Germany’s RTL explores microdramas with Inkitt CandyJar deal

Loving My Brother’s Best Friend

RTL has partnered with Inkitt CandyJar to offer the US company’s microdramas to its streaming audience, as the German media giant looks to gauge its viewers’ appetite for the format.

Viewers can now watch the first episodes of series such as Fight Dirty, The Arrangement, Life is Not a Game, His Nerd and Loving My Brother’s Best Friend on the RTL+ app.

They will then be invited to watch the full series in the Inkitt CandyJar app. It marks Inkitt CandyJar’s first major European media partnership and comes as the microdrama craze spreads quickly beyond China and the US.

The fast, bingeable series are shot for phones and feature episodes that run for just a few minutes and end on a cliffhanger. The microdrama industry is attracting growing interest in Europe, where some players have been critical of the storytelling quality seen so far, while others have highlighted the potential of the format.

Ali Albazaz, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based, AI-focused Inkitt, said: “Germany is one of the most important entertainment markets in the world, and there’s no better partner to launch it with than RTL+. This is the first of many steps in bringing Inkitt CandyJar to audiences beyond the US.”

Henning Nieslony, executive VP of streaming at RTL, added: “Vertical drama is an exciting new form of storytelling, particularly for mobile-first audiences. Partnering with Inkitt CandyJar allows us to explore this emerging format with a specialist in the space, understand how it resonates with our audiences and better assess its potential for our streaming business.”