It was taken offline after earning 20 million in 24 hours. Was the popular short drama put on pause?

Recently, there has been a trend of regulating online short dramas, and many popular short dramas have been removed from the shelves due to substandard content. This article starts from the development history of short dramas, analyzes the logic behind the governance of the short drama industry, and looks forward to future development prospects. It is recommended for students who are interested in online short dramas.

The paid short drama "The Black Lotus Manual for Advancing to the Top", which was rumored to have raked in 20 million yuan in 24 hours, has been removed from the shelves.

It was launched on November 16, and two days later it became a hot topic on Weibo, sparking widespread discussion, and was subsequently removed from the entire network. In just three or four days, "The Black Lotus Manual for Advancing to the Top" set off the entire short drama industry.

This drama was produced by the short drama team "Tinghuadao" and broadcast on mini programs and Douyin. With its high-pitched opening and high-pitched plot of revenge of a concubine's daughter, fast pace and many twists and turns, it hit the sweet spots of many netizens and was called a combination of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Story of Yanxi Palace".

It was reported that the drama was removed from the shelves because it was suspected of promoting extreme revenge and palace fighting. There were also rumors in the industry that the recharge income of the drama exceeded 60 million yuan before it was removed from the shelves, but this was denied by relevant insiders who participated in the short drama investment.

After "The Black Lotus Manual for Advancing to the Top" was removed from the shelves, the official Douyin account of the drama began to release another short drama "Assistant Li is So Charming" by "Tinghua Island", but it was soon removed from the shelves, presumably because of the suspected inappropriate lines.

The editorial department of Xinbang found that the Douyin account has now become a private account, all published content is invisible, and the account name has also been changed to an emoticon. Only the label "Most Popular Short Drama List" left traces of the hit, and there are still 1.64 million fans who continue to pay attention.

In fact, this removal was not aimed at a certain drama such as "The Black Lotus Manual" or "Assistant Lee is So Charming", but a concentrated management action on micro-short dramas in recent times.

In the past week, platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat have successively issued announcements on the management of micro-short dramas, and have removed tens of thousands of works in total. On November 16 alone, 127 micro-short dramas on Douyin were banned from streaming.

It is worth noting that in their announcements, each platform emphasized the need to combat "advocating violence to counter violence, extreme revenge, involvement in gangs, and violent behavior."

According to colleagues, a new media community also reported that "rebirth, time travel, borderline, revenge and other themes are not allowed in the near future, and the acceptance of such scripts will be suspended."

Short dramas have been surging for months, with revenues of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan. Is the "wealth-making myth" about to be shattered? How should short drama practitioners respond and create in compliance with regulations?

1. "Horizontal store" becomes "vertical store", short play becomes "wealth creation myth"

The popularity of "The Black Lotus Manual" is a microcosm of the recent craze for short dramas. It must have something "exceptional" to attract so many people so quickly.

The short play is adapted from the online novel "Zhao Hua Luan", which tells the story of Song Zhao, the concubine of the Protector of the Country, on a journey of revenge. The protagonist starts with revenge on her mistress, father, sister, and all the enemies in the harem, and levels up and fights monsters all the way, eventually becoming the assistant manager of the six palaces. The story also lays the groundwork for the second part, "Dealing with the Queen".

Some people compare this drama to a short-play version of "The Legend of Zhen Huan". If we use the same standards as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" to evaluate it, we can understand the logic behind the popularity of "The Black Lotus Guide to Success": a strong female protagonist, a revenge drama theme, decent costumes and props, and online acting skills, all the necessary elements for a hit drama are complete.

The Black Lotus Masterbook has a total of 120 episodes. The first episode, which was free to watch before it was removed from the shelves, was viewed nearly 10 million times. Even if it required payment to watch, the 120th episode was viewed nearly 100,000 times. New Douyin data shows that the Douyin account of the lead actor Ma Qiuyuan gained more than 40,000 followers in 2 days, ushering in a small wave of traffic peak.

"The Black Lotus Manual for Advancing to the Top" is not the first hit product of the production team Tinghuadao. In October, the team launched a paid short drama "The Dark Maid", which is also about revenge and attracted recharges of more than 23 million yuan in 24 hours.

