China’s latest export: Cheesy and cheap ultra-short dramas

Sitting at a computer screen in a cramped office on a quiet, tree-lined street in Chengdu, in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, Zhu Tiexiong looked like any other worker. But with more than 33 million followers on social media, the 32-year-old video artist is one of the most famous faces in China.

Zhu’s short videos showing him leaping through the air in traditional costumes are among more than 200 billion produced by OST, a multichannel network that works with more than 5,000 creators. Elsewhere in the company’s Chengdu headquarters, where the average employee’s age is 24, dozens of influencers were lined up in make-up rooms preparing for live streams while dancers trained for an audition.

OST’s short videos are viewed more than two billion times a day, generating revenue from advertisers on platforms like Douyin, the domestic Chinese version of TikTok. But an increasing focus for companies like OST is the latest digital trend China has started exporting to the rest of the world: ultra-short dramas.

Soap operas with up to 100 episodes, usually between two and three minutes long, ultra-short dramas took off in China during the coronavirus pandemic when cinemas were closed. Shot vertically to suit a mobile phone screen, they have captured an audience whose viewing habits have been shaped by platforms like TikTok.

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“When short dramas first became popular, it was because they allowed people to focus on one thing at a time in their busy schedules. It takes a relatively long time to watch a TV show. But if I’m not interested in the subject of the play, or I’m not interested in the leading actors or actresses, it’s hard for us to pay attention,” said Zhang Yang, the head of screenwriting for short dramas at OST.

“I can watch a short drama like this in two or three minutes, the time it takes me to take the subway, or to drink a cup of coffee. If I think the short drama is interesting, I will continue to watch it. I think the advantage of short dramas is that they allow people to use their fragmented time to watch them.”

The vertical format leaves little room for background, limiting the need for sets and further reducing the cost of dramas that are much cheaper to produce than television soap operas. The screenwriters Zhang works with are professionals, as are the leading actors but the supporting actors are usually fresh out of drama school and an entire series can be filmed in a week.

Ultra-short dramas have their origin in another Chinese digital innovation, web novels published in daily instalments which have been popular for almost 20 years. The first few chapters of web novels, each of which take only a few minutes to read, are usually available free but readers have to pay to find out what happens next.

Ultra-short dramas, many of which are produced by companies that publish web novels, are released similarly with a few free episodes before the paywall descends. Some early short dramas were adapted from web novels and they share a requirement that each episode should end on a cliffhanger.

There is little time for character development or establishing context in a two-minute episode and Zhang acknowledges that the plots can sometimes seem incoherent as well as implausible.

“Long-form dramas focus more on logic and coherence but in short dramas, we are more concerned with conflicts and contradictions. We may deepen and develop some of the conflicts between the leading characters but compared with long-form dramas, the short drama may not be so coherent and logical,” she said.

Some of the most popular dramas are melodramatic stories about an overbearing boss and a young woman who often see conflict transform into romance. Other popular genres are historical dramas, often with romantic themes about love between a low-born woman and a rich or aristocratic man.

“We have special categories based on whether the audience is male or female. Their audiences are completely different, and our story structures are also completely different,” Zhang said.

“We have specially short dramas for different age groups. For example, for young mothers, we have short dramas about the relationship between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law; for young women, we have short plays about domineering CEOs; for young men, we have short dramas about people from humble origins who become successful after going through struggles.”

Some Chinese short dramas have become popular overseas and companies like Beijing-based ReelShort have started producing English-language versions in the United States. The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband, one of ReelShort’s biggest hits, has American actors and a US setting but its plot and narrative style are the same as the Chinese originals.

The same, cheesy stories of family feuds, overbearing bosses and secret identities that get Chinese viewers hooked on ultra-short dramas appear to be just as popular overseas. This week’s most trending shows on ReelShot’s US app include Falling for my Divorce Lawyer, The Double Life of a Billionaire Heiress and Knight in Shining Suit.

“The big category is still about love in a big city, a powerful man falling in love with a pretty girl in a big city. This is more like the short dramas published in domestic TikTok many years ago. When they launched overseas, they localised the main characters into the local people and short dramas with this theme travel very well,” Zhang said.

Until recently, short dramas were lightly regulated in China, subject only to approval by the online platforms that hosted them. But new regulations that came into force this month give local and national authorities a role in approving shows before they go online.

Dramas with a budget of more than RMB1 million (€130,000) or with “special” themes will be reviewed by the National Radio and Television Administration and some smaller productions will have to be submitted to provincial authorities. Dramas that are not approved, usually because they are judged to be vulgar or pornographic, will be removed from online platforms.

The ultra-short drama market in China was worth RMB37.4 billion (€4.8 billion) in 2023, equivalent to almost 70 per cent of the country’s cinema box office revenues. While most dramas make money from paying viewers, companies like OST produce ultra-short dramas for sponsors which are free to view.

“With the rise of the short drama industry, many brands want to invest in short dramas in order to promote themselves. If a client wants to invest in a short drama, we will do a tailor-made one based on the brand,” Zhang said.

“For example, in the case of an alcohol brand, the target group is men aged 20 to 40. We will base the characters on these requirements and link the drama to other resources like key opinion influencers.”

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