Short dramas have been repeatedly removed from the shelves. How long can the overseas dividends of "Boss" last?

The domineering CEO drama that was once extremely popular in China is now surprisingly successful when exported. Let us read this article to see how the domineering CEO drama became so popular and how long it will last.

At the end of 2023, the supervision of short dramas was further strengthened. Many platforms removed a large number of illegal short dramas and began to increase the review of short dramas. On the other hand, "dominant CEO" videos are still popular overseas: the blonde heroine was arranged by her stepmother to marry a strange man who had just been released from prison because her mother urgently needed medical expenses. The wealthy hero had never met the heroine before, but after marriage, he was gentle and considerate, and played the role of a domineering CEO from time to time; the werewolf maid knew that the man she was destined to be was a playboy master since she was 18 years old, but she fell in love with the wolf king of the tribe and started a sadomasochistic love across classes...

From overbearing CEOs, to the love between werewolves and vampires, to revenge and sadomasochism... these bloody skits that have been popular in China are now creating a new trend overseas. A large number of earthy skits have flooded into the European, American, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian markets, not only attracting overseas Chinese, but also making local people willing to pay for them, and even some domestic audiences learning English through them. Obviously, compared with the increasingly competitive domestic market, the overseas market is still a blue ocean to be explored, with great potential. For this reason, more and more players, from online literature platforms to mini-program skit producers, are beginning to make arrangements here.

1. Is the “boss” more advanced when he goes overseas?

"Who would have thought that even after I went abroad, I still couldn't escape the domineering CEO's cheesy short dramas?" 22-year-old Tong Xing is studying in the United States. Recently, she has been fascinated by a series of short micro-dramas produced by a Chinese production team. "From the script to the format, they are actually not much different from the cheesy short dramas in China, except that the actors are local actors in Europe and the United States, and the lines are in English." Tong Xing was attracted to this series of short dramas by her roommate who is also an international student. "I was just curious about what she was so obsessed with every day, but I couldn't help following them."

At present, Tong Xing mainly uses ReelShort and GoodShort to watch TV series. Her favorite is the werewolf series of short dramas. "It seems that there are more domineering short dramas in China, and there are also many abroad, but the werewolf and vampire series seem to be more popular in Europe and the United States." Zinc Scale noticed that judging from the names of short dramas in the overseas market, the keywords that often appear are CEO, boss, alpha, billionaire, etc. , while the Chinese translations are more direct, such as "Fated, My Forbidden Love with the Wolf King", "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband", "The Beloved of the Gangster Boss" and "Goodbye, My Mr. President".

ReelShortTV's short series

Specifically, from the perspective of ReelShort, a short drama platform launched overseas by Crazy Maple Studio, a subsidiary of Chinese Online, more than 15 short dramas from Europe and America have been launched on the platform in the past year. The themes include marriage first, love later, sweet revenge, and dating the boss. There are also new themes such as revenge and sadomasochism, and gangsters. Among them, the werewolf series has obviously received more attention and discussion.

The most representative hit short drama in the European and American markets, "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha" produced by ReelShort, tells the love story of a young woman who is involved in the struggle for hegemony between two werewolf tribes. On Twitter, an American viewer shared her obsession with the drama "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha" and said, "A short video on TikTok made me addicted to the drama "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha". Its plot is old-fashioned, each episode is only 1 minute, and you have to watch a 30-second advertisement to unlock the next episode. But I can't stop, who will take my phone away..."

The data can more intuitively reflect the popularity of earthy short dramas in overseas markets: Since August 2022, ReelShort has been launched overseas, focusing on Europe and the United States. By November this year, according to overseas business and technology media TechCrunch, ReelShort has been downloaded 11 million times on iOS and Android, generating US$22 million in net income; according to data from the global mobile application intelligence platform Sensor Tower, ReelShort dominated the US App store's entertainment application list from November 11 to 13, ranking second in the overall category list; Diandian data shows that at its peak, ReelShort's global dual-end daily turnover was around US$270,000 (approximately RMB 1.96 million).

