Increasing, integrating, and theatricalizing, the short drama track is crowded with "cross-border" players

With the rapid development of the short drama market, more and more cross-border players are pouring into this track, trying to get a share of this content revolution. The article deeply explores the new dynamics of the short drama market and analyzes how long video platforms and traditional broadcasting platforms compete with emerging micro short drama companies through strategies such as increasing investment and theatrical operation.

Recently, the term "domestic short dramas have gone crazy" has once again become a hot search, and dramas about middle-aged and elderly people have frequently appeared on major short drama popular lists. News related to short dramas "hunting" the elderly group has occupied the headlines of many media for many days.

There is no doubt that short dramas are the biggest pig in the current trend. No one wants to miss this train, and more and more players are rushing in to share the cake. At present, although Douyin and Kuaishou, the two major short video platforms, are temporarily in the first echelon of the short drama market, other players are also desperately vying for the opportunity to counterattack. Among them, long video platforms and traditional radio and television platforms with funds, resources, and content creation experience are regarded as the most likely to cause a "dimensionality reduction attack" to emerging micro-short drama companies.

However, judging from the market response in the past two years, it is rare to see long video platforms behind the hit short dramas. The reason is that, on the one hand, although traditional platforms such as long videos have been keeping up with the trend, they have always been cautious in trying short dramas and have limited investment. On the other hand, the aesthetics, creative model and business ecology of short dramas and long videos are very different, and the content and business barriers are much greater than imagined.

However, as short dramas become more and more popular, the positive benefits they bring to platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are snowballing. In addition, due to the growth bottleneck and overcapacity of long video content itself, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video, and satellite TV have recently changed their past cautious attitude and continued to increase their investment by increasing revenue sharing, increasing investment, and theatricalization. It can be predicted that with the combination of long videos, short dramas are experiencing a new round of large-scale explosion, and will also usher in more intense disputes.

1. From cautious attempts to continuous investment

In the past year, "short drama" has been a keyword that the film, television and entertainment industries cannot avoid, especially the aggressive mini-program short dramas, which have been exclaimed by the industry as "an investment of hundreds of thousands and a turnover of 100 million", showing amazing explosive power.

This year, the development of short dramas has accelerated on the road to becoming a "top streamer", and many short dramas have become popular. From January to September 2024, there were 1,987 online short dramas on the national key online short drama planning and filing, an explosive growth compared to 572 last year. The "2023 Short Drama Industry Research Report" also predicts that the short drama market size in 2024 will increase from 37.39 billion in 2023 to 50 billion, and the industry market size is expected to exceed 100 billion in the next five years, and the industry is showing an explosive trend.

Under this trend, the "regular army" of the film and television industry has already entered the market in full swing, and the attitude of long video platforms towards short dramas is also changing. Based on the cautious trial in the past two years, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV as well as some TV stations have continued to increase their investment recently.

At the 2024iJOY Autumn Enjoyment Conference held by iQiyi in Shanghai last month, Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQiyi, talked about the three major changes in the current video industry. The first major change is that users prefer short dramas to long dramas. Based on user preferences and the current development status of short dramas, iQiyi has launched micro-theaters and short theaters. The former has a single episode length of about 1-5 minutes, mainly vertical screen, and two new works are launched every week; the latter has a single episode length of about 5-20 minutes, mainly horizontal screen, and plans to launch a new work every week. The themes of the two short drama brands almost completely overlap with long dramas, covering all sub-segments.

Although long video platforms have long been involved in the micro-short drama business and have proposed various support plans, they rarely use it as a brand building. Today, long video platforms have copied the successful experience of long drama branding to the short drama track, which means that the platform will focus its creative power in a thematic and planned manner, and can launch a batch of stylized, typified, and high-quality works in a short period of time, forming a theatrical, refined, and branded trend for short drama scheduling.

