2025, what will the short play "roll" about?

As the entertainment market changes in 2024, short dramas have become the new favorite of the industry with their unique charm. From the increased investment of large companies to the transformation of content production models, to the value enhancement of top content providers, the article reveals how short dramas can gain an advantage in the fierce market competition, and how new and old players can seek development in this "Kung Fu".

Looking back at the entertainment market in 2024, there is no doubt that short dramas are the biggest pig in the wind, and no one wants to miss this train. With the vigorous development of the industry, 2024 is also a landmark year full of changes and diversified innovations. This year, the short drama industry is innovating from content presentation to creation mode, and from audience groups to platform cooperation is also expanding.

However, with the fading of traffic dividends, the upgrading of user aesthetics, and adjustments to policies and business models, the ecology of the short drama industry is undergoing drastic changes, with thresholds becoming higher and competition becoming more intense.

In the new year, the direction of short dramas is not only one of the hottest topics in the entertainment industry, but also concerns all players. So, in 2025, who will have an absolute advantage in the short drama chain? What new changes will there be in the creative direction and business model? How will new and old players play the "Kung Fu"? For these questions, we will make forward-looking predictions based on various data and industry observations.

1. Large companies increase investment, and platforms prosper the ecosystem with their left hand and siphon resources with their right hand

At the turn of the old year and the new year, Baidu's series of new moves in the short drama industry attracted the attention of many people.

Recently, Baidu not only applied to register the "Baidu Short Drama" trademark, but also announced that it will upgrade the five aspects of distribution, profit sharing, rewards, exclusive broadcasting and investment promotion in 2025. This means that under the all-round layout strategy, short dramas will become one of the core development directions of Baidu's content ecology, and its importance will be further highlighted.

At present, Douyin, Kuaishou and Tencent are the three giants in the micro-short drama industry, almost monopolizing more than 80% of new works and traffic. Baidu, iQiyi, Youku and other platforms are constantly making moves in the field of micro-short dramas, also demonstrating their high attention to this vertical field.

The first-mover giants continue to increase their investment, and the latecomers have "openly" focused on short dramas, revealing a trend: in the content ecology of major Internet platforms, the importance of short dramas continues to stand out, and the platform's ecological chain and traffic pool have almost monopolized all aspects of short drama production and distribution. We predict that in 2025, the Internet platform's voice in the short drama track will be further enhanced, and the majority of the money in this market may be increasingly concentrated in the hands of short drama platforms.

Next, one of the key points of the short drama competition is the competition for IP resources. The birth of a short drama starts from the online literature, animation, and game companies in the upstream of the industry chain. Platforms such as Douyin, Baidu, and Tencent have online literature ecosystems such as Yuewen, Fanqie Novels, and Palm Reading, and hold a large number of relatively mature IPs, which gives them a natural advantage in the "new infrastructure" of short drama content.

Compared with previous years where producers shot short dramas and then put them online on the platform, and the platform shared profits with the producers based on the data, in 2025, the model in which the platform exports IP resources to customize short dramas and the producers earn production fees may become more common.

In addition to changes in content production models, the platform's voice is also growing on the distribution side. With the increase in production and intensified competition, streaming is becoming more and more important for short dramas. Professional streaming companies will edit short dramas into attractive clips and push them into short video information streams to attract the corresponding audience groups. Many industry insiders revealed to the entertainment value officer that in 2024, the streaming costs of most short dramas have accounted for more than 80%. In 2025, this proportion is likely to increase further. In the future, 80% to 90% of the profits of short dramas will be taken away by platforms that control traffic.

The platforms that hold the IP source and traffic resources of short dramas have further accelerated the transformation of the so-called mini-program short drama platforms and producers on the market into distributors through the free model. They obtain the content developed by the short dramas from the platforms, and then build a distribution network, gradually becoming the intermediary service providers between the short dramas and the platforms. However, because they do not have their own user base and the traffic is getting more and more expensive, the profits will only become thinner and thinner, and most competitors will be eliminated by 2025.

The industry chain continues to extend and grow tentacles, and the platforms that gradually control the core resources of each link of short drama production and differentiation will enter a more virtuous cycle, which in turn will quickly gather a large number of active users in a short period of time, allowing the platform to accumulate a larger traffic pool, further enhancing its monopoly and competitiveness. The winner takes all, which will be the main theme of competition and reform in the short drama industry in 2025.

2. Quality is king. The value of top content providers is expected to further increase

Since most producers can no longer make money, why are there still so many teams rushing to join the red ocean of short dramas?

