With a daily income of more than 10 million and a cost of less than 1 million, 500 million people love to watch short dramas, how profitable is it
The short drama market in 2023 is not an exaggeration to describe it as "chaotic and charming". Although everyone shouted the slogan of "consumption downgrade" this year, the audience who enjoyed the refreshing feeling in the skit was willing to pay for the ferocity of their superiors.
The short drama "Provocation" has earned more than 8 million in two weeks after it was broadcast, and the broadcast volume of "Escape from the British Museum" with only 3 episodes has exceeded 1 billion; and the mini program drama has gone international with an ancient love story and is thriving in overseas markets...
I have to admit that the skit completely broke out.
Skit, all the way
According to data from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the number of short dramas recorded in 2022 will reach 2,775, a year-on-year increase of nearly 600%. The report "Current Situation, Problems and Development Trends of Micro-short Drama Creation" predicts that the number of short drama filings in 23 years will reach 3,500.
And now most short video platform short dramas and mini program short dramas do not need to be recorded, and if they are added, it will be more exaggerated.
is soaring all the way, not only the volume of the short drama market, but also the content of the short drama itself.
Nowadays, the concept of short dramas has been subdivided into three types: a single episode of short dramas on long video platforms such as Aiyouteng is generally about 10 minutes; On short video platforms such as Doukuai, short dramas within 3 minutes and about 20 episodes occupy the mainstream; and the single episodes of small program dramas that broke out this year are also 1~3 minutes, but the number of episodes is often 100+.
But no matter how the short drama develops and changes in form, the core characteristics are very fixed, that is, the volume is small, refreshing, and fast-paced.
Compared with traditional dramas, short dramas are more lightweight, generally no more than 15 minutes per episode, and are an excellent pastime for fragmented time. On the crowded commuting road, migrant workers can easily follow the protagonists through most of the love and killing.
Although the short drama is short, it has all the elements and has a clear label. Not only are the "main ingredients" exciting enough, but the "accessories" are also varied, and when superimposed, they can satisfy the diverse appetites of the audience at once.
For example, "Donglan Snow" focuses on "Female A Male O", that is, women dominate the CP relationship. The prince and the revenge palace maid "Qiangqiang" joined forces to stage a sweet and abusive "two-way redemption" in the "conspiracy". This kind of CP collocation is relatively rare on the screen, but it is not new in online articles.
In the limited duration, the short drama not only opens the "double-speed plot", but also adds intensive reversals.
We studied the plot content of the first six episodes of "Twenty-Nine". In this short drama with a single episode of less than 3 minutes, each episode will have 1~3 turns, especially at the end, there must be a reversal of high energy.
Take, for example, the plot of the first episode. In the "Golden 7 Seconds" at the beginning, Yuan Pei (the original partner) discovered that her husband was cheating. As the plot progressed, Yuan Pei did not tear it directly after knowing it, but chose to lurk beside Lu Xiaoshan (Xiao San) to observe. thought that Yuan Pei's revenge drama would unfold perfectly, but she didn't expect Lu Xiaoshan to smile contemptuously at the end: it turned out that she had already recognized Yuan Pei at the first sight of meeting.
With a rapidly expanding supply and a high-energy plot throughout, short dramas have become a "necessity of life" for many audiences.
According to the "2023 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", as of December 2022, the number of short video users in mainland China reached 1.012 billion. Among these billion users, 50.4% have watched micro-short dramas and instant noodles within 3 minutes in the past six months. The daily active users of short dramas on the Kuaishou platform alone have exceeded 260 million.
The "myth" of polarization
Nowadays, the traditional short dramas on video platforms are no longer accompanied by the label of "vulgar", and have become the embodiment of "small but beautiful". We counted 11 short dramas with a Douban score of more than 7 points, and the word-of-mouth of many of them exceeded the big productions broadcast in the same period.
These high-scoring skits have a unique recipe for success.
For example, "False Face" and "Donglan Snow" are all out of the circle with their pictures and atmosphere, and they are praised as "very friendly to the audience's eyes". "Big Mom's World" and "Escape from the British Museum" are the triumphs of the theme: the former uses humorous ways to depict the life of Chinese aunts, which is quite humane, and the latter combines the actual theft of the British Museum to hit the social mood with the theme of cultural relics loss.
In the comment area of these short dramas, you can often see such an exclamation: Are the current short dramas already so rolled?
That's right, on the video platform, short dramas are crazy "involution upwards".
Hua Chuang Securities believes that short dramas are fast businesses with low thresholds, low investment and quick returns. However, on the video platform, the revenue of short dramas mainly depends on the "account-sharing model", and the final account-sharing is directly related to the number of effective broadcasts and project ratings. This determines that the short drama must roll in to "high quality" in order to stand out in the fight at all stages.
The influx of capital is also fueling the involution of short dramas. Because of the low cost of trial and error and the broad market, many leading production companies have begun to test the waters in the short drama track. The producer of "Twenty-Nine" is Ningmeng Film and Television, which filmed "Little Huanxi" and "Twenty Don't Confuse".
The involuted short drama has produced a lot of "popular myths". According to the public information of various video platforms and drama parties, "Please! Don't Spoil Me" has a cumulative account share of more than 32 million, and this year's account-sharing champion is not surprisingly "Provoked", and the current account-sharing income of this drama has exceeded 20 million.
