Image source@Visual China
文 | 锌刻度，作者 | 黎炫岐，编辑 | 孟会缘
At the end of 2023, the supervision of micro-short dramas will be further strengthened, and many platforms will remove a large number of illegal micro-short dramas, and begin to increase the review of short dramas.
On the other hand, the "boss" video is still popular overseas: the blonde and blue-eyed heroine was arranged by her stepmother to marry a strange man who had just been released from prison because her mother was in urgent need of medical expenses, and although the male protagonist who had never met the heroine before, he was gentle and considerate after marriage, and staged the drama of a domineering president from time to time; the maid who was a werewolf knew that the man she was destined to be a romantic master since she was 18 years old, but she fell in love with the wolf king of the tribe and started a sadomasochistic love that crossed classes......
From a domineering president, to a werewolf and a vampire love, to a revenge sadomasochism...... These bloody short dramas, which have repeatedly swiped the screen in China, are now also setting off a new trend overseas. A large number of local short dramas have poured into the markets of Europe, America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, not only for overseas Chinese, but also for local locals to be willing to pay, and even domestic audiences to learn English.
Obviously, compared with the increasingly competitive domestic market, the overseas market is still a blue ocean to be exploited, and the potential is not small. It is precisely because of this that more and more players have begun to lay out here, from the online text platform to the producer of mini program short dramas.
Is the "boss" going to sea, more advanced?
"Who would have thought that I went abroad and still didn't escape the boss's local short dramas?" 22-year-old Tong Xing, who studied in the United States, recently became obsessed with a series of micro-short dramas produced by a Chinese production team, "From the script to the form, in fact, it is not much different from the domestic local short dramas, but the actors are local actors in Europe and the United States, and the lines are in English." ”
Tong Xing was planted with this series of skits from her roommate, who is also an international student, "Originally, I was just curious about what she watched every day, but I couldn't extricate myself." At present, Tong Xing mainly uses ReelShort and GoodShort to chase dramas, and her favorite is the short dramas of the werewolf series, "There seem to be more domestic short dramas, and there are many abroad, but the werewolf and vampire series seem to be more popular in Europe and the United States." ”
Zinc scale noticed that from the perspective of short drama titles in overseas markets, the keywords that often appear are CEO, boss, alpha, billionaire, etc., while the Chinese translation is more direct, such as "Fate, My Forbidden Love with the Wolf King", "The Double-faced Life of My Billionaire Husband", "Gangster Boss's Pet in the Heart" and "Goodbye, My President" and so on.
ReelShort TV推出的短剧
Specifically, from the perspective of ReelShort, a subsidiary of Chinese Online's subsidiary Crazy Maple Studio (Maple Leaf Interactive), which launched overseas short drama platform ReelShort, ReelShort has been launched for more than a year, and there are more than 15 European and American short dramas on the platform, including three categories of love after marriage, sweet revenge, and dating with the boss, and there is no shortage of new themes such as revenge sadomasochism and gangsterism. Among them, the werewolf series is obviously more concerned and discussed.
Among them, the most representative hit short drama in the European and American markets, "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha" produced by ReelShort, tells the love story of a young woman involved in the struggle for supremacy between two werewolf tribes.
On Twitter, an American viewer shared her obsession with Fated to My Forbidden Alpha, saying, "A short video on TikTok hooked me on Fated to My Forbidden Alpha. It's clichéd, with each episode only 1 minute long, and you have to watch a 30-second ad to unlock the next episode. But I can't stop, who's going to take my phone......"
The data can more intuitively reflect the volume of local short dramas in overseas markets: from August 2022, ReelShort was launched overseas, mainly targeting Europe and the United States, to November this year, according to TechCrunch, an overseas business technology media report, ReelShort has reached 11 million downloads on iOS and Android, generating a net revenue of $22 million, according to Sensor, a global mobile app intelligence platform Tower data, ReelShort dominated the list of entertainment apps in the U.S. App store from November 11 to 13, ranking second in the overall category list, and Diandian data shows that the global double-end daily turnover at the peak of ReelShort was about 270,000 US dollars (about 1.96 million yuan).
In fact, after the boom in the overseas market, these short dramas shot by local actors in Europe and the United States have also set off a wave of discussion in China, and Zinc Scale noticed that on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, in addition to overseas Chinese, there are also many Chinese audiences chasing such dramas. Under the official account of ReelShort Xiaohongshu, some netizens commented, "How do you feel that foreign short dramas are more advanced?" or "I feel good for learning English"......
An important reason may be that compared with the overwhelming domestic micro-short dramas, the current short dramas for overseas markets are more similar to American dramas with a faster pace and a shorter market, and the editing and makeup are more sophisticated.
The ambitions of "ReelShorts" are not limited to the European and American markets
At present, players entering the overseas short drama market are mainly divided into three categories: the head online literature company represented by the launch of ReelShort Chinese Online; the head of domestic mini program short drama represented by Kyushu culture; and there are some personal micro-short drama studios. The first two types of players are clearly more vocal at the moment, but they also have their own strengths. For the head online text going to sea company, the online text overseas layout is earlier, there are a large number of online text IPs that can be adapted into short drama scripts, and the target audience of online articles and short dramas overlaps is high, so it can accumulate user groups faster, while the head of domestic mini program short dramas has a large number of short drama resources.
Correspondingly, the production mode of short dramas is mainly divided into two categories: one is to adopt the method of joint production by mainland teams + overseas personnel, and the other is to directly translate the dubbing or subtitles of domestic mini program dramas into local languages. Online literature companies often choose the former, while companies like Kyushu Culture currently choose the second option.
