Can shortform storytelling capture Hollywood?
The ultra-shortform storytelling medium has taken China by storm, becoming a US$5bn sector almost overnight. Will it be too big for Hollywood to ignore, with memories of the ill-fated Quibi still fresh?
Falling for My Divorce Lawyer has been a hit on ReelShort
There is an energy building around shortform content once again as ‘microdrama’ builds enormous momentum in China and spreads across Asia. But after the swift and spectacular combustion of Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi in 2020, are Western media companies still firm in their conviction that there’s nothing to see here?
Microdrama, characterised by fast-paced, concise, soapy storytelling (videos are usually one to two minutes long) has caught fire on platforms such as Chinese short video app Kuaishou and TikTok sibling app Douyin.
These vertical-video platforms are driving enormous consumption with bite-sized scripted stories typically revolving around romance, revenge and rags-to-riches takes. It has become a major money spinner almost overnight, with some estimating the sector generated revenues of around US$5.3bn in 2023. Projections suggest it could almost treble by 2027.
At a broader level, the trend has been driven by the global uptake of ByteDance-owned shortform behemoth TikTok and US-based Snapchat, and the subsequent embracing of shorter video formats by YouTube (Shorts) and Instagram (Reels).
Emulating a trend with the trajectory of microdrama would typically be a no-brainer for Hollywood. But the major Western studios have been down this road before. In 2018, Katzenberg raised more than US$1bn to bankroll the launch of Quibi, with key investors including Disney, 21st Century Fox, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Viacom, Liberty Global, MGM and Lionsgate, in addition to RTL Group, Entertainment One and ITV.
The streaming service, launched in early 2020, was billed as an app that would provide viewers with premium shortform content to watch when they were on the go. It got unlucky with the timing of the pandemic, but the fact other apps – particularly TikTok – exploded in that same period undercuts the notion that Covid-19 scuppered a potentially solid business proposition.
Well ahead of its launch, many were sceptical it would work. Those doubters were swiftly proven correct, and the service shuttered just six months after launch.
Many viewed Quibi as Hollywood’s last attempt at making a go of monetising shortform content. Smaller apps, including NBCUniversal’s Seeso and Verizon’s Go90, had also tried and ultimately failed, though they didn’t burn nearly as much cash as they flamed out.
But four years is a long time in entertainment, and the opportunities presented by shortform content are more apparent today than in 2020.
Jia Jian Ho
Jia Jian Ho, CEO and founder of Singapore-based shortform video platform Viddsee, says the growth trajectory for microdrama is and continues to be “astronomical” – and the phenomenon is beginning to spread west.
“Because most of the growth has only come from China so far, we’re really just at the start of where things could go,” he tells C21, adding that he is seeing growing adoption of scripted shortform apps in the US and Latin America.
Ho disagrees strongly with the idea that microdrama could be a fad that runs out of steam. “There is such a big drive around shortform consumption, fuelled by things like YouTube Shorts and TikTok, and the solidifying of that viewing behaviour,” he says.
Launched in 2013, Viddsee is focused on premium (that most amorphous of terms) drama across fantasy, romance, family drama, action and revenge. It commissions and produces projects through its Viddsee Studios banner, as well as carrying some third-party shortform content.
The focus on premium storytelling makes Viddsee something of an outlier among the new crop of microdrama-focused apps and streamers coming online.
The Virgin & The Billionaire
According to data from Appfigures, 66 new shortform drama apps launched in the first quarter of 2024. Some of the more notable ones to have sprung up in the past two years include ReelShort, which has gained meaningful traction in North America, My Drama and DramaBox.
Many of them, it is fair to say, are not focused on glossy production values. Indeed, fundamental to the medium’s success to date have been low production costs, fast turnaround times and the relative absence of known actors. In China, the fast-growing medium has drawn criticism for being low-brow and even drawn the attention of the local content regulator.
Ho says microdrama is in its “cowboy era” but new investment is beginning to come into the space, bringing with it the ability to tell more ambitious stories.
“As the format gains popularity and proves there is actually a business model here, naturally there will be more investment in these projects,” he says. “We definitely see there could be more collaboration with bigger stars, higher production quality and diversification of the types of stories. There’s a long way to go and a big opportunity to grow it.”
However, there is no rush to inflate the budgets or the scope of the productions. Audiences are coming to microdrama apps for escapism, says Ho, and what keeps them coming back is the speed and bingeability of the storytelling. Indeed, one of the things that sank Quibi was that the level of investment was so vast it needed to achieve instant success, with no real opportunity to grow or gradually find its audience.
What’s more, the definition of ‘premium’ has been somewhat redefined in the social media era. Viddsee targets a demo of 18-35s, which Ho says is a generation that has grown up on YouTube rather than traditional linear television. “From a youth perspective, their perception of premium is very different to how a more mature age group sees it,” he says.
The rise of these platforms also creates the opportunity for interesting partnerships with more traditional players. Ho notes that Viddsee is open to partnerships with streamers, broadcasters and companies “looking at emerging models to create engaging content.”
ReelShort, which was developed by LA-based Crazy Maple Studio and owned by publicly listed Chinese digital publishing company COL Group, has already made something of a splash in North America, climbing to the top of the download charts in the US in November 2023. At the time of writing, the roster of US-made shortform dramas in its ‘most trending’ section include The Virgin & The Billionaire, The Heiress Strikes Back, Falling for My Divorce Lawyer, OMG I Got Married in Vegas, Pregnant by My Ex’s Dad and In Bed with Your Lies. Story genres listed on the app include enemies to lovers, redemption, romcom, love at first sight, mistaken identity, love after marriage, comebacks and pregnancy and babies.