Short dramas have been popular recently, but as a type of content, they are not new. As early as three or four years ago, short dramas with a single episode length ranging from tens of seconds to 15 minutes have attracted the attention of the industry, and have also produced works such as "This Male Lead Is a Bit Cold" and "The Princess Is Above".

However, in the past, many short dramas mainly relied on platform sharing, advertising, brand sponsorship and other means to monetize. The emergence of paid short dramas in the past two years has accelerated the commercialization process of short dramas, and the entry of Douyin has further accelerated the transformation of the short drama payment model.

The mini-program short drama model that started last year has made short dramas a money-making tool through its paid model.

According to "Xin Wan'er", not only "The Black Lotus Manual" and "The Black-bellied Maid", but also the short drama "Wushuang" had a 24-hour recharge of 55 million yuan and exceeded 100 million yuan in 8 days, "After the Flash Marriage, Mr. Fu's Vest Can No Longer Be Hidden" had a single-day recharge of more than 20 million yuan, and "Oh! The Queen Comes to Work" had a 24-hour user recharge amount of more than 12 million yuan.

It is understood that mini-program short dramas are mainly carried on WeChat mini-programs, and there are mini-program platforms such as Jiuzhou, Dianzhong, Liangliang, and Zhangwan. You can watch dramas without downloading software, and dozens of works are updated every month. The cooperative platforms of "Black-bellied Maid" are Dianzhong and Zhangwan.

Starting with "The Maid with a Dark Heart" and "The Manual for Getting to the Top", mini-program short dramas are no longer limited to gaining attention through traffic investment. Opening an account on Douyin for publicity and promotion has become a new idea, which is called "account-drama linkage" in the industry. It helps the production team to accumulate user groups and achieve further breakthroughs.

Most mini-program short dramas range from 80 to 120 episodes. The first few episodes are free to watch, and viewers need to pay to watch the rest. They can pay for each episode, or become a member of the mini-program platform to unlock the entire series. Some netizens have calculated that it may cost nearly 200 yuan to watch a 100-episode short drama.

"Xin Waner" has reported that the daily recharge consumption of paid short dramas on all domestic platforms is 60 million yuan, and during the peak holiday season, the peak can exceed 100 million yuan. As of July 2023, the market size of mini-program short dramas has exceeded 4 billion.

Compared with the revenue of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions, the cost of mini program short dramas is not high. The production cost of "Black Lotus Promotion Manual" circulated in the industry is 2 million yuan, which is already the ceiling level. The cost of most mini program short dramas mainly lies in the shooting fee and the investment fee.

In addition, a source revealed that because the production cycle is short, most shooting costs can be covered by a few hundred thousand yuan, and the streaming costs are the biggest expense. "Xin Waner" revealed that generally speaking, the streaming ROI of a short drama with 80 to 100 episodes can reach 1.2, which means that after investing 100 yuan, you can get 120 yuan in turnover.

Therefore, many MCN agencies and film and television production companies have set their sights on the cost-effective business of short dramas on mini programs. Even Chen Ou, the founder of Jumei Youpin, has begun to set up a short drama platform, and bosses of traditional manufacturing industries have also entered the market.

"The Rap of China" debater and screenwriter Bangni Bai also shared a conversation with friends in the industry on Weibo, mentioning that "Hengdian is now called a vertical store" and "they are all shooting short dramas, micro-dramas and mini-program dramas," which shows the popularity of short dramas today.

2. The skit was paused during the hurricane

The influx of multiple parties has brought a lot of chaos to the industry. Against this background, the removal of short dramas such as "The Black Lotus Manual" and "Li Tezhu is so charming" has actually been a sign for a long time.

Starting from late November 2022, the State Administration of Radio and Television organized a special rectification campaign on mini-programs and online micro-short dramas within three months. As of February 28, 2023, more than 25,300 micro-short dramas containing pornographic, vulgar, bloody, violent, low-grade, and aesthetically pleasing content, totaling 1,365,004 episodes, were taken offline, and 2,420 "mini-programs" containing illegal content were removed from the shelves.

At the same time, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television also supervised multiple platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat to regularly issue platform management announcements on micro-short dramas, and established a "blacklist" mechanism for online micro-short dramas, and promptly reported and included illegal online micro-short dramas in the blacklist.

