As lengthy Oscar nominees like One Battle After Another and Avatar: Fire and Ash compete to test the bladder capacities of Academy voters, a new breed of ultra-short-form scripted dramas are gaining traction on vertical video platforms. It seems the wider the screen, the longer the content, and when it comes to mobile apps, these snack-sized “microdramas” are already doing huge business in Asia; figures from Omdia suggest microdramas generated $11 billion in global revenues last year, with China accounting for 83 percent of total revenues.
But the vertical drama industry is also seeing rising interest in Europe, where the adoption of AI tools is spurring production of microdramas, which are then distributed on TikTok and YouTube, as well as dedicated apps. At the same time, established US media companies are looking to AI-assisted short-form video to drive engagement on their streaming services, in efforts to compete with the social video platforms.
Flipping the script
Microdramas are scripted series designed for mobile viewing, with episodes typically running 1-3 minutes, and 60-80 episodes per series. They tend to lean into the romance and fantasy genres with high-concept hooks and cliffhangers galore, often involving werewolves, mafia bosses and werewolf mafia bosses. Some of the most popular titles include The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband and Fated to My Forbidden Vampire.
If these sound like the feverish creations of AI, that is because they are, at least partially. Sasha Tkachenko, Head of Studio at My Drama, a microdrama app owned by Ukranian firm Holywater, says AI is used in every stage of the production process, from script writing to localisation.
“We also use it strongly for editing, music, and to generate wolves etc,” Tkachenko tells VideoWeek.
Not only is this a lot easier than wrangling real wolves, it considerably reduces production costs. Philip McGoldrick, Co-Founder of UK-based vertical drama app Tattle TV, says microdrama apps require a high volume of content, and AI enables studios to meet that demand at low cost. The company works with Luma AI to format video content for mobile, and is also building its own AI systems.
“Having high costs is not very effective for user retention,” says McGoldrick. “It’s about finding a combination of, how do you create a lot of content without it being too expensive, but also do it with quality? Because you can definitely amp up the quality, and it can look way more like a Netflix show if you want it to. It just gets more expensive.”
For the time being, My Drama uses human actors for its lead characters, and Tkachenko notes that “a good-looking male actor is a driving force of verticals.” The app’s core audience is women aged 18-54, and its core genres are romance and melodrama, “sometimes with a twist.” In a recent US survey from Hub Entertainment Research, 20 percent of viewers cited “attractive actors” as a reason they watch microdramas.
“Quick and easy to watch” (47 percent) and “Can watch anywhere” (37 percent) were also cited as major factors – though the 30 percent of people who consider these “relatable stories” do raise some troubling questions. But given the convenience factor, it follows that these vertical formats have taken off in mobile-first markets such as Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. According to Ampere Analysis, around one-third of internet users aged 18-64 in these markets say they have watched a mini-drama on social media in the past month.
Marketing microdramas
In Europe however, engagement lags behind the levels seen in Asia. Spain sees the highest engagement in the region, according to Ampere, but even there the proportion of internet users who have seen a mini-drama only sits at seven percent. This presents a challenge for companies looking to reach European audiences who are more used to consuming scripted content on TV, especially older consumers who do not use TikTok, while catering to different languages across the region also makes it harder to break into the European market.
“There will be both a marketing and discovery challenge in Europe,” comments Minal Modha, Research Director at Ampere. “Older audiences in the region are still more wedded to linear TV than regions like the US. They are also 14 percent less likely to use social media platforms and 56 percent less likely to watch TikTok. Conversely, those who watched mini-dramas in the region skew significantly towards Gen Z. They are 69 percent more likely to be aged 18-24.”
For those younger users, microdrama companies leverage Gen Z audiences on social media platforms, by buying traffic on TikTok and Meta, and targeting ads to users. They can then bring viewers onto their own apps, where users can watch with ads, pay for episodes or subscriptions, or spend in-app tokens they earn by watching content.
“That kind of gamification element works really well with vertical drama,” explains Tattle TV’s McGoldrick. “The hooks and the cliffhangers are the thing that really gets people drawn in.”
That instant-hook strategy is reportedly paying off for My Drama, which sees its highest European viewership levels in the Netherlands, UK, France, Germany and Poland.
“Our main idea is to get you hooked and interested for the first three seconds, and then get converted into the platform,” says Tkachenko. “It’s paid traffic, much like mobile games, they strongly rely on this monetisation system too.”
Vertigo in vertical?
