, micro-dramas offer a solution. “There has to be something which is snackable, on the go. Earlier, you used to go to entertainment. Now entertainment sort of comes to you,” notes Pandey.
The format directly addresses the reduction in viewer attention span and hopes to fill the entertainment gap.
“We barely read the books anymore. We're barely able to hold our attention for something more than a few seconds or a few minutes. So in this day and age, I think it's very important for entertainment and cinema to innovate and go to the place where the audience's attention span is, which is why I think micro-dramas are having a moment now.”
Who is consuming micro-dramas?
As per Pandey, Story TV’s average user, as of a recent count, is spending “approximately 82 minutes a day on the app, binge-watching one-minute episodes”.
The platform has found its sweet spot with the following audience:
Demographics: The core audience is “between the ages of 20 and 32, with 35-40% of viewers being female, making the platform’s content highly family-oriented”.
Geography: The audience is a mix of metros (55%) and non-metros (45%). The state with the highest engagement is Delhi, which is “hooked to micro-dramas”, followed by cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Kolkata, and non-metro regions like UP and Bihar.
India’s first reality micro-drama
Micro-dramas are, by definition, dramas. Success hinges on being “super engaging and really on point” because the viewer’s thumb is very close to the screen. Therefore, if there's even a minute that they are not enjoying, they will just scroll away.
The working genres all share a need for high emotional payoff and pace: rags-to-riches stories, hidden identities, and thrillers, all packed with plot twists and cliffhangers.
Story TV’s recent launch, Sach Ya Kalesh, is pioneering in non-fiction with what Pandey believes is “globally the first ever reality TV show on a micro-drama”.
The show aims to bring the excitement of drama to a reality setting by putting real-life couples through a lie detector test with the celebrity host, Seema Taparia, from the Indian Matchmaking fame.
Monetising dopamine
Addressing scepticism about Indian audiences' willingness to pay for content, Pandey is firmly optimistic, predicting a correction in market research on India's pay behaviour over the next couple of years.
He sees three models emerging: subscription, advertising, and the 'pay-per-episode unlocked' model of microtransactions. Story TV is currently finding the most success with subscriptions.
“The Indian audience is now wanting to spend on content and wanting to spend on their feel-good needs. I don't think this is about content and entertainment anymore. It's about feeling good,” he explains, linking payment to a psychological need.
“If somebody can deliver dopamine to you, that feels good. Because then when you resume work after a short micro-drama break, you're doing it with a very different mindset.”
Story TV currently has no advertising for its premium, paying users, a policy based on the insight that “you will just hate it if they show an ad for premium users”.
However, it plans to introduce a free, ad-supported tier soon to make micro-dramas more accessible.
Familiar faces on micro-dramas
Despite being a fairly new format, microdramas have attracted plenty of recognisable talent. Popular micro-drama series now feature a blend of new actors, existing TV stars, and even established Bollywood actors.
The format is attracting established names such as Kinshuk Vaidya (of Shakala Kaboom Boom fame), Pavitra Punia, Chetan Hansraj, Jai Soni, and Raslan, because “they want to be closer to their audience. Their audience is here”.
The future is only micro-drama for Story TV
Despite the platform's name, Story TV has no plans to expand beyond its core format. Pandey strongly believes in avoiding a "super app" for Indian users.
“I am a very strong believer that Indians don't prefer super apps. They hire an app for just one specific use case,” he says. “We hire experts and not generalists for our use case... We endeavour to be the best at microdramas because it's a space we now believe we understand well.”
The future roadmap for Story TV is about deepening the offering: launching more regional languages like Tamil and Telugu and introducing more unique IPs and formats within the micro-drama boundary, all in a bid to “build the Netflix of micro-dramas”.
