Author / Bebo
2021 is a year of gradual improvement of the content ecology of short dramas and rapid evolution to the closed loop of the industrial chain.
At the beginning of the year, The three parties of Grain Orange Media, ZhenleDao and Douyin jointly produced a cross-screen micro-drama "Dream! "Jingjing" brought highlights to the micro-short drama market, and then "Wolf Hunter" and "I Am Good in Other Places" respectively gained a foothold in the short drama market, and the summer programs "Sudden Holiday" and "Double Mirror" broke through with light and high-quality content, and the short drama has become a new force that cannot be ignored in the drama market.
Recently, there has been good news in the micro-short drama industry. The food sweet pet short drama "Datang Snack Goods" starring Li Zixuan has been played on Tencent Video and Tencent Microvision dual platforms with a total of 200 million+, and the cumulative amount of sub-accounts has exceeded 1000W; the costume sweet pet light comedy short web drama "The Little Fox Fairy of the General's Family" starring Chen Xinzhe has exceeded one million in 7 days after its launch.
After several years of growth, short dramas have developed in the direction of more high-quality diversification. With the full popularization of Internet short video content, users' consumption habits of short videos have been formed, and the micro-short drama content form formed by "short video + episodes" has formed a wide range of cognition, and the short video platform led by Douyin and Kuaishou has become a powerful player in the field of short dramas, affecting the development of the drama market.
The "trend" of short dramas
Episodes are short. Previously, the video platform has successfully tested the waters many times in the creation of short episodes.
In Q1 2018, iQIYI launched the "Strange Suspense Theater", mainly promoting the content of "12 episodes per season, 45-60 minutes per episode" suspense-themed short dramas, and works such as "Humble City", "Original Crime", "Undocumented Crime" and other works have gained good popularity and word-of-mouth, and light online dramas are prevalent.
In the field of micro-short dramas, the "China Good Life Survey" report shows that in 2020, Chinese has 24 minutes of leisure time every day, and 38.28% of people are doing mobile entertainment, of which the first is to brush short videos, and short videos have become the first weapon for the public to kill time. According to official data from Kuaishou, in March this year, more than 200 million users watched short dramas on Kuaishou every day. By the end of June, the number of kuaishou dramas had exceeded 800.
In the face of fast-paced life, the public prefers to chase dramas through short videos, and the short and concise drama types have become the market trend and orientation, and micro-short dramas are undoubtedly "subversion" of traditional film and television works, whether from content methods or forms.
First of all, the traditional film and television drama narrative method pays more attention to the depiction of lines and details, which in some ways indirectly prompts the drama party to inject water into the drama in order to raise the price of the work, and some actors "add drama for no reason" more and more, so that the plot rhythm tends to be lengthy, the quality is greatly reduced, the audience's viewing enthusiasm is reduced, and the double speed of viewing and cut chasing the drama is born.
Although the details of the micro-short drama are lacking, the narrative rhythm is faster, the amount of information is dense, the style is more prominent, and the whole episode is "high-energy". In terms of viewing forms, in order to meet the viewing needs of the public in pursuit of "immersive experience", a "distinction" has been made on the horizontal and vertical screens, and the pleasure is harvested, and the micro-short drama is naturally accepted by the public.
And the production cycle of micro-short dramas is short, the average cost of the department is between 150,000-300,000, the investment is small and the risk is low, it is easier to "fragment" the spread, the types are diverse, and as a content market with a huge output value, it has gradually become a new trend in the entertainment market.
With the cumulative distribution of "The General's Little Fox Fairy" exceeding 1 million in the 7 days since its launch, the single-day real-time playback volume exceeded 2.5 million, the total playback volume exceeded 80 million, and the cumulative playback volume of "Datang Snack Goods" exceeded 200 million, and the cumulative amount of sub-accounts has exceeded 10 million, the head micro-short drama is competing with traditional TV series in terms of network broadcast popularity, playback volume and economic benefits.
After continuous development and evolution, short dramas have gradually formed a new ecology for the drama industry and the online film and television economy.
Schedule "Theatricalization"
In 2020, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's key online film and television drama filing background added the category of "network short drama" in addition to the three categories of network dramas, online movies and network animation films, defined as the creation of short dramas within 10 minutes of a single episode, and officially separated the form of micro-short dramas from network dramas. The short video platform represented by Douyin and Kuaishou relies on the platform's high traffic value and high acceptance of advertising user groups to exert micro-short drama content.
First of all, in terms of Kuaishou, Kuaishou mainly focuses on supporting the creation of micro-short drama content, and has launched the "Photosynthetic Plan" in 2019, the "Xingmang Plan" in 2020, and the "Enhanced Edition of the Astral Plan" in 2021, the whole network collects high-quality short dramas, realizes long-term cash + flow support, makes the number of platform creators continue to rise, and has completed the accumulation of mid-waist creators and their micro-short drama works, covering all themes. It is reported that as of May 2021, the author of Kuaishou short plays has exceeded 62,000 people.
