"Jumbo" gave Indonesia’s domestic animation industry a whole new spring in its step; Korean broadcaster SBS’ US$20-million investment in MD Entertainment for a 3.8% stake signalled new growth directions and another level of optimism; Media Partners Asia (MPA) put the country’s VOD total subs at 23 million (+900,000 in Q2), which remains a very good start although there’s a long way to go; and while the ad-supported business this year was down all round, the Emtek-owned broadcast channels – SCTV and Indosiar – increased their lead in the first three months of this year to take the top two spots on the country’s free-TV rankings, according to Nielsen. Plus, in a sea of still-wildly popular sinetrons, domestic SVOD streamer Vidio continues to break new genre ground with, for instance, Indonesia’s first zombie drama "Zona Merah". 

Those are a few of this year’s highlights. What else are we watching for the rest of this year and into 2026?

👉 Telkomsel’s growing engagement with the production industry, including plans announced in July 2025 to co-produce six Indonesian drama series with Chinese streamer iQiyi. 

👉 How SBS/MD Entertainment’s hopes of Indonesia emerging as a regional hub for Southeast Asia play out. Making its first investment into Indonesia, the Korean broadcast giant highlighted its global strategy of “Going beyond terrestrial, going beyond Korea”. MD head Manoj Punjabi also has global ambitions, so... 

👉 Micro-drama. The craze is real... the subscription revenue scenario is anecdotal (and the prevailing feeling is that fans in Indonesia/Southeast Asia will not pay anywhere near the US$29.98 a week (first week discounted to US$14.98 / US$299.98 annual) that women in, for example, the U.S. or Latin America might for an ad-free unlimited viewing experience. Right now, the micro-drama apps look more like a bundling play to push data sales. Telkomsel, which also carries Flex TV, bundles ShortMax with a 1GB data for US$2/seven days and US$4.73 (incl 8 GB quota) for 30-days. 

👉 Indonesia’s Netflix audiences have the same outsize appetite for Korean drama as every other Southeast Asian market. Two local originals broke Korea’s dominance of the #1 spot on Netflix’s top 10 TV charts for Indonesia in the first half of the year. The first was "Culture Shock" S1 by Artswara Production in Feb/March, and the second was the Arwin Tri Wardhana-directed, "Losmen Du Broto: The Series", which was #1 for a week in June, although it made the top 10 for 6 weeks. 

👉 Netflix acquisitions in Indonesia remain alive, well and the source of celebration, at least for Telkomsel, which in May 2025 said it had added four of its MAXstream titles to Netflix Southeast Asia’s slate. Telkomsel said that the four series licensed to Netflix had already attracted more than 34 million views and a broadcast duration of more than 329 million minutes when they streamed on the domestic platform. That’s in addition to three MAXstream Studios films that Netflix picked up. Exclusivity is, clearly, not an issue. 

Indonesia in numbers
Population ............................... 284.4 million
Households ............................... 70.6 million
Average household size .................... 3.77
Internet users ........................... 185.3 million (representing 66.5 % internet penetration)
Mobile connections .............. 353.3 million (127 % of total population)
All time Audience Share – Q1 2025 (Based on All 5+, 11 Cities, All TV Stations; 1 Jan-31 Mar 2024 = FTA; 1 Jan-31 Mar 2025 = Terrestrial)
SCTV .................................................    14.6% 
IVM (Indosiar) ..................................    13.5% 
RCTI ..................................................    11.4%
MNCTV .............................................    10.9% 
TRANS7 .............................................    8.0%
ANTV .................................................    6.0%
TRANS ...............................................    5.6%
GTV ...................................................    5.3%
Mentari TV ........................................    4.5%
Moji ...................................................    3.1%
RTV ....................................................    3.0%
iNews ................................................    2.9%
TVONE ...............................................    2.0%
VTV ....................................................    1.9%
Kompas TV .......................................    1.7%
Net/MDTV..........................................    1.2%
Metro ................................................    0.9%
TVRI1 .................................................    0.4%
CNN Indonesia/Others ....................    3.0%

Source: BPS-Statistics Indonesia (mid year population in 2025; households in 2022; household size in 2024); DataReportal (internet users & mobile connections in early 2024); Surya Citra Media (All time audience share – Q1 2025)

Published in The Big List Indonesia | August 2025 edition