It is no exaggeration to describe the short drama market as "Surge und Drang".
"Consumption exceeded 100 million in 8 days" "Daily recharge exceeded 20 million" "Hengdian became vertical store" "Market size increased by 267%" "Short drama concept stocks became popular all the way"... There are new wealth myths every day.
So in the short drama industry, is it a legend of getting rich, a scam marketing, or a traffic game?
short plays, causing a storm Since the beginning of
, there have been endless hot searches related to "short plays".
is like a giant scrolling advertisement, exaggerating this contemporary money-making spectacle -
According to reports, there is a couple who earned 400 million in one month;
has a popular screenwriter with a monthly salary of more than 100,000;
Of course, the most popular people are called " Mimeng, the "godmother of the Internet", staged a show about Concubine Xi's return to the palace with the label "Tinghua Island" she actually controls.
Some dramas are hotly discussed, often not because of the content of the drama, but because of its amazing recharge flow.
Last year, there was "Wushuang", which exceeded 100 million in 8 days, and "Please, Don't Pet Me", which broke 30 million in sales. This year, "I was in the 1980s" which "shared a market share of 800 million" from the Spring Festival release. "Stepmother" "Mr. Pei thinks that the father is more valuable than the son every day". The
short play is like the latest and most powerful gold mining trend in this era, attracting countless people to rush in.
Source: dataeye Short Drama Observation
Probably many people, like me, were puzzled by the popularity of short dramas at first: "How can they make so much money from just those crude dramas that I occasionally watch?"
Little did I know. , short dramas have experienced a spurt of development in the past few years. According to the "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2023)", as of December 2022, the number of short video users in China has reached 1.012 billion, and more than half of them have watched micro-short dramas and instant noodles that are less than 3 minutes in length. Fan et al.
user habits have been changed subtly. While we are still questioning, the short drama has already found the most suitable soil for its breeding.
According to the "2023-2024 China Micro-Short Drama Market Research Report" released by iiMedia Consulting, the domestic micro-short drama market size will reach 37.39 billion yuan in 2023, and the market size is expected to reach 100 billion yuan in 2027.
The news that short dramas were released overseas last year also attracted much attention. The number of downloads of the short drama app "reel short" in the US area of the Apple App Store once surpassed tiktok and topped the entertainment list. Adapted into a werewolf-vampire version of the story of Boss that is more suitable for foreign tastes and released overseas, many viewers can't stop.
There is no doubt about the financial power of short plays, but what is even more subversive is the willingness of viewers of short plays to pay.
Nowadays, most of what we discuss are small program short dramas, and this business model has also gone through several stages of evolution. In the article "Short plays, not just the myth of getting rich",
Entertainment analyzed the development of several different types of short plays.
first appeared in micro-short dramas, which were horizontal screen dramas broadcast on long video platforms, but the duration was shortened, and they still relied on copyright + account sharing; then vertical screen short dramas broadcast on short video platforms appeared, Make money by advertising.
The most popular mini program short dramas at the moment break the dependence on platforms and advertisers, and are paid directly by users.
Each episode of the short drama is 1-2 minutes, and the whole drama has dozens or even hundreds of episodes. You can either pay for a single episode (average price 1 yuan/episode), or package and unlock the whole drama (68 yuan, 128 yuan or even higher). A movie ticket from a high-end theater, but the audience couldn’t bear it and was willing to pay for it.
's short play on this business model is like a consumer product that is most suitable for the current moment, ushering in spring.
New business formats in the entertainment market have also opened up.
The film and television industry has changed from its decadent attitude during the epidemic, and has been given a shot in the arm by short dramas and is back to full swing. Countless production crews have started shooting in Hengdian, which has been jokingly called a "vertical store". Extras are also transferred to various major production crews, and from time to time they face labor shortages.
In the past, it was mostly grassroots actors with no resources and no reputation who took on short dramas. Nowadays, more and more serious actors and idols are joining in to get a share of the pie.
Yang Rong, He Landou, Xu Mengjie and other actors have filmed short plays.
In front of us is a cake that is getting bigger and bigger, and people are planning to get involved everywhere.
Traditional film and television companies such as Huace Film and Television, Ningmeng Pictures, and Noon Sunshine have successively exited the short drama market. Even big-name directors such as Stephen Chow and Wong Jing have rolled up their sleeves to join in. Stephen Chow established the comedy label "9527 Theater" ", announcing that the first micro-short drama will be launched in May this year.
seems to be thriving.
Stephen Chow's "9527 Theater"
Some people say that what short dramas are going through nowadays is just like online dramas in their infancy. From being despised by everyone for being low-cost and low-cost, it later became normalized and high-production, and many high-quality films such as "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" were produced.
Perhaps, this is the future of short dramas.
short dramas are also experiencing skyrocketing production costs, the entry of experts from all over the world, and leading companies have also begun to focus on service and picture quality. It can be said that the quality of short dramas is already on the way.
Before long, short plays will wash away the labels of "sinking" and "bottom of the contempt chain" and become an entertainment carrier that has emerged in our era.
But, is this really the case?
