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How Covid2019 is affecting outdoor media
Outdoor advertising had a fantastic 2019. Defying predictions, India’s OOH (Out Of Home) industry, grew at over 15 per cent. Driven by IPL, elections and a huge increase in the OTT industry’s outdoor advertising, the industry saw a big increase, enabled adequately by digitization. The industry itself has been seeing radical positive transformation over the years. From the rather primitive static format, it has now become a dynamic audiovisual one, with all kinds of creativity made possible by technology. Global giants like Google Maps and LinkedIn have used OOH to create an impact, in addition to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar. Events are a big money spinner for OOH, and last year KumbhMela was proof of this. Witnessing audiences in crores, the promotion of brands on-site contributed significantly. In the financial year 2019, the revenue generated from out-of-home advertising across India amounted to over Rs 34 billion. This was estimated to reach up to Rs 52 billion by the financial year 2024, and Rs 38 billion in 2020.
But all this has now been severely affected by the pandemic Covid2019. Many organizations have slashed their ad campaign budgets and have left the advertisers reeling for their incomes. OOH has been acutely affected in this scenario.
Looking at history does not help, as during the previous instances of recession or pandemic, digital media or ambient advertising (a variation of outdoor) were not as developed as it is today. 1918 was the year when the Spanish Flu hit the world, and at that point mass television broadcast was at least 25 years away. Much later, in 2008, when the financial crisis hit the world, digital marketing was just fledgling. But today, it is hard to find a single household that is not reached through digital and/or outdoor advertising.
Lockdown has changed the way we live and the way in which we consume media. Urging people to stay indoors has resulted in streets and roads being empty. Halting public transport has created a vacuum in bus shelters and train stations and the busy shopping areas are deserted. The familiar red colour of Coca-Cola or the bright branding of Samsung is no longer visible while walking down the busy areas of metros in India. Many hoarding sites are empty as there are no consumers to view these.
In-home media has been the gainer during this period. Whether it is TV, which has increased reach in terms of viewers and duration of viewership, or web streaming, which has seen a significant climb in the household watching time, or even video games (where playtime has gone up), people staying at home has resulted in a sharp increase in in-home entertainment and viewing.
Out-of-home also includes ambient advertising i.e., advertising in unexpected areas. Aimed at evoking an emotional response, ambient advertising includes placing products, models etc. in attractive locations like malls and restaurants in order to catch the consumer’s attention. It is also called ‘creative guerilla advertising,’ and that has also hit a new low now. Reduction in public traffic has done away with the need for this kind of advertising, at least temporarily. Cancelling events has also had a bearing on this industry. With no immediate need to promote new products on a mass scale, clients are cancelling these events, leaving the advertisers high and dry.
So, how can the outdoor media industry buck the trend?
Outdoor medium is an integral part of our cityscapes and our lives. It has always had a place in building trust with local communities. Located in proximity to where people live and commute, it ensures a special bond with the citizens of that geography. And in times such as the current crisis, the medium is all the more relevant in garnering faith and educating the public. The medium, therefore, needs to play to its strengths. There have been cases where governments have recognized this and placed their confidence in this medium. According to the Ad Council of the US, ‘Out Of Home’ media plays a critical part in informing local communities and residents on how to stay safe during times of uncertainty. As part of their ongoing efforts to address the growing Covid2019 pandemic, the US department of health and human services (HHS) and centers for disease control and prevention (CDC), have convened (OOH) industry leaders, to bring critical Covid2019 safety messaging to the American public. From mall kiosks to airport TVs to Uber car tops and billboards, the industry is leveraging their extensive networks to help slow the spread of the virus. The scenario in India is no different. The advertising giants – Lintas, Ogilvy, JWT, etc. – are all focusing efforts on their outdoor advertising arm to bring more awareness to the public on Covid2019.
Already known for its novel campaigns in the ambient format, the OOH industry needs further innovations. Take the case of Ro, an American digital health company, that has both men and women health products. Situated in New York, they decided to use outdoor medium and came up with a public utility message on safety on billboards, while also announcing their website-based tele-health assessments. This dual-purpose innovation helped them gain consumer mind share while also doing public good.
Flexibility is the other aspect that will enable OOH to flourish. Media agency outfits that have a digital or TV component should allow clients to trade their outdoor budgets for digital or TV campaigns during this lockdown period, thereby retaining clientele. This will give them the much-needed revenues and allow them to get back on track once the current crisis is over.
Making advertising trustworthy has always been a challenge. The metric for measuring trust in advertisements – the AD TRUST Scale – highlights the reliability of source as the topmost. Outdoor medium scores significantly on that front. Seeing China rebound from Covid2019 gives hope to outdoor marketers that all will be well soon. Coincidentally, the Beijing Olympics of 2008 was one of the pioneer outdoor events which showcased what OOH was capable of, through spectacular creativity (and technology). Given that outdoor advertising touches people in a personal, topical way, it is important that the industry adopts a combination of the above-mentioned strategies of playing to its strengths, practicing innovation and retaining flexibility.
(The author is senior associate professor (marketing), Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.)
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.
MUMBAI: The lights went out on Indian advertising this Diwali. Piyush Pandey, the wordsmith who turned bus rides and roadside tea into unforgettable campaigns, died on Friday aged 70. Just four months earlier, at the Emvies awards in Mumbai, veterans had touched his feet for blessings while young hopefuls queued for selfies. He looked frail but smiled through every encounter. Humility was his signature; genius was his secret.
