Mumbai, June 26 -- In a world of 15-second videos and fractured attention spans, getting an audience to commit to a three-hour film is, in the words of JioStar Entertainment's Alok Jain, "a big ask." But rather than chase scale for its own sake, India's newest content powerhouse is betting on something more enduring: bold, emotionally resonant storytelling-and its youngest viewers.

At the Asia Pacific Video Operators Summit (APOS) 2025 in Bali, Jain, who heads entertainment at JioStar, and Krishnan Kutty, the firm's head of content and platforms, laid out a vision for India's next phase of content growth-one that places creators, not platforms, at the centre of a rapidly evolving media ecosystem.

"In a country as creatively diverse as I...