While iQiyi increased its investment in short dramas, Youku also announced that it would implement new short drama revenue sharing rules starting from October 8. The unit price of S-level short dramas was set at 16 yuan, and the unit price of A-level short dramas was set at 8 yuan. Previously, the unit price of S-level short dramas was 6 yuan, and the unit price of A-level short dramas was 4 yuan. After the adjustment, the price of each episode increased by 167% and 100% respectively. After the introduction of the new user acquisition coefficient, the revenue sharing income of short dramas with good data performance can be increased by up to 120%. It can be seen that the new rules have increased the investment in short dramas, hoping to attract more high-quality short drama content to be broadcast exclusively on Youku.

Tencent Video will not miss this opportunity. At the 2025 Tencent Video V Vision Conference, Tencent Video released data showing that from 2024 to date, it has produced 15 short drama projects with a box office of over 10 million yuan, with the market's top projects accounting for over 80%, and the platform's monthly active users reaching 120 million. Next, Tencent Video will start filming short dramas adapted from game IPs, integrating more resources to explore new growth for short dramas.

Starting from October 14, Dragon TV launched the country's first daily micro-short drama show "Quality Oriental Micro-Theater" during prime time. This year's hit short dramas such as "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf", "Master", and "Miss Zhao's Diary" were broadcast on the big screen for the first time. In addition to broadcasting excellent micro-short dramas, Dragon TV will also actively create high-quality micro-short dramas. Micro-short dramas have also become a new highlight of business growth for many radio and television platforms this year.

2. More than 80% of the works are just running for the same place

From early short video platforms and traditional film and television companies to the online literature industry's China Literature Group, Zhangyue Technology, China Online, and Tomato Novels, to long video platforms, TV stations, provincial and municipal publishing groups, MCNs, advertising head publishers and even top Internet celebrities, in the current short drama industry, companies of different types, stages, and positions in the industrial chain are all "cutting in" across borders, and every player is trying to get a piece of the pie.

But as the popularity and hot money are being used more and more crazily, the industry's "80/20 rule" has also not spared short dramas. Behind the seemingly prosperous background, more than 80% of the players' dreams of "shooting in 7 days and making over 100 million in 8 days" will be shattered by reality and become the "cannon fodder" of the times.

Recently, when many practitioners and entertainment value officers talked about the current development status of short dramas, they all lamented that "money is not as easy to make as last year." Many teams are losing money this year. Some MCNs and film and television companies that have just squeezed in to "dig for gold" have even lost millions in less than half a year.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to make money from short dramas, partly because the production costs of short dramas are rising rapidly. According to a research report released by Soochow Securities, the starting cost of short drama production in 2022-2023 is 100,000-200,000 yuan, and the high-end cost can reach 800,000 yuan; this year, the starting cost has risen to 300,000 yuan, and the cost of top short dramas is generally 1.5-2 million yuan, almost doubling.

At the same time, the number of players pouring into the short drama track is still growing rapidly. According to the latest data from Qichacha, there are 84,900 short drama-related companies in China, almost three times the number in 2022. In 2023 alone, 22,700 short drama-related companies were registered, a year-on-year increase of 20.65%. In order to stand out in the red ocean, a large number of players must compete in production and cost, and make highlights in quality. However, the rising costs and intensified competition have quickly eroded the relatively rich profit margins of short dramas during their wild growth period.

On the other hand, the revenue of short dramas is also declining overall. At present, short dramas on Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat mini-programs, and long video platforms have formed two mainstream monetization patterns: user payment and free viewing unlocked by advertising. Both patterns rely on user clicks. While making good content, in order to attract more traffic, short dramas must invest in platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou to attract users to click or jump to the corresponding mini-programs to complete viewing and payment behaviors.

Since short dramas have almost no advertising, the only distribution channel is streaming. With the increase in production and intensified competition, streaming is becoming more and more important for short dramas, otherwise it is difficult to attract users' attention in a red ocean. Many industry insiders revealed to the entertainment value officer that since the beginning of this year, the streaming costs of most short dramas have accounted for more than 80%.

