Mumbai/New Delhi | December 23, 2025 — India’s digital entertainment sector is closing out 2025 with a clear message: streaming is no longer “the new thing”—it’s the main arena, and the battle is increasingly about scale, sports, new formats, and the talent to run them.
That backdrop helps explain one of the most closely watched people moves reported on December 23, 2025: JioStar has elevated Purnima Kumar to Executive Vice President – Human Resources (Digital, Sports) and Total Rewards, expanding her mandate across two of the company’s most strategically important engines—digital platforms and sports, alongside continued leadership of compensation and benefits/total rewards. [1]
The timing is notable. The same day, a year-ender guest column spotlighted how micro‑drama—short, mobile-first, episodic storytelling—moved from a curiosity to a mainstream viewing habit in India’s OTT ecosystem. [2] And an industry analysis published on December 23 framed 2025 as an inflection point defined by consolidation, evolving monetisation, connected TV growth, micro‑dramas, and regulatory tightening. [3]
Put together, these headlines tell a single story: India’s streaming market has “grown up,” and leadership—especially people leadership—is becoming a competitive advantage. [4]
Purnima Kumar’s expanded role: HR leadership where the action is
According to reports on December 23, Kumar will lead people strategy and the transformation charter for JioStar’s digital platforms and sports ecosystem, while continuing to oversee compensation and benefits and broader rewards strategy. [5]
That combination—Digital + Sports + Total Rewards—is not just a bigger title. It’s a structure that mirrors how streaming companies are being forced to operate in 2025:
- Digital platforms need rapid product iteration, data/AI capability, and high-velocity content operations.
- Sports demands always-on, high-pressure execution cycles around major events, rights, ad-tech performance, and real-time experience quality.
- Total rewards is now a growth lever, not a back-office function—especially when competing for engineers, product talent, creators, and distribution specialists in a hot market.
JioStar’s own positioning underscores the scale of the challenge. On its official site, the company describes itself as a media and entertainment business whose television network and streaming service together reach more than 750 million viewers every week. [6]
Who is Purnima Kumar? A career built for scale, integration, and talent systems
Kumar’s profile, as outlined in December 23 coverage, maps closely to what large, newly consolidated media platforms need right now: global operating experience, recruiting and transformation expertise, and integration leadership.
Highlights from her career path include:
- Education: BTech from IIT Delhi, followed by an MBA in HR from XLRI Jamshedpur (2004). [7]
- Accenture (2004–2020): A 16-year stint spanning sourcing, talent strategy, HR leadership across geographies, and eventually global recruiting operations and recruiting transformation roles. [8]
- The Walt Disney Company: Senior HR leadership focused on talent acquisition and people strategy/programmes for India networks (as described in reports). [9]
- JioStar (joined Nov 2024): Previously served as Head – Total Rewards, People Programmes, Talent Acquisition, and Co‑Lead for joint-venture integration efforts, before the EVP elevation reported on December 23. [10]
In a sector where integration is not a one-time project but a multi-year operating reality, this blend of transformation + talent acquisition + rewards + integration stands out as directly aligned with the next phase of streaming competition. [11]
Why this promotion matters now: 2025’s OTT playbook is about consolidation and scale
By late 2025, India’s OTT story is less about “who launched a streaming app” and more about who can sustainably operate at massive scale—with efficient content pipelines, strong monetisation, and reliable distribution.
A December 23 industry analysis captured that reset: India’s OTT market (with 55+ players) was described as being valued at about USD 2.3 billion and projected to nearly double to around USD 4 billion over the next five years, with growth supported by consolidation, mobile-first consumption, broadband expansion, and regional content. [12]
The same analysis pointed to consolidation as the most consequential domestic development of 2025, highlighting the formal launch of JioHotstar after the merger of Viacom18 and Star India under the JioStar joint venture, bringing together JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. [13]
For HR leadership, the implications are immediate:
- Consolidation changes org design, not just logos.
- Scale intensifies demand for specialist talent (data, recommendation, ad-tech, sports production, anti-piracy, payments, customer ops).
- Retaining key teams during fast change requires credible rewards strategy and clear career architecture.
That is exactly where an EVP role combining Digital + Sports HR and Total Rewards becomes strategically central rather than administratively supportive. [14]
The other big headline of 2025: micro‑dramas move to the center
Alongside consolidation, 2025’s biggest format story has been the surge of micro‑dramas—short, episodic narratives designed for “in-between moments” on mobile.