In fact, after becoming popular in the overseas market, these short dramas shot by European and American actors have also set off a wave of discussion in China. Zinc Scale has noticed that on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, in addition to overseas Chinese, there are also many Chinese audiences who follow this type of drama. Under the official account of ReelShort Xiaohongshu, some netizens commented, "Why do I feel that foreign short dramas are more advanced?" or "I feel that they are very suitable for learning English"...

One important reason may be that compared with the overwhelming number of domestic micro-short dramas with varying quality, the short dramas currently targeting the overseas market are more like American dramas with a faster pace and shorter market, and are more sophisticated in editing, makeup and other aspects.

2. The ambitions of “ReelShorts” are not limited to the European and American markets

At present, the players entering the overseas short drama market are mainly divided into three categories : the leading online literature companies represented by China Online, which launched ReelShort; the leading domestic short drama companies represented by Jiuzhou Culture; and there are also some individual short drama studios. The first two types of players are obviously more powerful at present, but their advantages are also different. For the leading online literature companies, the layout of online literature overseas was earlier, and there are a large number of online literature IPs that can be adapted into short drama scripts. In addition, the target audience overlap between online literature and short dramas is relatively high, so they can accumulate user groups faster; while the leading domestic short drama companies have a large number of short drama resources.

Correspondingly, the production modes of short dramas are mainly divided into two categories : one is to adopt the method of joint production by domestic teams and overseas personnel, and the other is to directly translate the dubbing or subtitles of domestic mini-program dramas into the local language. Online literature export companies often choose the former, while companies like Jiuzhou Culture currently choose the second.

Companies and platforms are looking for people and scripts on social platforms

Obviously, the former has a higher production cost, and it is still not easy to "find people and scripts." Take the script as an example. Zinc Scale has noticed that many platforms are currently collecting overseas short drama scripts in China. Among them, there is a collection information on Xiaohongshu showing that "Chinese scripts are 20,000 yuan, Chinese and English bilingual scripts are 30,000 yuan, and the minimum investment is 10 episodes." The official account of ReelShort also released a call for submissions for English scripts, "The remuneration is 5,000 to 10,000 US dollars." A micro-short drama scriptwriter told Zinc Scale, "The remuneration for domestic micro-short drama scripts has been getting lower and lower, because there are more and more writers, and the threshold is not high. A well-written single script can get about 8,000 to 9,000 yuan, but when you first start writing scripts, you often encounter a buyout of 25 yuan per thousand words, and the share is also more or less. However, there are language requirements for overseas scripts, the threshold is higher, and the remuneration is relatively higher."

However, corresponding to the cost, users in the European and American markets have a higher ability to pay. Among them, ReelShort adopts a per-episode charging model. Taking "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha" as an example, it costs about $40 to watch the entire series in a paid mode; GoodShort, a subsidiary of New Reading Times, went online in June this year and tried a subscription model in its charging model, with fees ranging from $99.99 to $399.99. You know, Netflix's standard version package is only $12.99 per month.

It is worth mentioning that not all companies will choose or stop at the European and American markets. In fact, there are also many companies rushing to the Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern markets. One of the reasons is that the production cost in the Southeast Asian market is lower . According to the interviews with relevant practitioners by the self-media "Dingjiao", a short drama for Southeast Asia, with each episode lasting 1-3 minutes, has a total of 60-100 episodes. Its production is similar to that in China, about 300,000-500,000 yuan. The cost of short dramas targeting Europe and the United States is generally higher than that of Southeast Asia, ranging from 900,000 to 1.1 million yuan.

