Author Cheng Shushu.
Edited by Zhu Ting.
Operated by Cookies.
In the past 2023, what content products can easily and quickly verify the rate of return?
The answer is: a short skit.
With its short and fast business logic, small short dramas have become a hot wealth password and have become popular overseas, and they have also become one of the hottest "outlets" in 2023.
Looking back on the short drama market this year, first, high-quality works such as "Escape from the British Museum" came out of the circle, which attracted the attention and discussion of the whole network; There are also news that many paid short dramas such as "Wushuang" have recharged more than 10 million or even more than 100 million in a short period of time; Towards the end of the year, the game + short drama mode of "I'm Surrounded by Beauties" exploded out of the circle, triggering a boom in short dramas going to sea and driving the a** field; At the end of the year, the market size was summarized to reach 373900 million, quite exciting.
According to the "2023-2024 China Micro Short Drama Market Research Report" released by the research agency iiMedia Consulting, the market size of domestic micro short dramas in 2023 will be 373900 million yuan, up from 101 in 2022700 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26765%。It is estimated that the size of China's micro-short drama market will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2027.
While the number is booming and the commercialization is booming, the small short drama is also facing stricter regulation in this year. Now, KK will review the short drama in 2023 from four levels: quantity, content, business, and regulation, trying to find the direction of its development in 2024.
1. More than 1,000 will be launched throughout the year, and the high-quality products will earn "popularity", and the local flavor will have a "way to make money"?
In 2023, the expansion of quantity is the most direct manifestation of the short drama market.
According to the data of the "2023 Micro Short Drama Industry Report",In 2023, Douyin, Kuaishou, Youku, Tencent**, Mango TV, and Station B will launch 455, 214, 189, and 176 new micro-short dramas respectively, and the long-short** platform will be launched more than 1,000 throughout the year. According to the research report released by Professor Zhao Hui of Communication University of China, the number of key short dramas premiered on the five major platforms of iQiyi, Youku, Tencent, Mango TV, and Station B in 2022 will be 276, achieving leapfrog and stepwise growth.
In addition, according to the data released by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, from March to November 2023, a total of 2,459 online micro-short dramas will be registered in the "Key Online Film and Television Drama Information Filing System" of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, a considerable number.
Judging from the statistics of the account-sharing box office film list announced by the major long-** platforms,In 2023, there will be a total of 15 short films with a share of more than 5 million, among which the ** pure love micro-short drama "Provoked" broadcast on the Tencent** platform will refresh the ceiling of a single account-sharing drama in the history of the birth of a micro-short drama with a box office of 20 million.
Compared with several companies, Tencent** has the best performance. In addition to "Provocation", it also has two short dramas that break the account and break the 10 million yuan, namely the urban love micro-short drama "Blind Heart Daughter" with a share of 18 million yuan and the 10 million urban drama love micro-short drama "Accept it when you see it".
Of course, Mango TV and Youku will also have tens of millions of account-sharing micro-short dramas in 2023.
In the summer of 2023, the costume fantasy romance drama "Wind and Moon Change" will be broadcast on Mango TV and Sohu**, and with the continuous high-energy plot reversal, the joint investment amount will exceed 13 million. It is worth mentioning that this series landed on Hunan Satellite TV and became the first micro-short drama in the country to be star-studded.
Youku's ** love short drama "Lock Love Three Lives", the content setting gathers revenge, amnesia, forced kisses, abortion and other bloody episodes, but the "earthy" one is loved by the audience, which makes some viewers want to stop it, and the final account sharing amount exceeds 10 million.
Judging from word of mouth, the short ** platform seems to be even better. According to KK statistics, there will be a total of 9 short dramas with a score of 6 or more on Douban to be launched in 2023, and the first four are all from short**.
The first place is this year's current hit short drama "Escape from the British Museum", with a Douban score of 76 points. The play uses anthropomorphic techniques to tell the story of the return home of a missing jade pot in the British Museum. As soon as it was launched on Douyin, Kuaishou, Station B, Weibo and other platforms on August 30, it quickly occupied the hot search lists of major online platforms, and even the mainstream ** such as CCTV Movie Channel, CCTV Network, and People's Daily Online praised it.
