The era of short drama 2.0: gold rush, big changes, new trends

In 2024, short short dramas ushered in the booming 2.0 era, with the market size and number of users reaching new highs, becoming a dark horse in the entertainment industry. This article will deeply analyze the characteristics of the 2.0 era of short short dramas, and comprehensively interpret the current situation and future of this emerging industry for your reference.

If you want to find a few popular tracks in 2024, micro-short dramas will most likely be on the list.

Institutions estimate that in 2024, the market size of micro-short dramas in my country will reach 50.44 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.9%, exceeding the estimated total annual box office of 47 billion yuan for movies for the first time.

The latest "White Paper on the Development of China's Micro-Short Drama Industry (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper") also confirmed that as of June 2024, the number of micro-short drama users in my country has reached 576 million, accounting for 52.4% of all netizens, leaving behind online food delivery, online literature and online car-hailing, and jumping to the top of the digital service list.

Whether in terms of market size or number of users, short dramas are surprisingly popular in 2024. To a large extent, it also represents the arrival of the short drama 2.0 era.

Standing at the beginning of 2025, looking back at the past year, how did short dramas surge undercurrents, how did they trigger business changes and affect the lives of ordinary people, and where will they go in the new year? This is what this article will discuss.

1. Gold Rush

Judging from the timeline, 2023 will be the first year of paid micro-short dramas, and 2024 will usher in a real explosion.

"It's too hot. Many people around me who are not in the industry, including those selling steel, working in real estate, and running restaurants, are investing in micro-short dramas." An industry insider sighed.

On social forums, news about Hengdian becoming a "vertical store", the highest daily salary for micro-short drama actors being 30,000 yuan, and the monthly income for micro-short drama screenwriters being more than 100,000 yuan, have been reported one after another, shocking people again and again.

It has been observed that throughout 2024, the competition for the "wealth code" of micro-short dramas has entered a white-hot state. In addition to the earlier exits of China Online, Huanrui Century, Jiuzhou Culture, Perfect World, Lemon Studios, etc., later followed by Douyin, Youku, iQiyi, Bilibili, Meituan, etc., and big names or famous directors such as Stephen Chow, Xiao Yangge, Chen Ou, Yu Zheng, and Zhou Hongyi also competed to enter the game.

In January, Stephen Chow joined hands with TikTok and casually wrote the six characters "9527 Theater" on the whiteboard, sounding the clarion call for his entry into short dramas. His first work "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" met with the audience in June.

In March, Weimob acquired approximately 53.5% of the equity of Bifan Technology, which mainly produces short drama content;

In April, the first short drama of the Three Sheep Group, "Master Fu, Your Substitute Bride is a Boss", quietly started filming. "Crazy Little Brother Yang", who once dreamed of becoming a comedian and starring in Stephen Chow's comedy movies, finally embarked on the road to realizing his dream.

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In November, the Jumei Youpin app could not be opened, and netizens suddenly discovered that the founder Chen Ou had switched to short dramas;

At the end of the year, the short drama "Reigniting Life: The Hidden Hacker Amazes the World" in which Zhou Hongyi personally participated was launched, opening a new chapter in the marketing of the domineering president IP.

To sum up, from announcing various micro-short drama incentive plans, to developing independent micro-short drama apps, to upgrading the micro-short drama profit-sharing model, and even real-life appearances of bigwigs... All in micro-short dramas, and "grabbing" micro-short dramas, has become a consensus among current film and television companies, Internet platforms, and Internet celebrities.

According to Qichacha, as of November 7, the number of newly registered short drama companies in my country in 2024 reached 16,100.

At the same time, the myth that short dramas can make people rich has been circulating among the people.

Previously, the topic "A couple earns more than 400 million yuan a month by making short dramas" became a hot search and attracted the attention of many netizens.

Mimi Meng's micro-short drama label, Tinghuadao, has produced a series of hits, including "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s", "Mr. Pei Wants to Become a Hero by Relying on His Son Every Day", and "I Opened a Supermarket on the Long March", all of which reaped considerable profits.

Take "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" as an example. The production cost of 82 episodes was about one million. On the day of its release, the daily recharge exceeded 20 million, and the cumulative recharge reached over 100 million, with no upper limit.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

From this perspective, micro-short dramas are definitely a good business with a gross profit margin of ten thousand times. Combined with multiple revenue-generating channels such as brand placement, business customization, and character creation, as well as advantages such as easy consumption and short payback cycle, a large number of players are rushing forward to cross-border gold rush with the attitude of rather admitting mistakes than missing out.

