Drama waves farewell to TV
By Michael Pickard
04-12-2025
Fresh from delivering his Drama Trends Report at Content London this week, Drama Quarterly’s editor outlines the trends he identified in his presentation, led by M&A, YouTube and vertical microdramas.
How can you possibly sum up the current state of the television business in a matter of minutes? It was a daunting task, just as it has been in each of the last two years I have presented the DQ Drama Trends Report at Content London – a report based on C21 and Drama Quarterly’s coverage of the global scripted industry. Yet this year seemed particularly so, such is the seeming instability of the global business.
That word, ‘instability,’ immediately drives negative connotations – the thought of downs drowning out any highs. Perhaps a better word to sum up this year’s trends report is ‘evolution,’ and how many in the business are navigating the television landscape at the end of an era once known as Peak TV. If anything, that screen in the corner of the living room or bedroom no longer dominates the minds of creatives and executives, following the emergence of new platforms and formats taking the medium far beyond its traditional audience and delivery systems.
It was with the words of forward-looking Fox Entertainment Global president Prentiss Fraser that the DQ Trends report began, after the distribution exec outlined her ambition to work across traditional and new platforms as part of the studio’s growth strategy at home and in the international market.
“It’s about really experimenting and investing in parallel paths. So you look at new models of exploitation and consumption, and run times and where the audience is, and you simultaneously maintain all your traditional models as well,” she told delegates at C21’s Content Canada event in September.
One trend in the wake of Peak TV is evident: companies are embroiled in M&A activity to reduce risk and combine assets at a time of increasingly fragmented audiences. The future of Warner Bros Discovery is of particular note, with the company attracting interest from Paramount, Comcast, Netflix and Saudi Arabia’s PIF, among others, which have been linked with bids for all or some of the company that houses HBO. In the UK, Comcast-owned Sky has also been linked to a proposed purchase of commercial broadcaster ITV. For programme makers, that simply means fewer buyers for new material.
Dean Devlin, producer, showrunner and CEO of Electric Entertainment (The Librarians, Leverage), told us: “Consolidation is always tough on independents, because there are fewer places that we can sell to, and very often as part of these consolidations they have an abundance of product because they’re shutting down the spigots of how the product gets out. That makes it very difficult.”
To YouTube then, which is now the biggest TV platform in the US and one that many traditional players are scrambling to work with as a way to marry content with viewers. No longer simply the home of trailers and clips, full episodes are now being uploaded to build an audience online with the aim of bringing them back to the linear channels or local VoD players.
Broadcasters are even ordering series solely with YouTube in mind – see UK broadcaster Channel 4’s Beth – and ITV Studios’ president of global partnerships Ruth Berry recognises its importance. “It’s about extending the audience and reach we have already in what you’d maybe call more of the traditional TV sector into those social platforms,” she says. “It’s really fascinating to be able to watch, test and learn.”
But it’s the vertical microdrama space that is the hottest topic at the moment, with Ampere Analysis finding one in 10 internet users have watched drama episodes lasting 10 minutes or less, with YouTube and TikTok the leading destinations, not to mention apps such as My Drama, GoodShort and ReelShort showcasing hundreds of addictive romance and fantasy series.
After making their first vertical programme, Welsh-language Yr Alwad (The Call) for S4C’s TikTok channel Hansh, Mojo Productions MD Llyr Morus tells us that microdramas can also be the perfect format to develop new talent, from writers, directors and actors to editors and composers. He further identifies the opportunity to use microdrama platforms as an incubator for new series, testing ideas and building audiences online before taking those projects back to traditional commissioners.
“It’s development money being spent as it always has, but in a different way and, in a way, it gives better results and greater value for money because there’s actual content being shared with the audience,” he says.
Despite the ongoing struggles facing the business, which may soon be fronted by AI ‘characters’ like Tilly Norwood, it seems there is plenty of room for optimism and growth – it’s just moving further away from television as we used to know it.
