During the Spring Festival, it’s not just movies that are popular, but also micro-short dramas that hit the screen.
Two short dramas, "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" and "Mr. Pei Thinks of His Father Every Day" went "viral" during the Spring Festival. It is reported that these two dramas earned over 100 million yuan during the entire winter vacation. Platform data is also running wild. Douyin's short dramas during the Spring Festival had 2.83 billion views, more than five times that of the same period in 2023; Kuaishou's short dramas saw a year-on-year increase of 41%. The short drama industry, which began to experience a blowout last year, is experiencing another wave of glory this Spring Festival.
But at the same time, the popularity of the track is accompanied by high investment costs, and most projects still end in losses. Mature creators have begun to abandon the cooperation method of platform versus investment, and firmly hold the right to speak about copyright and share ratio in their own hands. The short drama industry, which is running wild all the way, may need to start thinking about more diversified monetization channels in the process of moving towards high-quality products.
Many netizens said they were not optimistic about the short drama. They believed that there were traces of plagiarism in the short drama, and the plot could not stand up to scrutiny. It was suitable for entertainment for brainless people, and they would probably get bored after a long time.
A couple earns more than 400 million a month from doing short plays.
A popular screenwriter can earn more than 100,000 a month.
According to the Beijing News, during the Spring Festival, short dramas such as "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" have become popular, and some The recharge of the series reached 20 million yuan on the day it was launched. Dianzhong Technology has bet on a number of projects and has collaborated with Mimeng to release "Mom of the 1980s" and also produced "Good Luck in the Year of the Dragon".
The actual controllers of this Beijing company are Chen Ruiqing and He Chunhong. After penetration, they hold a total of 55.97% of the shares. Chen is the chairman, 52 years old, and manages the company's daily business; He is a director. According to , executives said that since September last year, Dianzhong’s monthly recharge income has stabilized at between 400 and 500 million. The couple have been working together for more than ten years. They established themselves in the Internet literary circle with "Kuaikan Novel" and other products. Unfortunately, they failed to go public. Now they have successfully minted short dramas and got a piece of the cake.
Chen Ruiqing's good luck cannot be separated from one person. "Stepmothers of the 1980s" is a small-scale drama. The series was shot for only 10 days, and 80,000 yuan was invested in the later stage. Together with "Mr. Pei Thinks of Father and Son Every Day", it received over 100 million in recharge income. Both dramas are produced by Tinghuadao, and their actual controller is Mi Meng, whose real name is Ma Ling.
According to Chao News, this year, as more and more film crews have settled in, the opportunities for actors to act are increasing. There is a real-life version of "Boss Boss" who played the second male role just two months after coming to Hengdian; there are also college students who have been in Hengdian for half a year. He has appeared in seven or eight micro-short plays, but at the same time, many crew members of are suffering from the headache of "not enough extras".
The shortage of extras has also caused worries for the Actors Guild of Hengdian Film and Television City. Recently, a large production crew requested "80 extras" from the Screen Actors Guild late at night, but only 50 people were found. In order to fill the vacancies, the crew can only temporarily invite special actors to perform in some scenes. Recently, the Hengdian Actors Guild is increasing the processing time and quota of actor passes to cope with the filming needs of the crew. In addition, systematic training related to film and television performances is also highly sought after locally.
According to the Yangcheng Evening News, many short drama practitioners revealed that the income from the micro-short drama industry is now very considerable. It is understood that the current script quotations for short play screenwriters can be roughly divided into four levels: the first level is less than 15,000 yuan, usually from new screenwriters; the second level is 15,000 to 30,000 yuan, and the screenwriters have produced a few small hits. Or the number of works is larger; the third tier is between 30,000 and 50,000 yuan, and the screenwriter has a big hit or multiple small hits; the fourth tier is more than 50,000 yuan, usually from the head of the industry who has created multiple hit movies. department.
For screenwriters, the biggest part of making money is sharing. The monthly income of popular screenwriters can reach more than 100,000 yuan. It is understood that if the recharge of a short play exceeds 5 million yuan, the screenwriter can receive an additional share, ranging from 5 to 3 percent. Wen Ru, head of Miaobi Xingkong Content Studio, said that can get a share of about 100,000 yuan, taking a small hit product with sales exceeding 5 million yuan as an example.
A number of institutions, actors, and directors also came to an end.
According to Jiemian News, in the short drama market, although the two major short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou are temporarily in the first echelon, it does not mean that other players have no chance to counterattack.At the beginning of the new year, platforms such as WeChat and China Literature began to make frequent moves and secretly increased their investment. Even Douyin, one of the "two strong" companies, mobilized multiple business lines to attack at the same time.