There are only three episodes of "Escape from the British Museum", with a plot of 17 minutes, but the number of ** on the whole network exceeds 1 billion. In the "Notice on the Filing and Publicity of National Film Scripts (Synopsis) in August 2023" issued by the National Film Administration, the animated film "Escape from the British Museum" declared by Manen (Shenzhen) Film *** has been approved to be filmed.
In addition, like Kuaishou's youth fantasy ** short drama "The Reason Why I Returned to Seventeen Years Old", the ancient short drama "Donglan Snow", and Douyin's emotional short drama "Twenty-Nine", the Douban score is above 7 points.
But what really makes the short drama market named "the most profitable track in 2023" is the mini program short drama. In the middle of the year, the "myth of getting rich" about mini program short dramas came and went, such as "Ex-Wife Raiders, Mr. Fu Wants to Spoil Me", which was recharged more than 10 million yuan in 24 hours, and "Oops! The queen mother came to work and recharged more than 20 million yuan in hours, and "Wushuang", which exceeded 100 million yuan after 8 days, and "Tenglong", which recharged more than 22 million yuan in 24 hours, etc. The plot is cool to take off, and the soil is on top, but it can make users pay money.
Overall,The number of short dramas in 2023 will develop on a large scale, and the content will also be upgraded to "high-quality", but the "earthy" content is more magical.
2. Account sharing, recharge, advertising, brand customization, and diversified business models
In the development of short dramas, commercial exploration is an important part. However, just like the market before Qin Shi Huang did not unify weights and measures, the current short drama has not yet formed a self-consistent and stable revenue modelHowever, it has also explored multiple profit models such as account sharing, plot advertising placement, recharge, advertising payment, and brand customization.
Based on the platform on which they are distributed, short dramas can now be divided into four categories: long-term platforms, short-form platforms, mini programs and independent apps.
After the series is launched, the platform will draw funds from the membership fee within the framework of the rules to share the account with the filmmaker.
Relatively speaking, the business model of mini program short dramas is more C-end (for details, please see KK's previous article "Mini Program Short Drama Streaming, Spending Money on the Same Day and Earning It Back on the Same Day?") Usually, it will continue to cast streams on various platforms to attract users**, first using free as bait, and then setting up different charging nodes in episodes 10, 20, etc., so that users can pay to unlock**. This has also created a kind of monetization method for short dramas, recharge. There are two main ways to recharge and pay, one is to unlock the content according to different ** single time, such as setting the recharge amount to 299 yuan, 399 yuan, 599 yuan and other nodes; The other is to buy an annual card, which usually costs 365 yuan a year and 298 yuan a year. On the whole, after watching a short drama, it is more expensive than watching a movie. But because each short drama will come to an abrupt end at a different plot climax, there is a lot of room for recharging in the hearts of the audience. ("The Self-report of the Screenwriter of a Short Program Drama: Write a Drama in Ten Days, and the Recharge Can Exceed 100 Million") Because it is not only a distribution carrier, but also a player entry game, or a publicity and distribution platform, the profit model of short-sighted dramas has more diverse ways to play.
Package and pay, like Douyin in popular short dramas such as "Twenty-Nine" after 4 episodes paid to unlock** (kk previously paid for content in "Douyin to test the waters, are you willing to spend money for short**?") It was mentioned in the article. ）；Brand implantation, Kuaishou implanted the "Jingdong New Department Store" brand in the popular ancient style "Donglan Snow". In addition, there are also drama parties that directly cooperate with brands to produce commercial customized dramas. On Douyin, many brands such as Han Shu, Proya, and Chabaidao have customized micro-short dramas, with more than 20 dramas. OPPO cooperated with Kuaishou to launch the micro-short drama "I Bound the Love System", and designed the OPPO mobile phone into a magical love system to promote the plot, and the cumulative amount of the whole drama reached 2400 million.
