The titles are provocative and extremely clickable: \u201cFound a Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas.\u201d \u201cI Became My CEO\u2019s Darkest Secret.\u201d \u201cHow to Tame a Silver Fox.\u201d<\/p>\n
The videos are equally soapy, seductive and to the point. With each lasting just a minute to 90 seconds, they have to be.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the world of short dramas, which TheWrap first wrote about <\/a>one year ago and have exploded in revenue and viewership since then.<\/p>\n In just four years since the launch of these vertical dramas, the genre\u2019s market has surpassed $8 billion globally, according to Media Partners Asia, with the vast majority of that figure coming from China.<\/p>\n Once dismissed as a niche Chinese trend, short dramas are now one of the fastest-growing scripted formats \u2014 and Hollywood\u2019s studios, producers and investors are finally catching on. Fox Entertainment<\/a> has invested in one of the major players, and Telemundo Studios<\/a> is producing its own adaptations. SAG-AFTRA and WGA have also made vertical agreements to protect their guild members and give them opportunities to work in the market.<\/p>\n These sensationalized mini-videos captivate young audiences whose attention spans have already been whittled down by TikTok. Each vertical short film has a run time of 60 to 100 minutes but is divided into about 90-second episodes, each one ending with a juicy cliffhanger while the next chapter is just a scroll away.<\/p>\n Users get the first eight to 10 episodes for free, but must pay to unlock the rest of the content. The leading apps use coin-based models, subscription services (with some costing up to $19.99 per week) and ad-supported tiers to make a profit off of addicted audiences. And as the addictive nature of scrolling-based video apps like TikTok has already been proven, getting viewers hooked is the name of the game.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n With the top series garnering over 350 million views a piece, the short dramas are not just a fad.\u00a0Just as TikTok\u2019s dominance cemented itself over the last few years, so have Chinese short dramas or \u201cDuanju,\u201d which have since exploded around the world and, in particular, the United States as companies have adapted the programming for Western audiences with English-language dramas, using AI to dub content into other languages.<\/p>\n In-app revenue from short drama apps in the U.S. grew 20% quarter-on-quarter, reaching nearly $350 million in the first quarter, according to Sensor Tower<\/a>. As major film and television studios take their production elsewhere, verticals have profited off of the local on-and-off screen talent in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, making content for a fraction of the price. The budget for a vertical series is anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 with an eight- to 10-day production cycle.<\/p>\n