At present, the ceiling of the box office revenue for short dramas is 20 million yuan, and 10 million yuan of box office revenue or paid income is the threshold for short dramas to become big hits. The "2023 Tencent Video Short Drama Annual Report" shows that in 2023, there were 3 new short dramas on Tencent Video that broke 20 million, and 6 box office revenues broke 10 million. Official data from Douyin shows that in 2023, the number of views of 12 short dramas exceeded 1 billion. Although there is a certain relationship between the number of views and income of Douyin short dramas, it is not a simple linear relationship. After a simple conversion, the total income of works with a view volume of over 1 billion is also between 10 million and 20 million yuan.

It can be seen that among the two to three thousand works each year, less than 10% of the short dramas can earn more than 10 million yuan. If the shooting and production costs of a 10 million yuan hit short drama are 1 million yuan, plus about 80% of the investment, the profit is only 1 million yuan. More than 80% of the total income of micro short dramas is less than 1 million yuan, which cannot cover the production and investment costs, and has become a "cannon fodder" to accompany the runner-up.

3. What should everyone “roll” about in the second half of the skit?

DataEye data shows that from January to September 2024, the total number of short dramas participating in the investment in the Chinese mainland market (deduplication) exceeded 33,800, of which the top 100 short drama platforms contributed about 98% of the market's heat value and 70% of the number of short dramas. Although the top 100 contractors only account for 5% of the market in terms of the number of short dramas, they have taken away about 58% of the heat value from the market.

This means that the polarization in the short drama market will become more and more serious, and it will be difficult for mid-level works to stand out. The Matthew effect of the market will make the winner-takes-all situation the norm.

As major long and short video platforms have entered the market and continued to "increase their investment", there are more and more players in the track. In addition, with the changes in the market demand of short drama users, policy guidance, and follow-up governance by major platforms, the short drama market will also usher in the reconstruction of order, and the transformation period is accelerating.

How should short dramas develop in the second half? In the eyes of many people in the industry, the refinement of content is already a commonplace topic, and this general direction will not change. The entry of long video platforms and more professional institutions into the market not only means more sufficient funds and resources, but more importantly, it brings stricter production standards and quality control.

As the supply increases, the themes of short plays will inevitably become richer, and the situation where "brainless and cool dramas" dominate is changing. This year, works such as "I Open a Supermarket on the Long March Road", "Goddess Hotel", "The World Is What You Wish", "Seven Two Lives", and "Surpass! A Juan" have greatly expanded the subject matter of short plays, improved the professionalism and refinement of short play production, and raised the overall level of micro short plays.

In fact, the form itself does not determine the level of cultural value. Micro-short plays can be "micro but not weak, short but not shallow". They can use their unique advantages to focus on social issues, explore core values, and present grand themes of the times with small incisions.

In addition to the refinement of content, "lightweight" production mechanisms, brand-based operation mechanisms, scene package implantation, brand customization, advance screenings and other more diversified commercial cooperation models may become the key to the competition in the second half of short dramas.

In addition, the incubation and operation of IP may also be a key direction for the transformation and upgrading of the industry in the future. In the past ten years, IP has occupied half of the domestic dramas and movies, and the future of short dramas will also have this trend. Long dramas, variety shows, and movies can be mutually extended with short dramas. The rich stories of long content provide content resources for short dramas, and the innovation of short dramas can bring new vitality to long content, multiplying the synergy effect of IP. The short drama "Surpass! Ajuan" derived from the movie "The Lion Boy" has created a new incremental market for this IP.

With the end of the grassroots stage of short dramas, the production team is exploring relatively reasonable business paths to ensure the stability and sustainability of long-term content production. The platform allows teams that work hard on content to reap positive returns. This is of self-evident significance for the short drama industry to achieve a virtuous cycle, and it will also be the key to squeezing through the "single-plank bridge" among many players in the second half.

Written by Chen Tong, edited by Meiqi