But inevitably, the cost of skits is also involuted. The person in charge of the "Please, Don't Spoil Me" project revealed in an interview that the production cost of this drama is 20 million, and the publicity and distribution cost also costs millions. The era of hundreds of thousands and millions seems to be a thing of the past.
The market under the market
At the same time that the traditional short drama entered the cooling-off period, another hit was quietly born.
The shoddy cover, the brainless plot, the direct visual impact... At first glance, you may be full of question marks: That's it?
But it is such a seemingly rough mini-program short drama, but it has opened the door to the payment of video platforms that have been repeatedly defeated.
Mini program short dramas are often sliced and placed on the Doukuai platform, guiding users to click on Douyin or WeChat mini programs to chase dramas. Search for the keyword "short drama" in WeChat, and you can see a large number of mini-programs for chasing dramas.
The core of the content of the mini program short drama that evolved from the information flow advertisement is still "Shuangwen". Although the look is very "earthy", this kind of "earth" is a cheesy but irresistible routine, and it is a cool point densely arranged in the most straightforward way.
At present, among the themes of mini program short dramas, classic male frequency themes such as God of War and counterattack are still the main force.
When the full-screen slapping behavior makes the audience's endorphins secrete wildly, the simple scenery and rough production are not so important.
The short drama "Wushuang" slaps the face
However, this refreshing feeling has already been secretly marked with a price. When your expectations have been filled and you are waiting for a god turn, the Mini Program suddenly pops up a payment reminder - if you want to finish it, you can, give money.
A small program is generally in 80~100 episodes, and it often starts to be charged in the 8th~12th episode, ranging from a few cents to two or three yuan per episode, and if you want to watch the whole drama, it will cost dozens or even hundreds of yuan. In addition to paying for a single episode, viewers can also choose membership models such as monthly and annual subscriptions.
Once upon a time, when it came to the "crooked-mouthed dragon king", netizens were still full of banter and contempt. Unexpectedly, a few years later, this bullet hit his eyebrows. A large number of viewers who were attracted by the free plot were passionately consuming on the top, and they recharged I don't know how many 19.9.
"Oops! The Queen Mother Comes to Work" broke 12 million yuan in 24 hours, "After the Flash Marriage, Mr. Fu's Vest Can't Hide" broke 20 million yuan in 24 hours, and "Wushuang" broke 300 million yuan in two months after it was launched...
The savage growth of the mini program skit has become a new myth maker.
According to a relevant interview with Snow Leopard Finance Agency, 100 episodes of mini program short dramas can be filmed in two or three days, and the production cost generally does not exceed one million.
Although the carrier of the entire paid short drama industry is mainly contributed by WeChat mini programs, the users mainly come from the giant engine (the marketing service platform of Douyin Group). There is a unified standard for measuring the success of Mini Program skits and dramas: delivery consumption. Consumption to one million is considered high-quality, and when it reaches 10 million, it will explode.
Wang Xiaoshu, founder of Jiashu Technology, said that the purchase cost of mini program short dramas should account for 80%~90% of the total box office. According to the battle report published by the drama party, the hit drama "Wushuang" was launched for 48 hours, and the purchase consumption has exceeded 55 million.
After removing the high delivery fees, the mini program skits may not be as profitable as imagined, but this is still a low-cost, high-return fast business.
However, with the intensification of supervision, the domestic paid short drama market has entered a "double heaven of ice and fire", on the one hand, investors and practitioners have followed one another, and on the other hand, a large number of short dramas have been removed from the shelves, and the subject matter has also been subject to many restrictions. "Black Lotus Upper Position Manual" was removed from the shelves after only 5 days of broadcast due to "extreme revenge".
At the same time as the scale of the domestic market is tightening, short dramas have exploded overseas.
After going overseas, the content of the mini program skits remained unchanged, but the main channel was changed to the App. A few days ago, ReelShort, a subsidiary of Chinese Online, surpassed Tik Tok in the U.S. App Store in terms of downloads and jumped to the top of the rankings, attracting a lot of attention. As a result, the stock price of Chinese Online has soared all the way, doubling in just half a month.
According to Sensor Tower, as of November 16, ReelShort's net flow in November reached $4.75 million, far exceeding the $3.506 million in October, a significant increase from the previous month.
However, unlike the domestic market, middle-class women overseas are the main force to watch short dramas. The local shells of "werewolves" and "vampires" on the theme of "boss" are still killed, while male frequency themes such as "Son-in-law" and "God of War" are frequently muted and have encountered a crisis of adaptation.
Like the plot of Hurricane, the development of the short drama has also pressed the "double speed button".
From savage growth to calming down to finding a new exit, in only three or four years, the skit seems to have gone through the first half of its long life.
How long can Mr. Ba go to sea to be popular? Can interactive short dramas be scaled up? Where will the wind of short dramas blow?
The future of skits is unpredictable. But what is certain is that no matter what, there will be viewers who will gladly embrace this gust of wind.
Life is already very hard, what's wrong with some less nutritious "electronic mustard" adjustments?
After all, being a human being is the most important thing.
Author|Sherlock Design丨Lu Ruifeng Editor丨Chi Er Production丨Tencent News Gu Yu Studio
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