Text | Qiu Hao
Editor | Gong Fangyi
Overbearing CEO, Wealthy Marriage, Mary Sue's Revenge, the short dramas that grabbed the audience's attention in China also quickly became popular overseas.
short drama application reelshort has now firmly established itself in the top five iOS entertainment downloads in the United States. In November last year, they once surpassed tiktok to reach the top and set a record for single-day downloads and revenue. The same is true for
Japanese market. Since the end of January this year, Topshort has climbed from outside 50 to the top ten in Japan’s iOS entertainment download rankings, almost on par with Netflix. Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV) opened a dedicated account for vertical screen short dramas on TikTok in March, with an average of about 3 million views, 1.5 times that of its traditional TV drama account.
reelshort and topshort come from China's online literature platforms Chinese Online and Jia Shu Technology respectively. They used low-cost production, extremely short duration, routine scripts and extremely high marketing investment to successfully replicate the viral spread of short dramas in China and overseas.
Statistics from MIT Technology Review found that the cost of remaking a short drama with European and American actors is about US$150,000 to US$200,000, but it would cost millions of dollars to advertise on platforms such as Google, Meta, and TikTok, and then obtain data. times the revenue from advertising fees.
These overseas short dramas are also catering to local audiences. For example, short dramas in Europe and the United States may add elements of werewolves and vampires, while in Japan there are more modern workplace themes. At the same time, overseas audiences also have to adapt to a new "krypton gold" model that is different from local streaming media subscriptions. The first few episodes of short series are usually free, but once users become addicted, users need to spend money to unlock subsequent episodes, or get a small amount of free rewards by watching ads, checking in, and sharing to social media.
title picture source: pexels
