Microdramas Are Exploding and Stretching Studios Between Vertical Reach and Horizontal Depth.

The biggest film and TV industry event, MIPCOM 2025, is set to start today, bringing together professionals from all over the world, including the team from allrites. Inspired by MIPCOM’s sessions and conversations around emerging formats, we once again turn our attention to one of the year’s most talked-about trends, Microdramas, also known as vertical dramas, vertical entertainment, or whichever term you prefer.

Before we get into new angles, let’s look at the numbers that explain why MIPCOM and other global markets are paying such close attention to this format.

In 2024, the Chinese Microdrama industry reached USD 6.91 billion, growing by roughly 34.9 percent year-on-year, marking the first time that Microdrama revenue surpassed the national box office. It was also projected that by 2025, the industry would exceed USD 9.3 billion. (China Daily) In June 2024, Microdrama viewership in China stood at 576 million people, accounting for 52.4 percent of all internet users. 

Outside China, the global short-drama platform market was valued at USD 6.54 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to USD 7.21 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, the broader “internet Microdrama” market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of around 7.8 percent between 2024 and 2030. In Asia specifically, Omdia reported that DramaBox’s app store revenue jumped from USD 8 million in 2023 to USD 217 million in 2024. 

At allrites, we recently discussed the global Microdrama boom and its economic logic, but this time we want to take a closer look at new developments. In this article, we’ll examine how Microdramas fit into the current fight for big and small screens, and what recent moves by global players suggest about the next phase of this fast-growing format.

Rising Quality in Microdrama Production

We’ve already discussed how affordable Microdrama production tends to be (ranging from $ 2,000 to $ 300,000), and that has been one of the defining traits of the format. Compared with Hollywood or even most independent features, the costs are remarkably low because the teams behind them are small, and the cast often consists of students, newcomers, or professionals still early in their careers.

Yet in Microdramas, this simplicity is not a weakness but a core idea behind the format itself. What matters most is not the scale of production but the strength of the story and its ability to trigger emotion and tension within a few minutes, leaving the viewer with a lasting impression despite the short runtime. After all, every triggered viewer equals a paying viewer.

Offering compact, emotional stories that fit into the most minor breaks in a person’s day has always been the purpose of the format. People watch them in queues, on public transport, or during quick pauses at work, and still find themselves pulled into moments that feel urgent and dramatic in the span of two or three minutes.

Now that the format has proven its commercial potential, more companies are seeking to elevate its quality by bringing in larger investors, experienced producers, and well-known creatives. One of the most ambitious moves in this direction comes from MicroCo, a new venture between Cineverse and Banyan Ventures, led by industry veterans Lloyd Braun (former head of ABC and Yahoo! Media) and Dan March, CEO of Dynamic Television. They aim to elevate Microdrama’s standards by combining the short-form energy of the format with the expertise of writers, showrunners, and producers who have worked on high-profile projects like House of Cards and The Walking Dead.

According to the founders, many existing Microdrama platforms were built with monetization as their primary focus, often at the cost of user experience. MicroCo claims its approach will be different: it intends to preserve the agility and low-cost production that make Microdramas work while improving storytelling, genre diversity, and overall creative polish. The venture plans to commission content that feels cinematic but remains true to the format’s bite-sized rhythm, aiming to expand beyond romance into action, thriller, and mystery without losing the immediacy that defines mobile-first storytelling.

For now, we will have to wait until MicroCo proves its intentions to build “higher quality, better content from a team that knows how to build iconic IP and shows,” expected to happen in the early part of next year. Still, the company’s goal to reshape a relatively new yet extremely successful format raises an essential question about balance. Higher budgets and recognizable names may increase visibility, but they could also smooth out the raw, fast-paced quality that gave the format its original charm. The coming years will show whether this pursuit of refinement strengthens Microdramas or turns them into something closer to traditional short-form television.

Studios Are Being Pulled in Two Directions: Vertical for Reach, Horizontal for Depth

One of the most intriguing paradoxes in today’s entertainment landscape is that two opposite content supply trends are growing at the same time. On one end, Microdramas and vertical content live on the smallest screens, built for fast consumption and constant engagement. On the other hand, Connected TV (CTV) is designed for the new “living room standard,” attracting premium advertisers, traditional broadcasters, streaming platforms, and even social media apps.

The result is that nowadays the industry is stretching in both directions. Short, mobile-first content satisfies the need for immediacy and accessibility, while long-form, lean-back viewing on large screens fulfills the desire for immersion; and this is not a contradiction but a redistribution of attention. The same person who watches a 90-second Microdrama on the subway on their way to work might later sit down at home to stream a two-hour movie with family at night. The industry has learned that one does not replace the other; instead, both are essential parts of a complete viewing ecosystem.

Social Media Giants Enter the Living Room

To understand how this paradox plays out, it’s worth looking at the platforms themselves. Companies designed for the smallest screens are now expanding upward, while traditional TV players try to capture the habits of the mobile generation.

