VERTICAL VANGUARD
Japanese broadcaster Nippon TV has launched Viral Pocket, a new vertical video division aimed at the fast-growing microdrama space.
The division draws on the success of Nippon TV’s short-form drama “We are Coy Every Day,” which has amassed over 2.6 billion organic views since its March 2023 debut. A third title, “The Final Lesson – Only Survivors Graduate,” recently won at the inaugural Asia Short-Form Drama Awards.
Viral Pocket will operate across three areas: original IP development, end-to-end vertical production, and KPI-driven marketing support for brands and agencies. The division has already partnered with Japanese food company Nissui, generating over 10 million organic views in two weeks with branded content centered on food allergies.
“Through Viral Pocket, we will further invest in developing emerging creators and new content formats,” said Hirofumi Tanaka, Nippon TV’s president of content strategy.
AI ARTISANS
Eros Innovation has launched Eros Universe, an AI-powered creator economy app built on what the company calls Large Cultural Models (LCMs), at the India AI Impact Summit.
Developed by its ErosGenAI division, the LCM framework is designed to embed cultural context, narrative structure and regional storytelling into AI systems, trained on over 1.5 trillion rights-cleared tokens drawn from five decades of licensed cinematic and musical assets. The platform draws on a library of more than 12,000 films and 100,000 characters.
Eros also announced a $5 million Global Creator Acceleration Program supporting AI-native films, series and music projects. Founder Kishore Lulla said the platform enables creators to participate directly in the digital economy while protecting the cultural value of Indian storytelling.