Every day you can have a little love affair with the overbearing president: China's 60-second super mini soap opera issuance merchants will make a big move into the United States.

Still scrolling TikTok? The latest trend in China is binge-watching in 60 seconds. The rising popularity of mini soap operas, known as 'micro-dramas', is completely different from the challenge or live singing and dancing formats on TikTok. These rapidly emerging mini-series are professionally produced web soap operas. They have coherent storylines, with each episode only lasting 60 to 90 seconds. Each series can have up to 50 episodes.

These super mini soap operas are produced by Chinese teams and are making a big splash in the United States. Audiences can watch those long-lasting old plots like domineering CEOs falling in love with college students, the poignant love story of a terminally ill girl, three wealthy young masters vying for one woman, or the rural dramas of powerful families fighting for inheritance and power, all in the same 60 seconds as scrolling through TikTok to kill time.

The new type of internet soap opera tells stories at an extremely fast speed in seconds

Bloomberg reported that "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband" (The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband) is one of the best-selling micro-dramas in 2023. The story is about a woman who is forced to marry a wealthy heir. This second-generation rich has a dark past that she is unaware of. The series is filled with scenes of slapping and yelling at each other, similar to the plot of a Taiwanese typhoon drama. However, each episode can be watched in less than a minute, allowing you to quickly finish the entire series.

The revenue of the Chinese micro-drama industry surged by 35% last year, with a total income of 50.4 billion RMB (6.91 billion USD ). Among the billions of Chinese internet users, half of them are following micro-dramas, and more than one-third of them watch micro-dramas every day.

Joey Jia, CEO of ReelShort, which released 'The Dual Life of My Millionaire Husband,' said that micro-short films will become a mainstream form of entertainment, and may even surpass traditional film box office in a few years.

Micro dramas first appeared in China in 2018, when TikTok had just emerged. Short videos quickly attracted tens of millions of young viewers who constantly swiped their screens, searching for the latest popular videos.

The rise of such short video platforms has forced the transformation of China's streaming media and film and television industries to produce short films. iQIYI and Tencent have also started licensing the short drama series they produce to domestic users and overseas audiences.

Reeves Deng, the founder of Luckyshort micro-drama, said that China has a strong micro-drama production supply chain. Chinese producers release 5,000 to 8,000 new dramas every year, which is 10 times more than other countries in the world. Industry reports show that thousands of new companies are preparing to register and release micro-dramas by 2024. He believes that micro-dramas can bring entertainment with the lowest cost and highest frequency of play, and will become a global trend.

The production cost of micro-dramas is only tens of thousands of dollars, much lower than the cost of regular TV dramas. They can be watched for free with advertisements or charged to users to unlock the remaining episodes, generating millions of dollars in revenue.

Short plays should try to avoid the themes of 'marrying into a wealthy family' and 'materialism' as much as possible.

Many micro-drama production companies are currently seeking overseas markets and seeking to evade the scrutiny of the Chinese authorities. In November of last year, Beijing announced new guidelines for drama content, aiming to reduce content creators' excessive beautification of "Western materialism" or the plot of promoting marrying into a wealthy family. Platform operators must find other story themes that will become popular, but these melodramatic rural themes have always been the most popular dramas.

Global entertainment companies are rushing to invest in the production of short micro-dramas

ShortMax is one of the largest mini-series applications in terms of global downloads, expanding rapidly in Asia through multi-language settings and localized content. The Mega Matrix platform, launched in the United States, aims to enter the Middle Eastern market, while Tving in South Korea, JioCinema in India, and Vidio in Indonesia are also preparing to release micro-dramas.

Fantasy plot of falling in love with a domineering CEO travels around the world.

Due to China's large production and writing teams, but the cost is much lower than the United States, they can make full use of Hollywood resources in the United States, allowing small production teams to cooperate with local film companies to minimize production budgets.

ReelShort authorizes the adaptation of Chinese scripts for release in the American market, employing American actors to play the roles. Although the themes are cliché, always telling stories of falling in love with domineering CEOs, just with foreign actors, it still attracts a large female audience who loves to watch domestic soap operas.

Since its launch in 2022, ReelShort has attracted over 10 million active users per month. Now, it is preparing to provide 16 language versions for the release of TV series in Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, allowing old and overused themes to reach a wider audience and generate more revenue.

This article can talk to the overbearing president about a little love every day: China's 60-second super-mini drama distributor will make a major move into the United States first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.