Short plays go to sea, really make money？

Writing | Cheng Shushu

Editor | Li Xinma

Title map | IC Photo

Hengdian has become a "vertical shop"-a recent hot stalk, which is also the proof of the popularity of this year’s short play.

With ""oh! The Queen Mother came to work, and the user’s recharge broke through 12 million in 24 hours. After the flash marriage, Mr. Fu’s vest couldn’t be hidden, and the recharge broke through 20 million in one day. The news such as "Unparalleled" went online for 8 days, and the recharge broke through 100 million. The myth of the short program "Get rich in 10 days after filming in one week" has been spread on the Internet.

The spring breeze is not just blowing in the south of the Yangtze River. When miniseries swept the domestic market, many miniseries platforms also turned their attention to overseas markets, and started overseas "local flavor lovers" business through "cultural export". Recently, in particular, the regulatory policy of domestic mini-short plays has become increasingly strict, and going to sea has become a new continent that the clippers yearn for.

According to reports, ReelShort, a short drama product of Maple Leaf Interactive, a subsidiary of Chinese Online, earned a net income of $459,000, or 3.28 million yuan, on November 11th. As of November 17th, its accumulated net income has exceeded $22 million, or about 160 million yuan.

This kind of nugget ability even makes A shares do it one brace up. At the close of November 8, Chinese Online, Palm Reading Technology, Tianwei Video, Huanrui Century and other daily limit; On November 22nd, the short play interactive game board rose by 5.09%, Chinese online rose by more than 10%, and many stocks such as Tianwei Video, Zhongguang Natural Selection and Gravitation Media were daily limit. As of the close of November 24th, the market value of Chinese Online soared by 14.6 billion yuan in November.

Source: Oriental Fortune Network

The popular "short drama concept stocks" in the capital market and the rumor that "short dramas go out to sea and make millions of dollars a day" make short dramas go out to sea the most popular "split" in the content industry at the end of the year. Undoubtedly, this will attract a large influx of capital and practitioners. However, can every entrant get a share of this "window"?

01, "frolic in the waves"

Tracing the story of the short play going out to sea, I have to go back to two years ago.

At the end of 2021, Youku began to try to develop and launch overseas short plays. In the same year, Aauto Quicker’s overseas version of Kwai also launched Telekwai, a brand of short plays. In addition, Tencent Video and iQiyi have gradually increased their investment in overseas markets and released some short plays. On the international version of "Youaiteng" App, YouTube and TikTok accounts, there are channels dedicated to short plays.

However, these pioneers are not today’s "trendsetters".

When it comes to the head players of the current short play, the ReelShort mentioned above is the first one that comes to mind. After it was officially launched in August 2022, it mainly focused on the North American market. The previous short play "Fated To My Forbidden Alpha", which was very popular overseas, came from this platform.

According to the data of SensorTower, in July this year, the total downloads of ReelShort on GooglePlay and App Store reached 1.9 million times, and the monthly flow reached 6 million dollars, which was almost the same as Netflix’s monthly income. In November, it became the head player of the current short play sailing track, and even surpassed TikTok during the "Double Eleven" period, becoming the most popular entertainment application in the Apple Store in the United States.

The overseas short drama platform that is in the limelight also has GoodShort, a subsidiary of New Reading Times, but it was launched almost a year later than Reelshort. GoodShort mainly focuses on the European, American and Korean markets, and its development path is similar to ReelShort’s. In the early days, it mainly translated domestic short plays and put them online, and then used the local team to prepare for shooting.

Flex TV, which was launched by Anyue Technology in October 2022, occupies a certain position in South Asia. Since its launch more than a year ago, Flex TV has been downloaded in Thailand’s Top50 list. According to Sensor Tower data, in July 2023, the total download volume of FlexTV on Google Play and AppStore was about 160,000, and the total monthly flow was about 500,000 US dollars.

DramaBox launched by Dianzhong Technology in April this year, 99TV and Short TV launched by Kyushu Culture in the second half of this year, MoboReels launched by Changyou Technology in July this year and Mini Episode launched by Chizicheng Technology also have certain influence.

It is not difficult to find that in this wave of sea-going competition, the head players who are rapidly emerging, such as Chinese Online, Anyue Technology and New Reading Times, have a deep foundation in the sea-going market, and their huge net-text reserves have become an important source of short drama scripts.

For example, Maple Leaf Interactive has two novel products, Kiss and Chapters, which are currently in the first echelon of American interactive novels; Anyue Technology’s overseas online reading App covers 10 languages and has accumulated 10 million users; The new reading era has many overseas novel apps such as GoodNovel, GoodFM, BueNovela and MegaNovel.

The other category is short drama production companies such as Kyushu Culture and Dianzhong Technology, both of which are the head companies of domestic small drama tracks.

02, play each are not identical.

Oranges are orange in Huainan and bitter orange in Huaibei. The same is true for short plays. After going out to sea, the audience and business model have changed compared with those in China.

