Taipei, Taiwan – A small town hockey player who has become a national superstar, a high school treasure that scrubs toilets, and a secret that changes everything:
“He can never find out that he has a daughter!“”
The series pilot for “Breaking the Ice” has all the license plates of a dramatic and cheesy saga of deception and betrayal – in 132 seconds the perfect length for the generation of TikTok and Reels (the many mini episodes of “ICE” generated 272.9 million views).
“Breaking the Ice” is one of the microdramas that can be found in the Reelshort -app. Fans of the fast hits can usually unlock new episodes by watching advertisements, paying per clip or registering for an unlimited advertisement.
(Rachel Bencosme / Reelshort)
“I said,” Oh my god, I have to know how it ends, “said Shannon Swicegood, a 31-year-old mother in Columbia, SC, and scrolled to see the next two episodes of the Reelshort app.
The shows known as microdramas or vertical dramas are reminiscent of soap operas or telenovelas, but are usually divided into 50-100 tiny chapters. Users can unlock new episodes by watching advertisements, paying per clip or registering for unlimited display. For example, Swicegood pays an annual fee of 200 US dollars at Reelshort for continuous access to the trains of novels: wind -spurred hair, smoldering looks, glittering engineers and delightful children who may ask: “Are you really my daddy?”
Her husband likes to tease her because she has observed her “dirty little shows” with her unusual and kitschy storylines. But Swicegood believes that they fill a gap under the streaming networks. “I don't have the feeling that (the streamers) will come out with something that appeals to the demographic population,” said Swicegood. “Instead of sitting down and trying another show about someone who solves a crime, I can pull up Reels shorts and just watch two people who fall in love.”
Microramas appeared in China when short vertical videos on smartphones looked at a cornerstone of everyday life. According to Dataeye, a digital research company based in Shenzhen, sales from Micro dramas reached 6.9 billion US dollars in China last year and for the first time exceeded domestic cash sales. Sensor Tower, a company for market intelligence that pursues mobile app data, reports that shortdrama apps outside of China deserved $ 1.2 billion in 2024, with 60% of it comes from the USA
For comparison: The income from the cash registers in the United States in 2024 in the amount of $ 8.75 billion.
The US Micro-Drama market is currently being dominated by Reelshort in Silicon Valley, which, according to a report from the Sensor Tower, exceeded more than 40 international rival apps for mobile downloads and income last year.
Five years ago, another US company, Quibi, from MEG Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenburg, tried the short form business, but the efforts concluded less than seven months after its introduction. Investors were announced that the service did not attract the viewers who were ready to pay their shows. Will this wave of new platforms be able to re -configure the global entertainment industry because it has to deal with streaming wars, increasing production costs and a slow return to cinemas?
A funeral for a young woman who was intended to be married to a divorced pig farmer, a horrified crowd that she rises from the dead – and a terrible knowledge.
“I traveled through time!”
In the first episode of “I became a stepmother in the 1980s”, Selina Huang used microdramas. Her popularity rose during pandemic, and Huang, a 20-year-old student in Xi'an, China, was obsessed with her family during a vacation break. “The way you could get the feelings up quickly have excited us so that we just couldn't stop,” she said. “It was like a whole new world for us.”
“Baby trapped by The Milliardaire” is a bite-sized show with 49 episodes in the Reelshort app.
(Rachel Bencosme / Reelshort)
Her brevity also meant that she could insert a show during the meal time or between the classes as soon as she had returned to school.
She said she spent about 1.40 to 2.75 US dollars to access a full show if she is too impatient to wait and estimate that she has seen more than 100 titles.
Joyce Yen, a producer and former screenwriter in China, switched to the Micro drama industry in 2022. Compared to a traditional television or streaming show, vertical dramas are considerably cheaper, he said. A number of about 20 or 30 episodes, each are about half an hour, could cost more than 8 million US dollars. A Micro drama series could be turned for only 14,000 US dollars, although he said the average is 110,000 US dollars.
Cassandra Yang, founder of a Chinese distribution and license company for Micro -Drama content called Risingjoy, indicates that Micro dramas can make profits within one or two months compared to films for the large screen.
“It is a very exciting signal for us compared to the traditional film and the traditional TV series, since it has more flexibility and imagination,” said Yang, who was the head of the content of the Turner Broadcasting System in China before it was closed in 2019.
At the moment, most microdramas that Risingjoy are distributed are produced in China, where the aspiring industry is the most ripe. But finally, Yang believes, the localized production will be necessary to better expand in promising markets such as Japan, Korea and Singapore.
In the meantime, the United States together with Indonesia, Brazil, India and Mexico are one of the fastest growing markets for microdramas.
“I think every region has great potential,” said Yang. “But I have to say everyone wants the US market because the ROI is better.”
Joey Jia, CEO of Reelshort, says the greatest advantage of Micro dramas is the ability to constantly adapt to how the audience reacts to the content of the platform. He founded the studio seven years ago, but it took a while to find out what worked. The company rotated from mobile games to interactive stories to Mini dramas. At that time he said that the app's retention rate was almost single -digit and 80% of the dramas could not win an audience.
The production of many variations of similar story structures to see that followed the company led to a content library that led with titles such as “Double life of my billionaire -husband” (451.2 million views), “play according to the rules of the billionaire” (26 million views) and “Baby Caught by Billionaire” (32.9 million views).
“We know which story can earn more money and what history has problems,” said Jia. “This is the missing part for traditional Hollywood. You have no feedback loop. “
Jia estimates that Reelshort published almost 200 titles last year and that this year is supposed to double this year. The company opened a studio in Los Angeles in September. He said that he believes that some content-like franchise companies that are strongly abandoned in a fictional world or characters such as Star Wars or James Bond-he hopes to expand to other genres such as science fiction or reality TV.
“The biggest question is:” How quickly can the microdrama develop? “, He asked,” I still see the short drama as a baby that grew up very quickly. “
According to Dataeye, a digital research company based in Shenzhen, sales from Micro dramas reached 6.9 billion US dollars last year.
(Rachel Bencosme / Reelshort)
Katherine Ford, a 47-year-old primary school teacher in Kerersville, NC, would like to see his content expanded.
After triggering the English titles, she began to observe Asian micro dramas what she generally had better values for acting, writing and production values. She hopes that in the next six months you will be able to branch more to times or old westerns or stories with plus -sized women.
At the moment she pays $ 5 a week to reproduce her favorites dozens of times, including “playing according to the rules of the billionaire”, “The double life of my billionaire husband” and “Baby, which is trapped by the billionaire”.
Ford's family is also emerging for Netflix, Disney Plus and Peacock. But when it comes to choosing one, Ford doesn't know if she could give up Reelshort. “I know that it is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's my guilty joy, and I enjoy it, even though it is sometimes really cheesy.”
Times special correspondent Xin-Yun Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.