Short Drama Licensing
Short drama, originating from China, is a new form of entertainment that has been sweeping through the world. These minute-long episodes usually have soapy plot but the pace is extremely fast with a few plot twists packed in a minute duration. Viewers enjoy watching these short dramas mainly for the instant gratification, as opposed to the long emotional loops traditional films/tv series offer. The nature of short dramas has determined the content is largely confined within a few topics — romance, billionaire, revenge, etc.
As much as critics might dislike about the lack of refinement to these dramas, this content has brought enormous commerical success in a short period of time. ReelShort is considered the pioneer in this space, first exporting the already-popular short drama culture from China to the rest of the world. With hit title like “The Double Identity of My Billionaire Husband,” ReelShort has quickly amassed a use base in the millions. It even briefly overtook Tik Tok to become the most downloaded app at the end of 2023. Seeing the success of ReelShort, other companies started moving quickly into the vertical. DramaBox, DreameShort, GoodShort, to just name a few of the competitors, are gaining momentum and challenging ReelShort’s throne globably. We have also seen the emergence of a few local short drama apps, which focus on non-English languages and a smaller audience, perhaps due to the lack of resources for the global arms race. North America is still by far the most lucrative market for the short drama apps, averaging $20+ in spending per user.
Short dramas are unique in the way that they have combined the elements of TV series, games, and novels. Most audience who are addicted to watching these bite-sized episodes were previously avid web novel readers or gamers. From an aesthetic perspective, the plots might seem cheesy and the cast is often unknown. But the audience loves the dramas for reaosns like that they have the option to pay for individual episodes instead of subscriptions, they don’t need to commit much time to understand the story, etc. I often think of short drama as tik tok meeting Netflix. A short drama is as short as a viral tik tok video but it still goes through the professional production procedure traditional films require.
As a newly emerging trend, short drama platforms are facing a common challenge — the scarcity of the content. Despite the relatively cheap cost to produce these series ($150k for a 60-episode show on average), it still takes time to finish producing one. Most of the platforms right now only have around 10 titles, while the average users are used to the abundant selection of shows on streaming platforms.
That is why I want to introduce Briz (getbriz.com), the world’s one and only content provider for this vertical specifically. Briz has produced more than 30 original English short dramas, available for licensing. For anyone who’s interested in starting up their short drama platforms, Briz is the easiest and cheapest way to add content. Please reach out to contact@getbriz.com if you want to learn more.