But Tattle TV is hoping to attract new audiences by also serving up more traditional content, such as reality formats and classic TV shows, with a specific focus on British content. Last week, the company announced the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s 99-year-old silent classic The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog in vertical format. If the experiment is successful, the studio hopes to “reintroduce” more landmarks of British cinema, potentially including working with the BFI archives to repurpose classic films for mobile environments.
“That for us is going to be a strategy to leverage new audiences, British ones particularly,” says Marina Elderton, Co-Founder of Tattle TV. “If there’s recognisable cultural phenomena that we can repurpose, the strategy would be to then get people onto the app out of curiosity, who don’t even know what vertical is, but they’ve just read about it, they’re interested to see what it is.”
While sure to attract attention, the strategy also risks drawing criticism from cinephiles who may not look too kindly on using AI to reformat Hitchcock films for mobile phones.
“There’ll definitely be a backlash, for sure,” says McGoldrick. “But I think what AI can do really effectively is reintroduce us to our own humanity, because we can spotlight the BFI, we can shine a light on the archives and say, if you want to see the originals, it’s out there. It’s kind of a crossover between the modern world and the old world. And if it’s fun, people will forgive us!”
“If it still draws you into a beautiful piece of work, why not explore it?” adds Elderton. “We’ve been fantasising about doing Monty Python in vertical, and I’d love to go back into the oeuvre of our child nostalgic stuff, like Supermarket Sweep or Crystal Maze in vertical. I would love that, and I could really imagine it working with British audiences.”
As filmmakers themselves, Elderton and McGoldrick see part of their mission as helping to preserve a struggling British film industry. The sector was hit hard by the pandemic and then the Hollywood strikes, compounded by the rise of AI, and in 2024 unemployment levels reached 52 percent, according to UK trade union Bectu.
“I think scepticism in the UK and Europe is what’s keeping us behind the Americans and the Chinese, because they are way more willing and quick to adapt to the AI landscape,” remarks McGoldrick. “If you’re spending more on marketing because you’re trying to compete with the whole TikTok and Instagram world, then you’re going to have lower and lower production costs and spend, and therefore unemployment. And that’s literally what’s happened in the UK.”
“We went to film school, that’s where we met, and to me, there is a tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes,” says Elderton. “But instead of just crying and complaining on the sidelines, we need to get involved and re-inject life back into it all. So that is also part of our mission, to support our fellow filmmakers and creatives in the UK, and just see where we can take it.”
Wider audiences
Cinema is also on the horizon for My Drama’s brand of snackable, AI-driven scripted content, albeit in horizontal format. Tkachenko predicts the cinema industry will increasingly seek to cater to younger audiences and the types of content to which they have grown accustomed.
“Gen Z are not used to the slow pacing of cinematic content,” she observes. “Every year, the content gets faster. And it’s not only about verticals. You can see it on Netflix and Hulu shows. They are faster than they were even two years ago. So I think it’s only a question of time, when the cinema is going to get there.”
At the moment, major US studios are already integrating vertical and short-form video feeds into their streaming services. Disney is working on a short-form product for Disney+, including plans to integrate user-generated content (UGC) based on Disney’s IP via its partnership with OpenAI. Netflix has also announced it is building a short-form feature, while Paramount is reportedly considering adding a short-form video feed to its streaming service, potentially including UGC.
And in October, FOX Entertainment announced its entry into the vertical video space with an equity stake investment in Holywater, owner of My Drama. The strategic partnership will see the companies collaborate on original vertical video series, and “potential integration of popular FOX Entertainment IP.”
Tkachenko says My Drama is planning to produce around 200 vertical series with FOX Entertainment, some of which are already on the platform, such as High-Stakes Heartthrob and Swapped Bodies with My Secret Crush. Meanwhile FOX will look to bring vertical video onto its own platforms, as media companies seek to compete with short-form apps for audience attention.
“I think everyone is looking at different engagement models at the moment,” says Ampere’s Modha. “The entertainment landscape is crowded, and attention is finite, so the next battle will not be around the number of subscribers, but dwell time. And having different types of content on a platform, which may not require a 30-45-minute or 60-minute commitment, may help to increase this. However, there will need to be significant drive from streaming companies to increase awareness of vertical videos on their platforms in order to change audience behaviours and shift the perception that they are only providers of long-form content.”
But Tkachenko notes that several local streaming players already license My Drama’s content and have seen strong results, making vertical video the next battleground for major studios looking to boost their levels of engagement.
“FOX is currently the only US major that has such a big partnership with a vertical platform,” she comments. “I think the amount of people who have phones is way more than the amount of people who have TV screens at home. So sooner or later, I think sooner, verticals won’t be niche. Next year, we’re going to be turning mainstream.”
Follow VideoWeek on LinkedIn.