The last type of independent APP short drama can be regarded as the product of small program short dramas going overseas. After the popularity of domestic short dramas, major short drama producers and online game manufacturers have launched short drama apps in overseas markets to promote the "fire" of short dramas overseas.
Analogous to the mobile game and online literature industries, short dramas also have an IAP (in-app purchase) model, an IAA (in-app advertising) free model, and a free model. The former is the same as the recharge payment model of domestic mini program short dramas, and the latter is that users unlock episodes that need to be paid through ** ads, and the platform charges advertisers, that is, "the wool is out of the pig".
In addition, there is also a model that adopts IAA plus IAP, which can be paid or unlocked by **ads, but generally there will be an upper limit on daily ads.
Nowadays, there are also short drama apps online in China, such as Douyin's short drama app Tomato Short Drama (formerly "Red Fruit Short Drama"), Kuaishou's short drama app Xifan and Dianzhong Technology's Hippo Theater, most of the first two short dramas need users to purchase limited episodes, and the latter is completely free**.
It can be seen that the domestic short drama business model is flexible and diverse, among which the user recharge mode of small short drama germination is to some extent a positive promotion of the content of the film and television industry, and the only criterion for payment has become whether the content is good-looking, and the focus of content production can also return to the content.
Third, when it was prosperous, supervision was tightened
The so-called no rules do not form a circle, after experiencing the chaotic dance of demons and disorderly expansion, the short drama industry has gradually developed into a large industry, and it has also ushered in the strengthening of supervision.
In May last year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued new regulations on the broadcast and launch of online dramas: After June 1, 2023, online micro-short dramas must adopt the management measures of full coverage of licenses, and can only be broadcast after obtaining the "Online Drama Distribution Permit" in accordance with the law.
At that time, it was still aimed at the micro-short dramas broadcast on the ** platform, and after experiencing the hot "boom" of the monthly mini program short dramas, and even after affecting the a** field, the mini program also waited for supervision.
On November 15, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television announced that it would once again carry out a one-month special rectification work on online micro-short dramas. In response to regulatory policies, platforms including WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili and other platforms have successively announced micro-short drama governance announcements, and collectively cracked down on illegal and low-quality micro-short dramas. More than 20,000 short dramas have been removed from the shelves one after another because of suspected violations, and the previously lively recharge list has become a "removal list" in a blink of an eye.
On the evening of November 20, Douyin's huge advertising announcement said that including Douyin mini program short dramas and short dramas that jump to other third-party platforms, can only be cast after review. In addition, Douyin also prohibits distribution and proxy investment. Kuaishou announced that it would stop the commercial launch of third-party micro-short drama mini-programs on the evening of December 31, focusing on the development of Kuaishou mini-programs and Kuaishou's internal links.
It can be seen that in the face of supervision, Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat platforms are banning illegal short drama content and accounts on the one hand, and raising the threshold for streaming on the other hand. Cutting off external links and paying in-end will cause the platform's advertising revenue to decline temporarily, but in exchange for the control of content risks and the strengthening of the short drama payment ecology within the terminal.
At present, the heavy pressure of regulation has not extinguished everyone's enthusiasm for the short drama industry. On December 5, China Literature Group released the "Short Drama Galaxy Incubation Plan", which will launch "100 million yuan of creative support", and the leading companies of online literature will enter the short drama. On December 14, Mango TV and Douyin released the "High-quality Short Drama Support Plan", and the long-short ** platform cooperated around micro-short dramas for the first time; On December 21, more than 20 mainstream ** institutions, including Xinhua News Agency, reached a cooperation intention with Douyin for high-quality micro-short dramas.
From these trends, it may be perceptible that the short drama industry is still a "hot" track in the content field, and various platforms have begun to lay out their own ecological internal circulationPreviously, the business model of mini program short dramas was also being reshaped. It is foreseeable that the dividend period of the industry's rapid growth is coming to an end, and the entire short drama industry will become more formal. What kind of pattern the short drama market will be after the reshuffle, I believe we will see it in the near future.