Why a Bunch of TV Executives Have Such Massive Ambitions for Microdramas
Leaders from ABC, Showtime, and the company behind slasher films try to improve upon an Asian import
Before I start, some business:
It’s 2026 budget season for many companies out there.
I’m looking for sponsors for my newsletter and podcast, and ideally partners looking to produce interesting and original projects together, from video series at places like Cannes and Possible to events to custom reports
Let’s talk: mike@shieldsstrategic.com
Also - check out this week’s Sabio Modern Media Summit, where I’ll be moderating tons of great sessions
When it comes to micro dramas, I remain on the skeptical side.
After all, there is a long history of Things That Are Big in Asia that Never Quite Make it to the US. Think live streamed shopping. A single app to do everything. Marrying Robots.
But then again, social shopping is finally coming on strong thanks to TikTok. K-Pop is massive. So is TikTok, which happens to be from China. Anime is a serious force at the box office. And of course, Squid Game a few years ago.
So it may be short-sighted to expect cultural and digital trends to remain borderless in 2026. And, while far from dominant, there is real evidence that micro-dramas are catching on among some American demographics. How big can this really get? Well, I had Erick Opeka - President & Chief Strategy Officer at Cineverse on my podcast this week.
Opeka is one of the folks, along with former ABC and Yahoo boss Lloyd Braun, as well as co-founder and CEO (and ex Showtime head) Jana Winograde behind MicroCo, a joint venture aiming to build both a studio and yet-to-be-named US app centered around original short-form drama sometime next year.
“In September, nearly 600 million people in China consumed microdramas,” said Opeka, who is the brains behind MicroCo’s developing technology. “So this isn’t just a very tiny slice. This is a part of everyday consumption to the point where it’s eating into traditional broadcast streaming and even social consumption and video consumption time.”
“In North America, our thesis is that this could end up being 13 to 15 percent of all video consumption time at maturity, which would be, you know, probably a $20 billion business at maturity if it gets to that point. So even if we’re only half right, it’s still, you know, bigger than the entire U.S. theatrical market.”
Yeah, but is there really a need for a distinct set of scripted short-form dramas, when we already have algorithms feeding us personalized, highly-perfected feeds to our phones all day long - and most of the content is produced by creators or users - not traditional studios?
Plus, aren’t microdramas basically just “soft core porn” for young women, as Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw put it recently on The Town.
Well, according to Opeka, microdramas can be specifically engineered to deliver a unique form of entertainment that has always been around, but there is now more science-based research behind its development.
“Your typical social feed feeds the part of your brain that likes novelty,” he said. “These microdramas feed the part of your brain that likes anticipation. It scratches the predictive elements of our brain that are deeply embedded in learning and cognitive understanding.” Not unlike say, General Hospital back in the day.
However, while many early microdramas have been highly soapy in nature, Opeka sees this format working for everything from game shows to police dramas.
Still, I can’t help but think that MicroCo has some Quibi, or even Vessel vibes - e.g. a bunch of traditional TV executives looking to do something inherently mobile and younger skewing.
My other big questions are:
Why wouldn’t these kinds of shows simply take off on YouTube and TikTok, versus trying to launch a destination app?
Is MicroCo co moving fast enough? Already, the American/Singapore app FlareFlow has gained serious traction in the US since its April debut.
According to Sensor Tower, downloads for microdrama apps jumped 35% YoY in Q3 , led by outsized growth at Dramawave (+21000%YoY), NetShort (5800% YoY) and GoodShort (450% YoY). However, ReelShort is the largest app of this group, accounting for a 33% share of downloads in 2025
Most of these apps, like the ones that have worked in China, are based on micropayments. Do we think brands have a place here? On that note, I tried watching the FlareFlow series “Mothering My Husband’s Bastard.”
Let’s just say, the action and production values made the average Lifetime movie look like “Oppenheimer.” Still, after roughly half a dozen two-minute episodes, I did want to know what was going to happen with family’s fortune. Then I was given a choice:
Pay $19.99 a month or $199 a year to keep going
Or, watch/endure a very aggressive, intrusive ad for the mobile game Bubble Shooter.
Yikes. There is surely a lot of room to improve upon this entire experience.
“With microdramas in China, early adopters were payingper view with token purchases or very large weekly or annual subscriptions up to $200 a year, 20 bucks a week. Those are definitely early adopter prices [that aren’t sustainable].” That’s where brands will come in, he predicts. Much like the early days of streaming, once people hit subscription-fatigue levels, ad-tiers and FASTs suddenly had more appeal, per Opeka.
Still, I had another few big questions about this venture:
Could this work on CTV?
Are people really going to pick short-form shows on their phone over TV?
To his credit, Opeka had some interesting answers:
As for the leadership, “what I love about this team is they’re savvy enough to really get and embrace the format. You don’t need to spens big bucks on this programming for it to work. It’s about people building parasocial relationships with cast and characters. Usually, most of the scenes in these microdramas, it’s big closeups, it’s faces, it’s people, right?”
If you think about what has made Hallmark such a success (e.g. shooting movies in 15 days), that thinking doesn’t seem that far off.
Ok, but why another new microdrama-specific app? “We look at the space and you see hundreds of apps already launched globally, there’s about 50 available in North America.” he noted. “Most of them are Chinese-owned. We think the need for a [domestic] platform in the space is real. And we’re a technology company, so we look at the things that space lacks today. The user experience is pretty bad, right?”
Meanwhile, at Cineverse, which specializes in everything from Christmas movies on FAST channels to hits like “Terrifier 3,” the company has excelled in building its own ad and streaming tech, which Opeka says will help MicroCo’s product compare to exisitng apps. “I’d use the word casino [to describe them}. It, feels weird. It doesn’t feel like the high-quality media experiences here.”
So the plan is to marry strong tech and user experience with unique, and cheap, brand-supported content.
“We wouldn’t put together a world-class team to make programming if we were just gonna make the same stuff everyone else is making. there’s a lot of players out there that are, you know, taking shortcuts, right? They’re using AI to create scripts, very poor quality productions. It doesn’t take much to improve production values.”
“I’ll call it secret sauce how we can make extremely high quality stuff for the same price everyone else is paying or even less. So if you think about how vertical video is rapidly becoming at the rate it’s going, it’ll become the predominant way that people consume video. And so why won’t professional short form content [become the norm[?”
I for one can’t wait to see what happens next! Check out the full episode here