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Daybreak · August 19 · 24 min

India cracked the code on microdramas. It also cracked the timer

China's microdrama industry took nearly eight years — and real government money — to reach the point where regulators had to step in over AI-flooded, quality-degraded content. India's biggest platforms don't have eight years. They're building AI into production from day one, racing to scale catalogues before fatigue sets in. Host Rachel Varghese, gets into why JioHotstar, ShareChat, and Kuku TV are pouring money into two-minute dramas, what a Chinese skincare brand's meteoric rise (and equally fast fall) reveals about the ceiling on this format, and whether India's shortcut to scale comes with a shortcut to burnout too. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

0:00-24:30

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show notes

China's microdrama industry took nearly eight years — and real government money — to reach the point where regulators had to step in over AI-flooded, quality-degraded content.

India's biggest platforms don't have eight years. They're building AI into production from day one, racing to scale catalogues before fatigue sets in.

Host Rachel Varghese, gets into why JioHotstar, ShareChat, and Kuku TV are pouring money into two-minute dramas, what a Chinese skincare brand's meteoric rise (and equally fast fall) reveals about the ceiling on this format, and whether India's shortcut to scale comes with a shortcut to burnout too.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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