Companies and platforms are looking for people to find scripts on social platforms
Obviously, the former is more expensive to produce, and it is still not easy to "find someone to find the script". Taking the script as an example, Zinc Scale noticed that many platforms are currently accepting overseas short drama scripts in China, among which there is a receipt information on Xiaohongshu that shows that "Chinese scripts are 20,000 yuan, Chinese-English bilingual scripts are 30,000 yuan, and 10 episodes are invested". The official account of ReelShort also released the call for English scripts, "The remuneration is 5,000 yuan to 10,000 US dollars." ”
A writer of the script of a micro-short drama told Zinc Scale, "The script remuneration of domestic micro-short dramas has become lower and lower, because there are more and more writers, and the threshold is not high. However, at present, overseas scripts have language requirements, the threshold is higher, and the remuneration is relatively higher. ”
However, corresponding to the cost, the user payment ability in the European and American markets is also higher.
Among them, ReelShort adopts a single-episode charging model, taking "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha" as an example, it costs about $40 to watch the whole drama with a paid model, and GoodShort, a subsidiary of Xinyue Times, was launched in June this year, and tried a subscription system in the charging model, with fees ranging from $99.99 to $399.99.
You know, the Netflix Standard plan is only $12.99 per month.
It is worth mentioning that not all companies will choose or only stop at the European and American markets, and there are actually many companies in Southeast Asia and the Middle East market, which is partly due to the lower production cost in the Southeast Asian market. According to an interview with relevant practitioners by the self-media "Fixed Focus", a short drama for Southeast Asia, each episode is 1-3 minutes, and the overall number is 60-100 episodes, and its production is similar to that in China, around 300,000-500,000 yuan. Generally, the cost of short dramas for Europe and the United States is higher than that in Southeast Asia, between 900,000 and 1.1 million yuan.
Among them, Anyue Technology, an online text platform, released Flex TV in October last year, focusing on Southeast Asia, especially Thailand. Its popular short dramas include "New Wealthy Family Grievances" and "Supreme Military God", all of which are starred by local actors in Southeast Asia. Since its launch more than a year ago, Flex TV has been in the top 50 of Thailand's overall list in terms of downloads. According to the vast number of big data, the total global revenue of FlexTV's double-ended in August has exceeded one million dollars.
In July this year, Changyue Technology and Pure City launched two apps, MoboReels and Mini Episode, respectively, mainly by translating the content of domestic short dramas and going overseas, focusing on the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets in China; Kyushu Culture also launched 99TV, mainly for the Taiwan market, China, in the same month, but most of the content is short dramas launched in the mainland, but the subtitles are adjusted to traditional versions.
Domestic short dramas have been repeatedly rectified, and whether the overseas market can replicate the myth of "huge profits".
When the overseas market is still a blue ocean, the domestic market, which set off a wave earlier, has come to a turning point.
In the past few years, the domestic micro-short drama market has already exploded, and there are more and more players. Especially in 2023, it can be said that it will usher in the first year of payment for micro-short dramas, and many platforms will make a lot of money.
In terms of quantity, Detawen's "Micro Short Drama Market Report for the First Half of 2023" shows that a total of 481 new micro short dramas will be released in the first half of 2023, exceeding the 454 new ones in the whole of 2022. According to the "Research Report on the Development of Online Audiovisual in China", as of December 2022, the number of short video users reached 1.012 billion, and the average daily usage time of short video exceeded 2.5 hours. According to the report, more than half of the billion short video users have watched micro-short dramas and instant noodles within 3 minutes in the past six months.
From the perspective of payment, according to the "new wrist", the daily recharge consumption of paid short dramas on the whole domestic platform has been about 60 million yuan, and the peak has even exceeded 100 million yuan in a schedule like the National Day. The data for June shows that the average daily payment in that month is about 40 million yuan.
However, with the intensification of domestic competition, it is becoming more and more difficult to get a bigger piece of the pie. Especially in recent times, China has frequently strengthened supervision of micro-short dramas.
The latest news is that in late November, the State Administration of Radio and Television once again launched a one-month special rectification work for online micro-short dramas. Major short video platforms have responded by removing a large number of illegal micro-short dramas and banning a large number of accounts that publish micro-short dramas in violation of regulations.
Among them, the "Announcement on Further Regulating the Content of "Micro Short Dramas" of Mini Programs" and the "Announcement on the Phased Governance of "Micro Short Dramas" Content of Mini Programs issued by WeChat Kuaishou removed more than 10 illegal micro-short dramas from the shelves, and punished 13 accounts that published illegal content according to the degree of violation; Douyin has also recently removed a total of 119 illegal micro-short dramas from the shelves, and disposed of 1,188 Douyin accounts that illegally promote micro-short dramas.
Image source: Douyin Blackboard News
Perhaps because of this, more and more companies are looking overseas. At present, the biggest voice in the overseas short drama market should be the above-mentioned ReelShort, but there are also many latecomers who follow suit. However, whether the myth of profiteering can be replicated in overseas markets is actually a question mark.
Taking ReelShort as an example, despite being extremely popular in the capital market, Chinese Online's share price was still 13.74 yuan on November 1, and by November 13, the stock price once exceeded 30 yuan. However, according to Caiwen.com, ReelShort is suspected of buying the list, and its total list rise seems to be hot, but no one discusses it on other platforms, and the number of YouTube trailer views has not increased. According to a survey by the Financial Associated Press, ReelShort on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, uses ReelShort or the name of the popular series on the platform as the search term, and the content that can be retrieved is mainly a collection of short dramas or trailers released from the official account, and there are very few spontaneous posts and discussions around it by users.
Therefore, although "Bazong" is fragrant, if you want to conquer overseas markets and make the plate bigger, it obviously takes more time.