{"id":21275,"date":"2025-12-19T10:37:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/19\/television-in-titbits-the-rise-of-the-billion-dollar-microdrama-industry\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T10:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T09:37:19","slug":"television-in-titbits-the-rise-of-the-billion-dollar-microdrama-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/19\/television-in-titbits-the-rise-of-the-billion-dollar-microdrama-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Television in titbits: the rise of the billion-dollar microdrama industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment?<\/p>\n

If you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty<\/a>, Amazon Prime\u2019s breakout<\/a> YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be familiar with the plight of Henley and Luca. The star-crossed lovers of a short-form video series called Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend \u2013 plot self-explanatory \u2013 have made waves on TikTok with yearning stares and \u201cI\/we can\u2019t do this\u201d drama that echo the many fan edits of beloved TV couple Belly and Conrad. But whereas The Summer I Turned Pretty explored its central tension over 40-minute episodes on streaming, Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend, produced by a short-form company called CandyJar, distilled its appeal to its barest essences: sexual tension hook, escalating line and cliffhanger sinker, all within two-minute \u201cepisodes\u201d on your phone. Without even meaning to or really wanting to, I watched the first 10 chapters (of 44) in one 15-minute gulp \u2013 and I\u2019m not the only one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hollywood is hoping that you, too, will be hooked. Though Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend may not look like a typical Hollywood product \u2013 in fact, it resembles some mix of teen show, soap opera and amateur fan-cam edit \u2013 the industry is investing heavily in the future of series like it: low-budget, mobile-only \u201cmicrodramas\u201d<\/a> with episodes between 60 and 90 seconds. These shows, also known as \u201cverticals\u201d for their phone orientation, have already become widely popular in China, where mobile screens dominate entertainment even more than in the US. In just three years, revenue for serialized short-form drama in China rose<\/a> from $500m in 2021 to $7bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $16.2bn by 2030. The global microdrama market for 2025 is estimated at anywhere from $7bn to 15bn \u2013 and booming, with nearly triple revenue growth<\/a> for microdrama companies outside China in the past year.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nHollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment?
\nIf you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Prime\u2019s breakout YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be familiar with the plight of Henley and Luca. The star-crossed lovers of a short-form video series called Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend \u2013 plot self-explanatory \u2013 have made waves on TikTok with yearning stares and \u201cI\/we can\u2019t do this\u201d drama that echo the many fan edits of beloved TV couple Belly and Conrad. But whereas The Summer I Turned Pretty explored its central tension over 40-minute episodes on streaming, Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend, produced by a short-form company called CandyJar, distilled its appeal to its barest essences: sexual tension hook, escalating line and cliffhanger sinker, all within two-minute \u201cepisodes\u201d on your phone. Without even meaning to or really wanting to, I watched the first 10 chapters (of 44) in one 15-minute gulp \u2013 and I\u2019m not the only one.
\nHollywood is hoping that you, too, will be hooked. Though Loving My Brother\u2019s Best Friend may not look like a typical Hollywood product \u2013 in fact, it resembles some mix of teen show, soap opera and amateur fan-cam edit \u2013 the industry is investing heavily in the future of series like it: low-budget, mobile-only \u201cmicrodramas\u201d with episodes between 60 and 90 seconds. These shows, also known as \u201cverticals\u201d for their phone orientation, have already become widely popular in China, where mobile screens dominate entertainment even more than in the US. In just three years, revenue for serialized short-form drama in China rose from $500m in 2021 to $7bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $16.2bn by 2030. The global microdrama market for 2025 is estimated at anywhere from $7bn to 15bn \u2013 and booming, with nearly triple revenue growth for microdrama companies outside China in the past year. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hollywood is betting big on vertical microdramas told in chunks under two minutes. Can a gimmick turn into a new form of entertainment? If you have been anywhere close to the social media blast radius of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon Prime\u2019s breakout YA series on a tortuous teen love triangle, you may be …<\/p>\n

Television in titbits: the rise of the billion-dollar microdrama industry<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21275"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}