Pandey never claimed special talent. His gift was simpler and rarer: he kept his eyes open. The famous Fevicol advertisement—a Jaisalmer bus groaning under passengers clinging to every inch—came from a real sighting. The magic was slapping a Fevicol poster on the back of the bus. “Keep your eyes open, keep your ears to the ground and have a heart willing to accept,” he told newcomers at Ogilvy. It wasn’t a slogan. It was scripture.
He joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1982 at 27, after failing at cricket, tea tasting and construction. When Mani Iyer, who headed the agency, introduced him to me as creative director in the late 1980s, Pandey’s deep, soft voice belied a fierce passion for the craft. Like Roda Mehta, who ran media at Ogilvy, he was generous with his time, patiently explaining the thought behind many a campaign to me. Those campaigns moved hundreds of thousands of crores worth of products off shelves over their lifespans.
His method was observation turned into emotion. The Dum Laga Ke Haisha Fevicol spot was originally made for a smaller brand called Fevitite. The Parekhs, who owned Pidilite, told him the ad was too good to waste. Reshoot it for Fevicol, they urged. He did. That single decision spawned a series of award-winning campaigns and turned Fevicol into the category itself.
His philosophy was disarmingly simple: love life. “Whether you are sipping tea from a roadside vendor or in a five-star hotel, whether you are travelling by second class or in a Mercedes-Benz,” he would say. Great ideas came from loving all of it—the chaos, the mundane, the sublime. “Be open to accepting ideas from the world. Be open to sharing ideas with the world. Learn to talk but most importantly also learn to listen.”
Pandey despised lazy advertising. Technology for its own sake was pointless; celebrities without ideas were useless. “Many TVCs are pathetic these days when they use celebrities. They are made very lazily,” he once said. For him, the idea came first. Technology could enhance it; fame could amplify it. But without a core truth, it was just expensive noise.
He believed consumers, not suits or pony-tailed creatives, made advertising great. “It’s when he or she accepts the product and emotionally bonds with it, the product becomes a brand,” he said. His advice to brand managers was blunt: stop being salesmen. Build brands, not just products.
I lost touch with him for decades as I went about building the indiantelevision.com group and all its ancillary services. Journalism and writing as I used to practice when I was younger was relegated to the background. It was during the pandemic that I reached out to him and requested him to spare some time for an online interview. To my surprise, he remembered me and he readily agreed. It was an interesting conversation about how Ogilvy was serving clients during the pandemic and how its creative edge was being maintained. We had agreed we would speak for 30 minutes, but the conversation went on for an hour. It was peppered with Pandey-isms. But that was the last time we spoke at length to each other, though we said hello to each other at advertising industry get-togethers which I rarely attended. Sadly, for me.
The man who taught India to watch, listen and love has gone silent. But his voice echoes still—in every vernacular tagline, every slice-of-life commercial, every campaign that dares to see India as it truly is. Pandey didn’t just sell products. He gave an entire nation permission to speak in its own accent, to find poetry in the everyday, to believe that the roadside and the boardroom could meet and make magic.
The lights dimmed this Diwali, but the spark he lit—built on observation, fuelled by empathy, sustained by love—will burn for generations. That’s not advertising. That’s immortality.
MUMBAI: Once, they blazed across the Indian media landscape with the swagger of pioneers. Entrepreneur-led behemoths like Subhash Chandra’s Zee Entertainment, Kalanithi Maran’s Sun TV, Prannoy Roy’s NDTV, and Raghav Bahl’s Network18 weren’t just market leaders — they were institutions, holding their own even as foreign giants circled hungrily.
Today, those stars are fading. Some have already fallen.
Network18 and TV18 are now firmly in the grip of Reliance Industries and Disney Star. NDTV, long a bastion of editorial independence, is under the control of the Adani Group. Its founders — Roy and Radhika — have exited stage left, their names now relics of an era that once prized journalistic idealism.
Zee, once the crown jewel of Indian broadcasting, is barely hanging on. The Chandra family — once majority owners — now clutch a meagre four-odd per cent stake. It’s a dramatic fall from grace fuelled by Subhash Chandra’s ill-advised adventures into infrastructure. To bankroll these forays, he pledged Zee shares, opening the gates to lenders who came calling. The result: a sharp dilution of promoter ownership and a credibility crisis. The failed merger with Sony’s Indian arm, Culver Max Entertainment, only added insult to injury — scuppered reportedly due to concerns about Zee’s financial hygiene. A company once viewed as squeaky clean had its reputation muddied.
Sun TV, the fourth of the old guard, is also showing cracks. Helmed with iron discipline by Kalanithi Maran, it long stood as a symbol of stability. But the facade is now under strain. A family feud has burst into public view, with brother Dayanidhi Maran accusing Kala of wresting control of Sun TV through backdoor share acquisitions. Legal notices have flown, regulatory filings issued, and the company insists all was above board. Still, some reputational damage has been done — and the gossip mills are churning.
The result is a media map being redrawn in real time. Where once these founders shaped the narrative, today they’re either sidelined, embattled, or ousted. And as corporate titans and conglomerates take over, the question is whether passion-led media can survive in an era of balance sheets, bottom lines, and boardroom power plays.
India’s media isn’t short on ambition. But nostalgia alone won’t stop the sun from setting on yesterday’s giants.
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