Can Bollywood's Big Boys Play The Microdrama Game?
5/15/202622 min
India's biggest production houses are moving into micro-drama — but entering a format is very different from mastering it. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury, ET's in house film journalist and critic Rajesh Naidu and AI-native micro drama platform Dashverse founder Sanidhya Narain examine three defining tensions in the micro-drama space: whether the format can genuinely serve as an IP testing ground for films and series, whether legacy studios have the structural DNA to compete in a high-volume, low-cost game, and whether China's ad-dominant revenue model can work in India's market
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First 90 secondsAnirban Chaudhuri· Host0:00
[upbeat music] The big guns have arrived. Yash Raj Films, Red Chilies, and several others, India's most powerful entertainment names are now staking a claim in micro dramas. Also, the segment is increasingly becoming a test bed for bigger IPs. Think full OTT series and even films. But this playbook is different. This isn't a format that rewards prestige or star power alone. In fact, it rewards volume, speed, and an almost algorithmic understanding of what keeps a thumb from swiping. Think not big scale films, but reels and shorts at scale. Also, the question of how to actually make money remains wide open. You see, the ad-driven model in China, micro drama's biggest pioneer and success story, does not really map onto India's fragmented market. So today, we dig into the three fault lines defining micro drama's next chapter: IP strategy, studio ambition, and the revenue puzzle. It's Friday the 15th of May. I'm Anirban Chaudhuri. This is The Morning Brief.
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