In addition, Kuaishou cooperated with Mi-reading in September last year - the short drama content adapted by the original IP of the Mi-reading platform will be broadcast exclusively in the Kuaishou Small Theater, and Kuaishou will support the IP content with more traffic, while providing a "home" for the small-volume IP, expanding to the theater, doing in-depth content implantation, and forming a new model for the development of the short drama IP.
The commercial value of short dramas lies in the ability to gather crowds and commercialize, and Kuaishou will also directly convert the traffic of short dramas into e-commerce GMV, and Gufeng Yu'er has taken advantage of the opportunity to empower with "Seven Lives and Seven Worlds and Other Shore Flowers", and the special live broadcast GMV has exceeded 10 million.
In terms of faster hands, Douyin entered the game late, but the results should not be underestimated. On April 23, 2021, Douyin launched a new plan for short dramas, invested hundreds of millions of traffic support and millions of cash rewards, and established an official platform account "Douyin Short Drama", working with Tomato Novel to amplify the content and IP value and gradually realize "theaterization".
At the beginning of this year, Douyin started from the star traffic and produced the first all-star cross-screen micro-drama "Dream! Jingjing", 48 hours after the broadcast of related topics exceeded 100 million, as of the end, the number of positive film plays exceeded 110 million, and the number of episode topics played reached 750 million, becoming the first "explosive" micro-short drama this year, leading the short video field.
The long video platform enters the short drama track with a lot of strength. As tencent video's most popular short drama series so far, "Datang Snacks" is inseparable from the help of platform policies and resources. In June this year, Tencent Online Video BU fully launched the "Mars Plan 2.0", which is divided into three cooperation models of S-level, A-level and B-level, covering a lower cooperation threshold, breaking through the upper limit of higher sub-account income, and increasing the layout of short dramas. Tencent Online Video BU matched the core operational resources of the platform with hundreds of millions of exposures for "Datang Snack Goods", and at the same time created a comprehensive and strong marketing plan for the customization of the series, and cooperated with multiple parties to promote the birth of the "benchmark".
Driven by policy guidance and market enthusiasm, the head minister short video platform integrates the content of drama series, theatrical operation of short dramas, and sets up incentive plans to support valuable short drama works with favorable policies, ensure high-quality content output, continuously tap the high-stick users of short dramas, and cultivate the ecology of short dramas on the platform. Under the benign competition of the platform, users can witness the continuous output of high-quality short dramas.
The road to money is "long"
The producer WeiWei told the network entertainment jun that although the short drama provides convenient conditions for the small volume of IP of small companies, most of the short drama market is dominated by the team, IP and starring fame, and the current Chinese short drama market is in a "scuffle", and the theme and profit method are still exploring.
"This year's short drama market seems to have improved, but the current more mainstream way to make money is to 'compress costs', so there have been many adaptations and original projects in the recent year, but the final shooting and broadcast projects are relatively few." The platform's procurement of short dramas is similar to the procurement method of TV series by episode pricing, most of which are based on story content, IP size, and starring lineup, and the general price is about 3 million to 4 million, for most projects, if the project in your hand can not compress the cost of being low enough, in fact, there is no profit to speak of. Producer Wowo said.
According to the "2020 Kuaishou Short Drama Ecology Report", from April to October 2020, the fastest growing themes of the number of Kuaishou short drama authors are suspense and urbanity, and the relaxed themes can be favored by users in high-tier cities. Female audiences love themes such as high sweetness, campus, ancient style, counterattack, friendship, etc., while male audiences love positive energy, funny, urban, serial animation, magic and other themes. Among them, sweet pet short dramas occupy an advantage, accounting for 60%-70%.
The commercial monetization methods of micro-short dramas are mainly concentrated in platform accounting, purchase, short video paid accounting and plot advertising implantation, among which the profit model of platform distribution is still the mainstream of commercialization. According to the data, it can be seen that in addition to the instability of profits, the traffic distribution theme of the domestic short drama market is relatively single.
Fortunately, institutions and officials are also willing to recognize the social value of "short dramas". In April this year, the School of Applied Arts and Sciences of Beijing Union University held a kick-off meeting to create a series of sitcoms "Improving the Internet Literacy of the Elderly in the Capital" to solve the "digital divide" problem of the elderly in the form of edutainment; in August, Shandong Zouping Public Security invited Zouping Internet celebrity "Nicholas Sweet potato" with 760,000 fans to participate in and produce an original sitcom "Gua Zong was deceived" to prevent fraud and other social problems. A number of official linkage works are providing positive value to the short drama market.
The butterfly effect caused by changes in platform planning, sub-account revenue, resources and market scale directly affects the content of micro-short dramas, resource inputs and economic benefits.
Even so, short dramas are still in the platform dividend period, and the traffic of some short dramas can reach millions or even tens of millions. Although the quality of short dramas has increased, the current recognition is still low, the monetization endurance is still unstable, the money is long, and all parties still need to work together.