RTVE films its first microdrama for Playz, looks to make platform vertical in 2026

RTVE’s vertical microdrama Estúpido Cupido

Spanish pubcaster RTVE is joining the vertical microdrama trend with its first production in the format, the series Estúpido Cupido (Stupid Cupid).

The romantic comedy will launch in 2026 on RTVE’s youth-skewing platform Playz, which will be transformed into a vertical video app “fully adapted to Gen Z consumption habits,” the corporation said.

Estúpido Cupido is produced by Kokoro Content, the company behind youth titles including Playz game show Área 34 and Atresmedia’s Flooxer suspense reality Rabia.

The story is inspired by Asian microdramas, according to RTVE. Set in a boarding school, it brings together Spanish content creators such as Sergio Bueno, Ricard García, Dafne and Allen Vicente, YosoyAnix and Pablo Triviño.

Although it will be the first microdrama (with one-to-three-minute episodes) for RTVE’s youth platform, it won’t be its first vertical fiction. In 2019, Playz premiered the transmedia series Una nochevieja inolvidable, produced by Boomerang, and in 2020 launched Circular, a horror story set in the Madrid metro and produced with La Caña Brothers.

While the boom in vertical microdramas that originated in Asia is gaining momentum in markets such as the US and Latin America, the phenomenon remains nascent in Spain. Atresmedia has already unveiled its first project, and other players including Mediaset España and Banijay Iberia have confirmed they are also developing content in this format.

This week at Content London, experts predicted that consolidation in the sector is imminent.

“In the last three years, around 1,500 new vertical video apps have launched, but today only 539 apps remain active, so churn is extremely high,” said Olivier Bernard, co-founder and chief operating officer at Kedoo Entertainment, at C21’s event. With a new wave of investors circling the space and some major US players taking stakes in microdrama companies, that figure will shrink to around 50, he estimated.