Jo Redfern
A key aspect of microdrama apps is what UK-based Jo Redfern, who specialises in online content and platform strategy for IP, brands and right holders, refers to as the “gamification” of content. ReelShort, for example, lets users earn ‘rewards’ in the form of virtual coins when they use the app and watch certain videos, as well as monetising through micro transactions.
“Quibi did pick up on something. It zoned in on shortform storytelling but it wasn’t very well executed in the sense that, for me, the key thing is the gamification around it,” says Redfern.
So is microdrama a trend that producers are, or should, be looking to explore?
“So far I have seen very little evidence of producers and studios identifying it as an opportunity, but I think it is,” says Redfern. “We will see smaller producers, younger producers and creators starting to think in this way. Whereas more established producers think of content creation in a way fit for broadcast, these younger creators have been brought up with shortform video on social platforms, so they will think naturally about telling stories in a way that suits that channel.”
Redfern adds that it’s possible the European and North American industry sees an “explosion in this kind of storytelling in the next two or three years.”
Asked whether some of the major streaming players, like Netflix or Amazon, could look to introduce gamification into their own content strategies, in a similar way that Roblox or ReelShort has, Redfern says it is a possibility.
“Gamification helps because it’s a motivator to watch more,” she says. “They’re not levers being pulled by [the major streamers] right now but, knowing that those are exactly the levers ReelShort uses to get people watching more content, I’d be very surprised if they weren’t looking at it as well.”
Gave Lindo
Gave Lindo, the former head of content programming for TikTok in North America, says shortform scripted just might not be a trend that Western audiences warm to.
Lindo, who is currently an investor and advisor in the creator economy, left his role at TikTok in March. Asked whether he had seen the microdrama phenomenon cross over to North America, he says: “In the West, no. Not every trend is a global trend – some trends are regional, or they’ll take so much more time to materialise than we think.”
In terms of genres, former CBC exec Lindo says sketch comedy is the only scripted format that has shown sustained resonance on social platforms to date in North America. “But highly scripted, stylised drama in shortform, I haven’t seen any examples of that working outside of Asia,” he notes.
That’s not to say it couldn’t happen, but Western audiences would need to demonstrate a major demand for this kind of content before the streamers or platforms chose to embrace it in a meaningful way. It would also represent something of a departure from what such consumers have typically migrated to in terms of scripted content.
“If, for whatever reason, Western audiences are suddenly into this shortform scripted, there’ll be a lot of that content made very quickly and everyone will be clamouring and fighting each other to figure out a way to showcase it. I’m not saying it will never happen, I just don’t see what the appetite is. Or I don’t understand what cultural shift would need to happen for companies suddenly, out of nowhere, to brave this format that hasn’t really had a lot of value in the West.”
Where Lindo is more bullish is about the potential for TikTok to act as a testing ground for longer-form programming. Perhaps the best example of such an adaptation is Who TF Did I Marry?, a series of TikTok videos from Tareasa Johnson (aka Reesa Teesa) about her real-life marriage to a man she says is a pathological liar. The TikTok videos, which spanned 50 posts and more than eight hours, went viral earlier this year. It is now in development with Disney-owned studio ABC Signature, with actress and comedian Natasha Rothwell (Insecure, The White Lotus, How to Die Alone) attached to star and executive produce.
As its business model has evolved, TikTok has increased the maximum length of its videos from two minutes, to five, then 10 and now up to 60 minutes. Developing series based on very short videos is challenging, says Lindo, as you don’t have much source material to work with. TikTok’s extension of its maximum video length is giving creators more scope to tell stories.
“In terms of true scripted longform, we’ll see more of it,” says Lindo. “As people start to use social platforms less just for shortform and more for longform narrative, there’s a lot in there to develop and pull from to create a TV show.”
Vania Schlogel, founder and managing partner of entertainment-focused private equity firm Atwater Capital and chairwoman of the board of Leonine Studios, says that Hollywood studios may need to look outside of their current business models to build more interactivity into their offerings if they are to appeal to younger audiences.
By interactivity, Schlogel means that the younger generation – which will, in little over a decade, be household decision makers – are growing up on Roblox and have certain expectations when it comes to customising and interacting with their media.
“It’s almost a foregone conclusion that when that generation ages up, that’s where we’re going to have that wave of interactive content really ushered in,” she suggests.
It is part of a bigger question that Schlogel is asking herself: what is the next major phase in how content is monetised?
“It was subscription streaming. Now advertising-supported streaming. What’s the third wave? Is it ushered in by greater interactivity with content?” she asks.
Schlogel notes that in mobile gaming, interactivity was a major trend around five years ago but has since died down slightly. “Given how the younger generation interacts with content, I have a hard time believing there won’t be more interactivity with content in general. And more interactivity with content lends itself to unique monetisation methods akin to gaming,” she says.
So could a major Western studio or streamer have another go at cracking shortform content? Viddsee’s Ho doesn’t think it is out of the question.
“They may indeed take an interest in emulating the microdrama trend as the demand for shortform content continues to grow globally. However, the approach might be cautious due to the various challenges Quibi faced,” says Ho. “But there is so much opportunity right now to power really good stories in the microdrama format. It’s a wide-open space.”