Previously, DoNews learned from the writers of domestic small program short plays that domestic small program short plays are more likely to explode on male frequency, and they are mainly aimed at security guards, courier brothers and takeaways. Different from the domestic small program drama, the main audience is the sinking market users. In the European and American markets, the middle class is the main force to consume short dramas, and female frequency is more popular. According to Shen Xiang, Leon, an overseas short drama practitioner, the "Bao Ma clan" between the ages of 25 and 45 is the core audience in the European and American markets.

Different audiences also affect popular themes. According to June, senior operation manager of Yeahmobi social media marketing, short drama audiences in European and American markets prefer themes with traditional European and American images, such as werewolves, vampires, giants and fantasy. However, the popular domestic themes such as "my husband" and "God of War" are "not available" overseas.

In terms of business model, domestic and overseas products are fundamentally different. Domestic short-play products are short plays, while short-play products after going out to sea are actually short-play apps launched by major manufacturers.

Image source: APP Growing

Short plays sold on the "one-off" platform of small programs allow users to spend money on dramas. When products become apps, there are more possibilities for commercialization. Take Reelshort as an example, there are two ways to watch advertisements and pay for it. There are 60 episodes of "Fated to My Forbidden Alpha", which are charged from the second episode, and each episode is unlocked with 66 gold coins (equivalent to RMB 5 yuan). If you don’t want to spend money, you can also watch the advertisement unlock, but the number of views is limited. In addition, like Goodshort, there are subscription systems, rewards and business cooperation.

The product has changed from short play to App, and the goal of producers has also changed from how to make short play content capture users to how to make App retain users.

It is understood that short plays are currently divided into two forms: the first is to translate the original domestic videos and upload them to applications or third-party video platforms, that is, to translate dramas; The second is to build a local team and invite local actors to shoot short plays that are more suitable for local users according to the script.

However, now there is a short drama filmed in the sea with AI, that is, a domestic short drama is changed into an overseas "face" through AI face change+language/mouth change. It is said that the cost of a short drama is 600,000 yuan, but it has not changed the essence of the plot, which can only be regarded as a more advanced translated drama.

According to June’s analysis, the translated drama can achieve a rapid start-up, with a large number of new products in a short period of time, and the initial investment cost is less. However, due to different regions, cultures and preferences, the content may not be accepted by local users and it is not easy to explode. Building a customized drama with local cast is conducive to quickly breaking the circle and forming a certain user pool, but the cost of initial investment is large, and the period of shooting, editing and post-adjustment is long, which leads to a relatively slow pace of new entry.

Comparatively speaking, it is certainly more attractive for users to build customized dramas with local teams, but if the frequency of updating is too slow, it will affect users’ retention. But to maintain a certain frequency of new access, the investment in funds will certainly not be less.

03, a steady profit, or a big risk?

Although the market prospect seems broad, not all entrants can easily "nugget".

After deeply understanding the domestic paid short drama industry chain, we will find that the success of small program short drama does not mean that it is an easy business to make money. Short plays with a daily recharge of 10 million yuan are rare, and the box office of over 100 million yuan is even rare. Coupled with the high investment cost, it limits the profitability of the overall market of short plays with small programs.

According to the calculation of Wang Xiaoshu, the founder of Jiashu Technology, "About 0.8-0.9 yuan will be used to pay for advertising in the box office of 1 yuan miniseries. Producers usually only get about 0.1-0.15 yuan, and the box office of 10 million really gets more than one million, and it also covers hundreds of thousands of shooting costs. The cost of casting flow is high, but the explosion rate is not high. In a year, there is only one "Warriors", which is less than 10%, which means that only 10% of the dramas can be returned, and 90% of the dramas will lose money. "

Short plays are also facing the same problem when they go out to sea. Currently, the active revenue data in the market come from head platforms such as ReelShort and GoodShort, and there are still too many unknown data in the overall market to be verified.

Furthermore, according to June, the head App will also be launched in Ins, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and other channels and diverted to the App Store. In other words, it is also very important to choose a localized social media platform for streaming. The person in charge of Jiashu Technology has recently publicly stated that unlike domestic streaming, a drama is released overseas through Google and Facebook, with a long cycle and a slow start. This may lead to a relatively slow return of funds for short plays at sea.

In addition, although domestic short plays are under supervision, they have to face the problem of whether the content is compliant, but overseas, copyright issues also need to be considered. If a piece of background music is found to be infringing, it will result in a fine or even the entire App being removed.

Finally, the market, different from the domestic mini-drama, which developed from HarmonyOS, is controlled by the online company or the head company in the field of short drama production, which also increases the difficulty for latecomers to stand out.

The short play going out to sea is a good commercial exploration of the domestic short play industry, but there are many differences between overseas and domestic in terms of production process, operation logic and even market environment. Although the myth of making wealth is flying all over the sky, if you really want to enter the game, you should be cautious again.