A December 23 guest column framed the shift bluntly: micro‑drama has moved from the fringes to the centre of viewing behaviour, signalling a meaningful change in what “OTT” even means in India. [15]
Data points from industry research help explain why micro‑drama has become impossible to ignore:
- India’s OTT universe reached 601.2 million in 2025 (per the Ormax OTT Audience Report), up 9.9% year-on-year. [16]
- Connected TV (CTV) usage surged to 129.2 million in 2025 (up from 69.7 million in 2024), showing how the “big screen at home” is expanding fast. [17]
- Micro‑dramas reached 73.2 million viewers in less than a year of existence in India (as of July 2025, per Ormax), with micro‑drama audiences skewing strongly ad-supported (AVOD) and rural/small town, while CTV skews more urban and premium. [18]
- Critically, Ormax notes the overlap between CTV and micro‑drama audiences is under ~15 million, implying two largely distinct viewing contexts—and two distinct monetisation and product strategies. [19]
This is the “OTT grew up” moment in practical terms: India is no longer one streaming market—it’s multiple markets operating at once, from premium long-form co-viewing on CTV to fast, vertical micro storytelling on phones. [20]
What micro‑dramas change for platforms: speed, volume, and a new creator economy
Micro‑dramas aren’t just “short videos.” They require a different operating model:
- High-volume content production (because episodes are short and consumption is frequent)
- Serial hooks and cliffhangers tuned for retention
- Creator pipelines that look more like daily television and short-form studios than prestige web series
- Native brand integrations and performance-driven ad products
This is already shaping platform strategies. In commentary around the space, Chana Jor OTT’s founder and CEO, Pratap Jain, has argued that micro‑dramas are “no longer experimental” and are becoming a mainstream viewing habit, while also opening the door to brand partnerships designed specifically for short-format storytelling. [21]
Meanwhile, reporting on the competitive landscape indicates that larger scaled players are preparing to enter the segment more aggressively—potentially turning micro‑drama into a “winner-takes-most” market if distribution and marketing scale start to dominate discovery. [22]
The hidden link between these stories: people strategy is now product strategy
At first glance, a senior HR promotion and a content-format boom might seem like separate headlines. In reality, they’re tightly connected.
If micro‑dramas and sports are the growth engines, then the organisation must be built to run those engines—and that is a people strategy challenge as much as a content strategy one:
- Different talent archetypes
Micro‑drama needs fast-cycle creative production; sports needs live operations excellence; streaming platforms need data and engineering depth. One HR operating model can’t treat all of these teams the same. [23] - Rewards as retention and speed
In markets where the best teams are constantly being recruited, total rewards becomes a lever for stability—especially when a platform is scaling rapidly across languages, formats, and distribution deals. [24] - Integration is cultural, not just structural
Consolidation makes hiring and rewards more complex: harmonising pay bands, performance systems, titles, and mobility pathways is difficult—and visible to employees immediately. [25] - New viewing behaviour demands new operating behaviour
When audiences split across CTV and micro‑drama with limited overlap, platforms often need parallel playbooks. That requires leaders—and incentives—built for multi-speed execution. [26]
This is where JioStar’s move becomes more than a routine appointment: the company is aligning senior HR leadership with the most contested parts of the business—digital and sports—at the same moment the market is fragmenting into multiple high-growth formats. [27]
What to watch next in 2026: micro‑drama scaling, sports intensity, and the talent squeeze
If 2025 was the year India’s OTT “grew up,” 2026 is shaping up to be the year it becomes even more segmented—and operationally demanding.
Key developments to watch:
- Micro‑drama goes mainstream at scale: Larger platforms are expected to test micro‑drama more formally, with reporting suggesting JioHotstar is preparing to roll out short-format narrative content by early 2026. [28]
- Sports remains the churn-killer: Industry analysis continues to position live sports as a commercial backbone for OTT—fueling subscriber growth, reducing churn, and commanding ad premiums. [29]
- CTV growth continues alongside mobile-first formats: The “two-device future” described in audience research—living room plus mobile—will keep pushing platforms to build distinct experiences, content slates, and monetisation approaches. [30]
- The HR battlefield intensifies: As platforms build in-house production, expand ad-tech, and chase growth formats, competition for creators, producers, engineers, and data talent will increase—raising the stakes for workforce strategy and rewards innovation. [31]
For JioStar, the signal from December 23 is clear: the company is putting senior leadership attention on the human systems needed to compete—not just the content slate.
And for the wider industry, the message is even bigger: in India’s streaming race, the winners won’t only be the platforms with the best shows or the biggest rights packages. They’ll be the ones that build organisations capable of operating at speed—across formats, devices, languages, and business models—without breaking. [32]
References
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