In response to this question, many industry insiders have given the following answer: Although competition is becoming increasingly fierce, short dramas as a whole are still in an upward stage of development. Their chances of success and market capacity are still significantly better than those of long-running dramas and declining movies. For new teams, the possibility of producing a dark horse is greater, and their size and space for quick profits are also more friendly.

On the other hand, short dramas are an important way for content producers to gain the right to speak. As long as the team's ability to create a hit vertical screen short drama is proven, platforms will come to them with projects and resources. These resources can greatly increase the probability of the next hit vertical screen short drama, and even transfer to the horizontal screen market. No content producer can resist such temptation.

From this perspective, although the voice and profit margin of content producers are getting smaller and smaller, the value of truly high-quality top content producers will be further enhanced after the great waves. Becoming a top content producer can not only squeeze out more competitors, but also demand profits from the platform.

In fact, as competition further intensifies and users and other parties have an increased aesthetic demand for short dramas, content providers with the ability to create explosive content will gain greater voice in the short drama chain in 2025. It is also expected to improve the industry environment in which producers and developers in the short drama market lack voice and are in a profit dilemma.

Looking further ahead, top content providers will have the opportunity to establish a recognizable and appealing brand through hit works, and cultivate user loyalty to the content. At a time when platforms monopolize user and traffic resources, this will help content providers build their own user assets, thereby reducing investment costs and allowing content production and profits to enter a more virtuous cycle.

At the same time, high-quality popular content can also be repeatedly monetized through more diversified business cooperation models such as scene package implantation, brand customization, advertising, e-commerce, etc., to obtain more income than simple profit sharing. This is equivalent to the platform and the content provider making the cake bigger together, improving the current short drama ecology dominated by the platform, and allowing all ends of the short drama industry chain to share the dividends of high-quality content, which is a win-win situation.

In 2024, all platforms have called for the development of high-quality short dramas, which provides the real top content providers with an opportunity to leave their competitors behind and obtain higher profits. In 2025, this general direction will not change. As long video platforms and more professional institutions enter the market, it will not only mean more sufficient funds and resources, but more importantly, it will bring stricter production standards and quality control, which will further highlight the value of top content providers.

3. The boundaries between short-term and long-term are gradually blurring, and we will work together to expand market growth

In the past few years when short dramas have been expanding their territory and making great strides, the market generally regards short dramas as a supplementary product to long dramas. From the audience's perspective, although short dramas have been popular in the past two years, the audience groups have always been niche, and audiences outside the circle have strong stereotypes about micro-short dramas, and the boundaries between long and short have always been "clear."

However, as iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV continue to increase their investment in short dramas by increasing revenue sharing, increasing investment, and theatricalization, there are more and more cross-border players, and the boundary between long dramas and short dramas has gradually become blurred. Putting aside the difference in length, the two are learning from each other in terms of creative methods and narrative rhythm, and moving towards common integration.

In the summer of 2024, a dark horse emerged in the long drama market, "Mo Yu Yun Jian", which ranked first in many data charts. In this context where patience is scarce, water injection is rampant, and the audience generally needs to watch dramas at double speed, the core of the success of "Mo Yu Yun Jian" is that it draws on the advantages of short dramas, and is comparable to short dramas in rhythm control and character setting, which is full of excitement.

The "Nine Layers of Purple" which was launched at the end of the year was also praised by the audience as a "short drama into a long drama". The "short drama" elements such as rebirth, house fighting, two strong men, and refreshing drama added a lot of color to the drama. The trend of ancient idol dramas becoming short dramas is easier to go viral, and it seems irreversible.

At the same time, the aesthetics, texture, and richness of themes of long dramas have also been learned by short dramas. The short drama "I Open a Supermarket on the Long March Road" has become popular because it draws on the creative experience of long dramas with main themes such as "Awakening Age". The story is innovative, resonant, and consistent with personal life experience. It not only meets the young audience's higher requirements for the depth and authenticity of short drama content, but also makes the red theme a potential innovation direction for short dramas.

It can be said that short plays have long abandoned their role as supplements to long plays and have become competitors that force long plays to upgrade, while long plays have also provided more experience and cases for the refinement of short plays. In 2025, the themes of short plays will inevitably be richer. The form itself does not determine the level of cultural value. Micro short plays can be "micro but not weak, short but not shallow", and long plays will also be squeezed out by short plays, with denser plots. In the future, watching dramas at double speed may become history.

In the view of the entertainment value officer, long dramas and short dramas are not complementary to each other, nor will they replace each other, but are two content categories that both the audience and the market need. The two are not in a competitive relationship where one grows while the other declines. They can fully achieve mutual integration and mutual learning, jointly open up new volume for the content market, and thus drive the common upgrade of works of different forms.

Written by Chen Tong, edited by Meiqi