And of course, we cannot start with any example other than YouTube, whose domain once was user-generated clips and short-form creators. It now leads all streaming platforms in television viewing. According to Nielsen’s February 2025 data, YouTube captured 11.6 percent of total U.S. TV screen time, surpassing Netflix and every prominent streamer. By mid-2025, 36 percent of YouTube’s total viewing hours happened on televisions. In practice, YouTube has become both a short-form platform and a CTV giant, merging mobile spontaneity with living-room familiarity. Yes, YouTube is now one of the leading players in the battle of The Great Media War that we discussed recently.

TikTok, the most influential mobile-first app of the past decade, has also tried to climb this ladder. Its TV app first appeared on devices such as Fire TV and Android TV around 2021, but adoption has been inconsistent. In early 2025, manufacturers including Samsung, LG, Vizio, Amazon, and Apple removed TikTok from their app stores in the United States to comply with new national regulations. Outside the U.S., TikTok remains available on many smart TVs, yet it has not come close to rivaling YouTube’s CTV dominance. YouTube’s advantage lies in its integrated ecosystem, where long and short content coexist, supported by mature ad infrastructure and seamless distribution. The U.S. restrictions on TikTok have only strengthened that lead.

Even Instagram is testing the boundaries of its format. A Bloomberg report confirmed that the company is exploring the creation of a dedicated TV app to bring Reels and other vertical content into the living-room environment. Meta’s executives have said that vertical video “can work in a TV format,” though they do not plan to license premium shows or sports rights (yet?). Analysts at eMarketer note that this could open a lucrative new layer of ad inventory if the company can overcome the challenge of translating swipe-based interaction to a remote control.

The Cross-Screen Future of Microdramas

The paradox works both ways. While mobile-born platforms move toward television, traditional streaming services and broadcasters are moving downward into short-form formats. FAST channels, which once targeted only TV audiences, are being adapted for mobile viewing. Prominent streamers are experimenting with vertical content, shorter-run originals, and gamified viewing experiences to attract younger demographics. The gap between “scroll” and “sit-back” viewing is shrinking by design.

For Microdramas, the convergence of big and small screens presents both an opportunity and a creative challenge. The format was designed for portrait orientation and short bursts of intensity, a few minutes of emotional payoff that fit neatly into any moment of the day. That mobile-native DNA remains its core strength and the whole idea behind the format. Most Microdrama platforms are still built for smartphones, where vertical playback, in-app tipping, and swipe-based discovery shape the experience.

However, as producers invest more in the quality of Microdramas, the question of where that content resides becomes strategic. If higher-budget productions prove successful, it would be only natural for Microdramas to seek new and existing audiences on bigger screens as well, where Connected TV ads deliver stronger CPMs and better long-term returns. In that sense, the gradual move from mobile to TV isn’t leading to revenue optimization.

At the same time, the infrastructure around short-form entertainment is already catching up. Some platforms now allow cross-device streaming through web and smart-TV extensions, showing that the format is no longer confined strictly to handheld viewing. White-label OTT providers and streaming tech firms have started supporting multi-device playback for short-form platforms, making it technically feasible for Microdramas to appear on televisions.

Still, the creative essence of Microdramas lies in their immediacy and intimacy. They were never designed to replace the lean-back rhythm of television, but rather to complement it. Adapting them for larger screens would likely involve grouping multiple episodes into short blocks, reframing the vertical image within cinematic layouts, or creating “TV mode” playlists that mimic the flow of FAST channels.

Microdramas and the Tricky Next Phase of Global Growth

Microdramas are still new, yet they already stand out as one of the most promising content formats in today’s global entertainment arena. Their growth has reached a point where not only short-form platforms, but also major film studios, broadcasters, and gaming companies are taking part in production and app development. Latin America’s Caracol Televisión, for example, recently announced plans to create Microdramas alongside traditional scripted projects, while several Asian platforms are building their own short-form ecosystems. 

Because the format is still young, it is naturally experimental. Every market is testing what works: pacing, genres, tone, orientation, and investment size. Each new version slightly reshapes the idea of what a Microdrama can be. As the format expands beyond its home markets in China, producers and platforms are learning how to adapt it for local audiences without losing the qualities that made it succeed in the first place: emotional intensity, immediacy, and accessibility. The question now is how far this evolution can go before it becomes something entirely different.

For streaming services and platforms outside China, this moment presents a rare opportunity to be among the first to bring Microdramas to your audience and tap into one of the fastest-growing segments of global content consumption. 

License Microdramas through allrites and introduce your viewers to a format that is redefining how the world watches stories, one short episode at a time.

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About allrites

Located in Singapore and globally, allrites is a premier marketplace for buying and selling film, TV, and sports rights. We provide a vast catalog of Film and TV content, from major studios to independent producers, available in any language and genre. Our innovative licensing models, including allrites Content-as-a-Service, offer flexible and efficient content monetization and acquisition solutions, accommodating the evolving needs of content buyers and sellers worldwide.

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