Announcements from multiple platforms show that short dramas containing elements such as getting rich overnight, extreme revenge, pornography and vulgarity are the focus of illegal governance. As the saying goes, men have the Dragon King's son-in-law, and women have time travel and rebirth. These elements are also the most typical types of cool stories on the market.

However, although the official accounts of many illegal short dramas have been banned or cannot be searched, there are still other accounts or mini-programs on the site that carry their past works and support paid purchases.

For example, "Assistant Lee Is So Charming" can still be paid and watched on a certain Douyin short drama mini program.

In addition to the supervisory authorities' direct actions of continuously cracking down on illegal short dramas, content platforms also limit the unlimited expansion of micro-short dramas through indirect actions such as charging service fees.

Taking WeChat as an example, on August 15, the WeChat platform will charge a 20% technical service fee for transactions generated by micro-short drama developers through virtual payment capabilities, and the remaining 80% will be divided proportionally among production, production, and distribution.

As more players enter the market, the threshold for streaming short dramas is getting higher and higher. According to a report by Doujiao Spicy, the streaming costs of some short dramas have reached 80% to 90% of the total box office.

According to the AppGrowing data analysis platform, in the past 7 days, a short drama called "Proud Dragon" ranked first in the short drama promotion rankings with 6143 advertising creatives, but in terms of the growth rate of advertising creative exposure, this short drama experienced a decline of 47.81%, which means that although the number of investment flows has increased, the exposure effect has not kept up.

In the fifth place of the short drama promotion rankings in the past 7 days, only one short drama showed an upward trend in exposure growth.

The shrinking profits of the short drama industry and the increasing involution of investment have, to a certain extent, forced short dramas to move towards high-quality production and avoid shoddy production and homogenization of excitement. For example, the short drama "Escape from the British Museum", which was popular on the Internet in September this year, gained 5.55 million fans in just 7 days, becoming a representative of phenomenal high-quality short dramas.

3. Where is the short play heading?

At present, the review and supervision system of the short drama industry is still being improved. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television also mentioned that it will speed up the formulation of the "Detailed Rules for the Creation, Production and Content Review of Online Micro-Short Dramas."

An industry insider told us that the recent removal of short dramas is mostly concentrated on mini-program short dramas. "This used to be a gray area of ​​supervision. As the short drama market matures, relevant supervision will become more stringent." In comparison, the platform's supervision of short dramas is stricter, and creators have already had some control in the early script stage.

From a long-term perspective, proper review and supervision is for the sustainable and healthy development of the short drama market. In this context, there is still room for short dramas to explore.

According to data compiled by the Short Drama Study Room, 90% of the popular short dramas from January to July this year are still based on themes of "coolness", such as God of War, time travel, counterattack, rebirth, etc. Although "coolness" is good, it needs to be controlled in scale and cannot be exaggerated and out of touch with reality.

In addition to monetization through pay-per-view, short dramas can also try to collaborate with brands to find more business possibilities.

Haoyounengling has produced many female-oriented short dramas such as "Twenty-Nine" and "Behind the Traffic". Its partner Andy told us that the Douyin account of "Haoyounengling" currently has 5.25 million followers, with the ratio of male to female users being nearly 2:8, and the age of female users is concentrated between 31 and 40 years old. "This group of female users is generally considered to be a high-net-worth online shopping group. Commercial cooperation can cover multiple categories such as clothing, beauty, and 3C."

At present, Haoyounengling's business model is mainly based on brand cooperation short dramas, accounting for more than 80%. The short drama "Behind the Resistance" is a brand customized short drama in cooperation with PROYA.

In addition to the domestic market, overseas is also a hot development area for the short drama industry.

Online literature platforms such as Chinese Online, New Reading Times, and Changdu have successively launched their own short drama apps overseas. According to Sensor Tower data, the total downloads of ReelShort launched by Chinese Online in July this year on Google Play and AppStore reached 1.9 million, with a total monthly turnover of US$6 million.

As the industry gradually becomes standardized, the period of wild growth of short dramas is coming to an end, but in the long run, the short dramas that are booming may be able to grow more steadily.

Author: Truffle, Xiaoba

WeChat public account: Newrank (ID: newrankcn)