Behind the infinite reversal of short dramas
It is true that short dramas and online dramas are similar in terms of their grassroots origins, low production costs, and reliance on the lightest media, but there are essential differences between the two.
can really open a short drama and have a more intuitive experience. Most of the
short dramas have strong plots, plot trends that can be summarized by tags, and highly condensed story development. Rather than being like web dramas, they are more like their direct relatives - web texts, which are visualized in .
The popular mini program short dramas today evolved from short videos to promote online articles. For example, everyone has heard the sentence "That day, I was reborn, reborn in..."
is like It is a hybrid between online articles and short videos. Short dramas seem to be something new, but when you look at them, they are all old content.
The popular themes are the same as those that have been popular on the Internet for several years. The male videos are about son-in-law, god of war, cultivating immortals, and conspiracy... The female videos are about time travel, sweet pets, revenge, and house fighting...
Early The short drama IP "The Crooked Dragon King" is a typical male video article
Like "The Eighties" which became popular at the beginning of the year, it is a typical time travel.
The heroine woke up and found that she was reborn in the body of a girl with a miserable life experience in the 1980s. She was rejected by her adoptive parents and made things difficult for her by villains. The heroine used her modern thinking to open up a wonderful road of fighting monsters and upgrading. .
A very common setting, right? However, short plays are not only film and television web texts, but also absorb the essence of short video algorithms on this basis, that is, they are addictive. How is
addictive? The answer given in the short play is infinite reversal.
The short drama industry has its own standardized rules for creation. Character information must be established within 5 seconds, and there must be a reversal within 10 seconds. Conflicts must be created, reversals, and reversals to continue to arouse the audience's curiosity.
The main purpose of the short drama is to prevent the audience from being upset.
TV series have a similar creative logic. We will also be scratched by the unclear ending, and we are eagerly waiting for the second episode to be broadcast. The short drama makes this suspense denser and more intense. Even more bloody.
Media Knowledge has summarized the hit logic based on the finished short drama. How to control the story process in each episode can be quantified.
Source: Zhiwei
In the eyes of industry insiders, the direct feedback of these plot reversals is to make the audience pay. They call such nodes "payment points" or "hooks". The payment model of
is exactly the same as that of online articles, where you need to recharge to unlock after watching a few chapters. The plot of the short play has progressed to the most exciting moment, the audience's emotions have been aroused, and then there is the recharge interface.
At this time, the desire of "I must see the next episode!" takes over. Similar to this, there are game krypton gold and paid AV, which are all impulsive consumption driven by emotions.
In this process, the immediate reward mechanism makes happiness so readily available. Dopamine is strongly stimulated like an inexhaustible oil well. The next second it is satisfied, our brain's need for dopamine will be even stronger.
continues in a cycle, and addiction is achieved.
And this addictive mechanism has been verified countless times on short video platforms. Contemporary people have long been so eager for instant pleasure, right?
Watch movie and TV drama commentary, develop double-speed viewing, or watch cuts without watching the feature film. The fast-paced and high-pressure life has already driven people to the edge of addiction, and short dramas are like consumer products tailor-made for this user habit.
The use of short videos as movie commentary has long been common.
is like walking into a world that has been pressed on the accelerator button, running all the way under the illogical plot, leaving only burning emotions.
The performance mode of the short play does not need to be careless, because the scenes that appear in a few seconds are not enough to prepare the actors. The actors are required to quickly perform exaggerated emotions such as crying, laughing, and slapping.
Actress Ma Qiuyuan, who is well-known for her short plays, found that after she performed four short plays in a month and a half, she "began to have trouble remembering words, her performances were mechanized, and she couldn't even get into the role."
skit actors were also burned.
Ma Qiuyuan once starred in "The Black Lotus Handbook"
The popularity of short dramas is like a fire. The brightly lit film and television base, the employees who are so busy that they are dizzy, and the people who continue to rush into the short drama market are all placed on the fire. Dance like crazy.
We are witnessing the Nuggets craze that has once again swept the country since the live broadcast of goods, and is still expanding infinitely.
But, can everyone really make a lot of money?
Making short plays that can make money is far from being as simple as imagined.
industry savior or traffic game
hot money has indeed made strides into the short drama track. The market size will increase by 267.67% in 2023, and the market size is expected to reach 100 billion yuan in 2027. The return on investment on the books of
is also impressive. It is said that when the box office of this year's Spring Festival stalls broke the record, the short drama abruptly took away a big piece of cake from the Spring Festival stalls, directly stealing 800 million yuan of market share.
is exposed to several hot searches a day, new gold nugget myths are constantly emerging, and there are more and more zeros behind the money-making value... The media's intensity in promoting new trends can be said to be getting more and more intense.
allows us to take a closer look at the truth behind the hot search #a couple earns more than 400 million per month by doing short plays# -
Source: Entertainment Management
"A Couple" is actually a new media that is deeply involved in the online literature market Dana, a business owner, almost went public before, so they are by no means an ordinary couple.
"earns more than 400 million per month", but the income is not equal to the net income. Monthly expenses must be included. In fact, the investment cost of the short drama industry accounts for 80% or more of the income. The original words of the industry leader are: Gross The interest rate is actually only 15%.