More importantly, as an emerging entertainment product, short short dramas have the potential to enter the big screen and squeeze out the length of long and short videos. The White Paper revealed that more than 70% of users have developed the habit of watching short short dramas, of which 36.19% of users watch short short dramas every day, and 38.15% of users watch them several times a week.

In other words, short short plays have invaded our daily lives, just like WeChat and Douyin, and have become an important part of our daily lives.

2. Big changes

When an industry goes from inception to explosion, it is often brewing a moment of change. Looking at 2024, short dramas have shown three major changes: appearing on the big screen, continuing to be "age-friendly", and the rise of the free model.

1. Enter the big screen

In 2024, more and more short dramas will jump out of Pads and mobile phones, enter TV channels, and appear on the big screen, gradually evolving into "regular army".

According to statistics from China Audio-Visual Big Data (CVB), as of November 2024, more than 30 micro-short dramas have been broadcast on provincial satellite TV stations across the country, with a viewership of over 500 million households, and dramas with an audience of tens of millions accounted for 48.3%; the total viewing time of micro-short dramas accounted for 1.2 times the proportion of their broadcast time, and the audience's demand for viewing is strong.

For example, Hunan Satellite TV opened the micro-short drama theater "Da Mang Theater" for the first time, and successively broadcast micro-short dramas such as "Aunt's World New Year's Edition", "Little Nian Beast and Monster Catcher Dragon Year Edition", and "Your Island Has Arrived".

Dragon TV was the first to launch the country's first daily micro-short drama show - "Quality Oriental Micro Theater", broadcasting dozens of micro-short dramas such as "The Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", "The Master", "Miss Zhao's Diary" and "Pen" during prime time during the week, and it has received good response: "The Little Nyonya in the World" and "Miss Zhao's Diary" had local ratings of 1.848% and 1.206% in Shanghai in November, ranking first among local satellite TV programs in the same period.

In addition, Chongqing Satellite TV and Zhejiang Satellite TV also simultaneously broadcast a number of short dramas.

It seems that overnight, traditional satellite TV channels have fallen in love with the new thing called "micro-short drama".

2. Continue to be “age-friendly”

If we say that micro-short dramas were only popular among young people such as factory boys and girls two years ago, then starting from 2024, micro-short dramas have broken the circle and successfully become the "favorite" of middle-aged and elderly people.

According to a report by iResearch Consulting, in the micro-short drama market in 2024, users aged 40 to 59 will account for 37.3%, and users aged 60 and above will account for 12.1%, and the two together will contribute half of the population.

Related surveys also found that 54.05% of the elderly watch short dramas for 1-2 hours every day, and 66.7% of the respondents have middle-aged and elderly people who are addicted to short dramas: a retired father was attracted by the wealthy "Mary Sue" and spent 599 yuan for 7 consecutive days; a 74-year-old grandmother stayed up late to watch "Boss", causing bloodshot eyes; a 68-year-old aunt had a conflict with her children because she watched the drama while taking care of her grandchildren...

Although the popularity of short short dramas has inevitably caused some negative effects, it has also proven to be the key to controlling the traffic of middle-aged and elderly people.

Under the "trend", a wave of "aging-friendly" short dramas has poured out, targeting the emotional needs and "wallets" of middle-aged and elderly people, including "Flash Marriage at Fifty", "Flash Marriage Partner is a Rich Family", "The Group's Favorite Mom is Not to Be Provoked", and "The Mother-in-Law Amazes the Audience at the Wedding".

It is worth mentioning that many short dramas focusing on the middle-aged and elderly have achieved good results. "Flash Marriage with a Rich Family" has been online for half a month, with a cumulative playback volume of 500 million times, and once ranked No. 1 in the popularity of short dramas on the entire network.

3. The rise of freemium

For the micro-short drama industry, 2024 is likely to be another year of change. The free model will rise, especially the Hongguo short drama nurtured by the ByteDance ecosystem. Backed by a huge traffic pool and connected with Tomato Novels, it will emerge as a dark horse in the short term and stir up the situation, or form a dimensionality reduction attack on the paid model.

When Hongguo Short Drama was officially launched in August 2023, the mini-program micro-short drama, which was mainly based on the paid model, already had a market size of 4 billion. However, only half a year later, the former showed its "dark horse" potential and also led a group of followers.

QuestMobile data shows that the monthly active users (MAU) of Hongguo Short Drama reached 140 million in November 2024, a year-on-year increase of 626%, and the daily active users (DAU) exceeded 40 million. Moreover, among the more than 1,000 short dramas released by Hongguo every month, many have already been first released.