Recently, WeChat quietly launched a short drama section. Search for keywords such as "short drama", and a short drama display section will appear on the search results page. There are also multiple classification words such as sweet pet, passionate, fantasy, sadomasochism , etc. Article, WeChat’s move is equivalent to opening up an exclusive traffic entrance for short dramas. Compared with Douyin and Kuaishou, it is “late but arriving”.
Short drama section
Of course, Tencent does not only have a video account in the short drama track. Recently, Tencent Video launched a short drama recruitment plan in conjunction with QQ Short Video and Tencent Content Open Platform, aiming to attract professional creators through traffic incentives, revenue incentives and other measures. China Literature Group’s short drama platform “Miracle Short Drama” has also been registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and is currently in the internal testing stage.
In addition, Pipixia, a subsidiary of Byte, recently launched an independent short drama app "Pipixia Lite", focusing on the free model. It can be seen that Byte is not willing to let go of any opportunity to acquire users of short dramas. In view of the influence of Pipixia among users born in the 90s and 00s, "Pipixia Lite" is expected to further expand its popularity among young short-form users. The theater's territory among the audience.
According to Shangguan News, more film and television companies, stars, and actors are also entering the short drama market. At the end of January, Douyin announced that it had reached an exclusive high-quality micro-short drama cooperation with Stephen Chow . The two parties will jointly develop and operate the "9527 Theater". The first season of the first high-quality micro-short drama "Golden Pig and Jade Leaves" is expected to be launched in May. The horizontal screen short drama "New Year's Day" starring actor and singer Xu Mengjie was also launched recently, and the feature film has been viewed 790 million times.
"Micro-short dramas are a new form of online audio-visual business, which has been in a stage of explosive growth in the past two years. It is estimated that by the end of last year, the industry scale exceeded 30 billion yuan; it is predicted that by 2027, the output value will exceed 100 billion yuan. Some professional film and television institutions, directors, screenwriters, actors, and capital have successively entered the micro-short drama market." According to Yang Mingpin, deputy director and researcher of the Development Research Center of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the rapid development of micro-short dramas is closely related to its form, artistic characteristics, and The business model is related to "fast pace, multiple reversals, and meeting the consumption needs of users in fragmented time."
Producer: More than 90% of short dramas are actually losing money
Committee members suggested: Short dramas should strengthen their ideological conception
According to Southern Metropolis Daily, producer Qin Xiangmin said that in fact, short dramas have exploded during the Spring Festival this year, which is the first time in the industry that Just an expected phenomenon. "Especially on themes such as returning to the village during the New Year and going on blind dates, many people are doing it in a hurry to get on the Spring Festival schedule," he revealed. Nowadays, due to the popularity of the industry, more investors and hot money have poured in, and the number of dramas online has increased. It is also growing, but in fact many projects of cannot make much money at all or even does not make any money. "Some dramas that are very popular during the Chinese New Year may look very high, but they account for more than 80% of the streams, so they may not actually make much money."
"Nowadays, there are more and more self-made short dramas produced by large platforms, and the industry In fact, they still make the majority of the money, and ordinary companies cannot make much. Many investors investing in this industry now are not traditional investors. They do not rely on this to make money. For them, short drama projects are more of a marketing promotion. Effect." In December last year, Qin Xiangmin lamented that less than 10% of the investors in this track actually made money. Today, he still believes that more than 90% of short drama projects are losing money. Bu Limin, the research manager of
Yien, also said that in the past, the cost was low and the works were shoddy. Now that the industry has reached the point where quality products have become an inevitable trend, actors have become more and more expensive, and the cost has increased a lot.
According to the cover news, during the two sessions, Zhang Kaili, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a famous actor, publicly stated that "small, precise, short and beautiful" should become the direction to lead the high-quality development of the film and television micro-short drama industry, and establish relevant Awards to encourage outstanding film and television short video creations. She proposed to establish a public welfare platform for the content creation of film and television micro-short dramas to provide an inexhaustible source of works.
Regarding the current popularity of micro-short plays, Tian Qinxin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the China National Theater, believes that micro-short plays are suitable for online dissemination because they are "short, flat, and fast", but some of the content is crudely produced and needs to be strengthened in ideological conception to truly Make the audience happy to hear and see. "I think at the ideological level, there needs to be a smarter way so that everyone can feel the ideological conception and let more young people feel the power of Chinese stories." Tian Qinxin said.
editor | Wang Yuelong Yi Qijiang
proofreading | Lu Xiangyong
Daily economic news is synthesized from the Beijing News, Chao News, Yangcheng Evening News, Jiemian News, Shangguan News, Southern Metropolis Daily, Cover News
Daily Economic News