You see, many industry miracles may be the result of sensational rhetoric.
In the short drama market, Sturm und Drang is real, but is it really making money every day? Hard to tell.
First of all, the short drama industry chain includes three major links, the platform, the producer and the distributor.
Source: Daily People
If you look at the accounts of short drama production practitioners, you will find that overwork and disorderly exploitation are common here.
The shooting cycle of the short drama is very short, and it takes about a week to complete. The actors wish that 10 days were compressed into 5 days, and they work for 20+ hours continuously. It is common for young actors to collapse.
In addition to the big hit, the actors' pay is about the same as filming a horizontal screen drama, but it is more tiring. Unfortunately, the film and television industry has been hit hard after the epidemic, and young actors cannot get roles and have no choice but to "go to the sea."The production cost of
short dramas is usually 300,000-700,000, and the budget is always tight. In addition, industry standards have not yet been established, and the staff behind the scenes have multiple roles, so there is a serious case of deductions at all levels.
Source: Tongtongjiang in Shanghai It’s hard to say whether
is good or not, but it must be fast and economical. The hit rate is generally around 10%, and the key to making a hit is not production, but distribution.
Streaming refers to cutting short drama materials into promotional videos and then placing them in the information flow of short video platforms, hoping to be seen by target users and attract payment. This is a distribution link. The streaming fee for
short plays can account for up to 90% of the total cost. Platforms usually adopt a bidding advertising model and determine exposure through bidding ranking. Therefore, if you want high exposure, you have to spend a lot of money.
The life cycle of short dramas generally does not exceed 3 months. Free pirated versions will soon be available and will be covered by countless new dramas. The window period for defection is short.
"Moms of the 1980s" had more than 17,000 advertisements in one week after it was launched, including Tencent, Douyin, Weibo, Kuaishou and other leading platforms.
Source: appgrowing
But it doesn’t mean that as long as you spend a lot of money to get traffic, it will definitely become a hit. It depends on ROI (return on investment), that is, the ratio of user recharge amount to traffic purchase cost. ROI is greater than 1.2, it is worth it. Continue to increase traffic.
Therefore, when advertising, you must accurately target users, such as male videos, third- and fourth-tier cities, and 40-year-olds; you must also be good at marketing. A slight change in the editing of the commercial may increase the willingness to open it; you must also keep an eye on the ROI. Sometimes, no matter how you invest, If nothing works, just change to the next one, the drama is just a consumable.
A drama will find more than a dozen streaming companies, and they are also competing with each other. The traffic pool is so big, and the traffic logic is cruel - the winner takes all, and sometimes the victory is based on time, bidding advantages, and materials. subtle differences that are difficult to effectively attribute.
Streaming training website
You see, the short drama ecology is actually a cruel traffic game, even the opposite of making huge profits. The current profit methods are: a lot of trial and error, rapid rotation, small profits but quick turnover.
Who made the money?
Judging from the revenue sharing of upstream and downstream industries, more than 80% of the money is earned by short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.
Source: Daily People
At present, it seems that every link in the short drama industry chain is alienating.
content is not responsible for creative expression, but a product with precisely customized addictive hooks; users do not bring public discussion, but only accurately labeled paid data; content distribution is more like a stock trader, buying and selling with an eye on the market.
We are all consumables on the assembly line. The carnival continues over and over again, and the works will not be left behind.
This is very different from the perception that short plays are popular among the public and are making great progress. Many people even think that short plays are the salvation of the film and television industry.
Source: Douyin
Many short drama viewers said that this is where the demand for entertainment consumption lies. If you don’t choose vertical screen short dramas, you will have to consume the capital-intensive traffic meat, exaggerated appearance and acting skills, and water injection. The plot...is easier to be traumatized by. Although
's short drama is crude, it is interesting. I like how the world is so crazy that I can't understand it.
This implies that the audience voted with their feet.
The traditional film and television industry has rigid production and is no longer close to the needs of the masses. They point to the strong promotion of capital and the fan economy and are unwilling to make progress; short dramas are an emerging market that is still in the ascendant. It absorbs fresh blood, provides more opportunities, and can also attract more investment. .
But we can only remain cautiously optimistic.
After all, the current business model of "production-streaming-user pays" determines that the upper and lower limits of short dramas are narrow, and they are just consumables that cater to the fragmented "micro era".
Audiences who choose short plays to fight against the shoddy creation of capital, and practitioners who are tempted by the myth of sudden wealth and come to dig for gold, meet in short plays. The current situation of
is that they are submerged in the traffic game of the platform. Where
will go in the future can only be left to time.
Reference:
Entertainment Theory - Short plays, not just the myth of getting rich
New Weekly - "I have filmed 30 short plays in two years, and I never think they are low"
Know the danger - Make 100 million a day, short plays are thorough Crazy
Sanlian Life Weekly - Spending 10 million, can you turn a short drama into a hit?
Noon Story - We work on the edge of sudden death: self-reports of short drama practitioners
Daily Characters - Mi Meng is popular, but not the most profitable in short dramas
