According to media consulting firm Ormax, Criminal Justice: A Family Matter, the most viewed long-format web original in the first half of 2025, clocked in a viewership of only 27.7 million. In comparison, online video viewers increased 3% (15 million) in 2024 to reach 551 million, which is around 98% of active smartphones, according to a Ficci EY report.
Total time spent on social media and video consumption increased by 18% last year, with YouTube dominating the landscape, capturing 92% of all online video consumption. Premium platforms—comprising AVoD (advertising video-on-demand), freemium and SVoD (subscription video-on-demand) services—accounted for the remaining 8%.
Crime dramas have traditionally worked best on OTT, but over time, services have begun to experiment with and see traction for lighter genres such as slice-of-life comedies and even small-town family tales.
Entertainment industry experts say short, gratifying content on social media services like Facebook and Instagram, available for free, along with sports, is a huge challenge to the viewership growth of premium web shows. Further, traditional long formats are seen as high-effort viewing, especially by young Gen Z audiences whose annual calendars are often marked by examinations and social activities.
“The availability of consistently high-quality content in long-form formats is still limited. Secondly, platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer short, instantly gratifying content that fits well with today’s reduced attention spans. In addition, social media, YouTube creators and even exam season cycles have led to fragmented viewing habits. Long form content is competing with faster, snackable alternatives that demand less time and mental energy,” said Nitin Gupta, chief creative officer, Chaupal, a platform specializing in Punjabi, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri content.
Myriad choices
For Gen Z, who are shaped by Reels, Shorts, and fast swipes, even a two-minute video can feel like a stretch. Traditional long-form formats are often seen as high-effort viewing, Gupta added.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) tops the list of reasons for limited viewership of long-form content. IPL is reported to have drawn over 620 million viewers on Jiostar alone, according to Aparna Ramachandran, head of digital originals at Balaji Telefilms Ltd.
“Gaming is also on the rise, with mobile gaming growing at a steady rate. A number of theatrical films are crossing the ₹100-crore mark as well. Short-form content continues to dominate the digital ecosystem, with average viewing time reported to be more than an hour per day on Reels or Shorts across Instagram and YouTube. These are some of the key spaces currently competing with long-form series,” Ramachandran said.
She added that long-form fiction usually sees drop-offs unless it’s a great show. “It typically starts to see drop-offs after the second or third episode. This is an attention-based economy. If you cannot grab attention and keep it, it indeed is a challenge for long-form content to compete with the increasing pickup of other digital entertainment and sports modules,” she pointed out.
Other than formats that require shorter attention spans and often come for free, entertainment industry experts point out that films and series also fall prey to piracy. Moreover, every long-format show is competing in a hugely cluttered market.
Changing scenario
Viewers are fragmented across numerous streaming platforms, making it difficult for a show to gain traction unless it’s well-promoted or trending, said Charu Malhotra, managing director and co-founder of Primus Partners. If the narrative doesn’t hook audiences early on, they tend to disengage quickly. Additionally, cultural and regional relevance plays a crucial role—content that lacks relatability often fails to connect.
That said, many see hope in better marketing tools, including low-budget hyperlocal advertising and social media promotions using contextual influencers, to spread the word around specific shows.
Kaushik Das, founder and CEO, AAO NXT, an Odia language platform, said that from a tech standpoint, the company has implemented features like AI-led recommendations, trailers-as-thumbnails, and offline downloads to increase viewership. Marketing collaborations with influencers, regional radio, or even college circuits can also play a big role in pushing long-form content deeper into tier-II and tier-III markets, he added.
The paid OTT ecosystem is as yet limited to approximately 130 million subscriptions, prior to IPL being put behind a paywall, according to Ashish Pherwani, M&E sector leader, EY India. That is significantly lower than the reach of television at around 800 million people.
“Connected TV, too, is just 35 to 40 million homes a month. Which means that the paid OTT ecosystem is still smaller than the pay TV ecosystem. But that will change, and we expect digital reach to keep growing and equate that of pay TV by 2029 or before, and the uptake of good content will keep increasing over the years ahead across formats,” Pherwani added.