Among them, the online literature platform Anyue Technology launched Flex TV in October last year, focusing on Southeast Asia, especially Thailand. Its popular short dramas include "New Family Grudges" and "Supreme Military God", all of which are starred by local actors in Southeast Asia. Since its launch more than a year ago, Flex TV has been ranked in the top 50 of the Thai total download list. According to Guangda Big Data, the total global revenue of FlexTV on both ends exceeded one million US dollars in August.

In July this year, Changdu Technology and Chiziwang launched two applications, MoboReels and Mini Episode, respectively, which mainly translated domestic short drama content and exported it overseas, mainly targeting the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets in China; Jiuzhou Culture also launched 99TV in the same month, which is mainly aimed at the Taiwan market, but most of the content is short dramas launched in mainland China, but the subtitles are adjusted to traditional Chinese version.

3. Domestic short dramas have been repeatedly rectified. Can the overseas market replicate the myth of "huge profits"?

While the overseas market is still a blue ocean, the domestic market, which has set off a wave earlier, has reached a turning point. In the past few years, the domestic short drama market has already produced many hits, and there are more and more players. Especially in 2023, it can be said that it ushered in the first year of paid short dramas, and many platforms have made a lot of money.

In terms of quantity, Datawin's "Micro-Short Drama Market Report for the First Half of 2023" shows that a total of 481 new micro-short dramas will be released in the first half of 2023, exceeding the 454 new dramas released in the whole year of 2022. The "China Internet Audiovisual Development Research Report" shows that as of December 2022, the scale of short video users has reached 1.012 billion, and the average daily usage time of short videos exceeds 2.5 hours. The report shows that more than half of the one billion short video users have watched micro-short dramas of less than 3 minutes, instant noodle shows, etc. in the past six months.

In terms of payment, according to "Xinwaner", the daily recharge consumption of paid short dramas on all domestic platforms is about 60 million yuan. During the National Day holiday, the peak has even exceeded 100 million yuan. Data from June showed that the average daily payment for that month was about 40 million yuan.

However, as domestic competition intensifies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a bigger piece of the pie. Especially in recent times, the country has frequently strengthened supervision on short dramas.

The latest news is that in late November, the State Administration of Radio and Television once again launched a one-month special campaign to crack down on online short dramas. Major short video platforms responded by removing a large number of illegal short dramas and banning a large number of accounts that illegally posted short dramas.

Among them, WeChat issued the "Announcement on Further Standardizing the "Micro-Short Drama" Content of Mini Programs" and the "Announcement on the Phased Governance of the "Micro-Short Drama" Content of Mini Programs", stating that some illegal micro-short dramas were removed and related illegal mini-programs were dealt with; Kuaishou removed more than 10 illegal micro-short dramas in total, and at the same time imposed corresponding penalties on 13 accounts that posted illegal content according to the degree of violation; Douyin has also removed a total of 119 illegal micro-short dramas in recent times, and dealt with 1,188 Douyin accounts that illegally promoted micro-short dramas.

Image source: Douyin Blackboard News

Perhaps for this reason, more and more companies are looking overseas. Currently, the most popular short drama company in the overseas short drama market should be ReelShort mentioned above, but there are also many latecomers following closely behind.

However, whether the myth of huge profits can be replicated in overseas markets is still a question mark. Take ReelShort as an example. Although it is very popular in the capital market, the share price of Chinese Online was 13.74 yuan on November 1, and it exceeded 30 yuan on November 13. However, according to Caiwen.com, ReelShort is suspected of buying charts and scheming. Its overall ranking seems to be very popular, but no one discusses it on other platforms, and the number of views of the YouTube trailer has not increased.

According to Cailianshe's investigation, ReelShort searches for ReelShort or popular TV series on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. The results are mainly collections of short series or trailers posted by official accounts, and there are very few spontaneous posts and discussions about them. Therefore, although "Boss" is popular, it will take more time to conquer overseas markets and expand the market.

Author: Li Xuanqi Editor: Meng Huiyuan

WeChat public account: Zinc Scale (ID: znkedu)