The industry predicts that by the first half of 2025, Hongguo Short Drama will achieve 100 million DAU.

In this kind of confrontation, it is questionable whether the paid model has enough strength to withstand the impact of the free model.

After all, almost no one is completely immune to the four words "free of charge", which also means that users' behavior of watching micro-short dramas will change from passive push to active choice, and people of all ages and circles will be attracted.

Some practitioners revealed that after the free model came into being, the payment rate is no longer the core of the micro-short drama industry. Through advertising revenue sharing, many micro-short dramas that originally had low payment rates have made money.

3. New Trends

The transition from the 1.0 era to the 2.0 era means that the short drama market, which has been growing rapidly on the road of wild growth, is about to reach a new turning point.

As supervision continues to strengthen and policies become increasingly stringent, the industry is booming and reflecting at the same time, forcing the grassroots micro-short drama industry to reshuffle.

We believe that the micro-short drama market in 2025 will show three major trends: high-quality products, difficulty in making money, and popularity of going overseas.

1. Refined

According to general economic laws, when an industry reaches the point of breaking out, what will usually follow is differentiation brought about by fierce competition among homogeneous industries, and the 28 pattern will begin to emerge.

If you want to stay at the table, the only way to defeat the enemy is to produce high-quality products. If you just rely on the past pretense, harsh words, and edge-playing, simple and crude routines, "reheating old food", and assembly line production, it may not work.

"The general trend is to go the high-quality route and improve quality and reduce quantity." Zhan Yali, producer of Mango TV's Big Mango Project Studio, once told the media that she hopes that short dramas in the future will be truly subtle but not weak, and short but not shallow.

In this context, for creators of refined micro-short plays, in addition to grasping the rhythm, composition, aesthetics and performance methods, innovation is the key point.

As a content product directly facing the C-end, it is basic to prevent the audience from feeling visual fatigue, but innovation should not be done blindly. Short dramas, like fashion, also have "cycles". The key is to grasp the core and underlying needs of users and tell a good story.

For example, popular short dramas such as "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s", "Bringing Her into the House", "Flash Marriage to a Rich Family", and "I'm in the Supermarket on the Long March" not only retain the high-density, strong narrative content characteristics, but also show high standards in picture presentation, composition aesthetics, etc., making many viewers exclaim that "they are no worse than long dramas."

2. It’s hard to make money

We said in the previous article that "micro-short dramas are a good business with a low capital and a gross profit of ten thousand times", but in fact, after deducting the investment and streaming costs from the high gross profit, micro-short dramas are a "poor" business of small profits but quick turnover.

According to the 21st Century Business Herald, taking "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s" as an example, based on the industry's general ROI calculation of 1:1.2, the cost of investment behind the recharge record of over 100 million yuan is often between 60 and 80 million yuan.

And the more popular a drama is, the longer the streaming cycle is. Node Finance learned that in the first half of 2024, the average streaming time for new dramas was about 6 days, while the streaming time for popular short dramas would be significantly extended, some even exceeding 100 days, which is more than 16 times the streaming time for new dramas.

It can be seen from this that if a short drama wants to stand out, it must spend a lot of effort and money to expose itself and get the audience's attention first.

Micro-short dramas have been very popular in recent years, and as a result, people have flocked in to grab the "cake", exacerbating the intensity of "involution" in the track and raising the cost of investment. It is expected that the difficulty of making money from micro-short dramas will only increase in 2025.

3. Overseas travel craze

The outward expansion of micro-short dramas is no longer a new topic, and its popularity has risen sharply in 2024.

The "2024 Short Drama Overseas Market Insights" released by Sensor Tower shows that more than 40 short drama apps have been testing the waters in overseas markets, including Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

According to calculations by the top 10 short drama platforms in terms of overseas revenue, the total revenue of overseas micro-short dramas has exceeded US$2.3 billion in the first half of 2024, and is expected to reach a staggering US$4 billion for the whole year, equivalent to nearly RMB 30 billion.

In terms of user scale, TikTok for Business estimates that the average monthly number of overseas short drama applications is currently about 20 million to 40 million, and is expected to reach 200 million to 300 million in the future, indicating huge room for development.

Obviously, the Chinese micro-short drama "Zheng He's Voyages to the West" has arrived and will accelerate again in 2025.

Looking ahead to 2025 as a whole, the "gold rush" will continue, major changes are underway, and new trends are beginning. Let us wait and see how the micro-short dramas in the 2.0 era will evolve.