Chinese production companies are pumping out short-form, low-budget and high-drama series streaming straight to mobile devices, part of a booming new industry challenging Hollywood. - REUTER
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00:00A medieval castle in Zhenzhu, China, looks like a movie set, lights, costumes, directors
00:08directing.
00:09But this story isn't for the big screen.
00:11It's not a Netflix-style series either.
00:14It's aiming for the smallest screens in the shortest segments.
00:19This is one of what have become known as Chinese micro-dramas.
00:24Small as they are, they're part of a booming $5 billion industry.
00:29And they're a lifeline for actor Zhu Jian.
00:35The 69-year-old retiree plays the powerful patriarch in this tale called Grandma's Moon.
00:44It's chock-full of melodrama, but each episode is a mere minute long, timed to keep viewers
00:50watching and paying for more.
00:53In the micro-drama, every few episodes there's a plot twist.
00:57At the moment of the twist, it requires you to pay before you can continue watching.
01:03Just when you're fully engaged, right at the most exciting part.
01:08When you're hooked and can't stop, it stops and you have to pay.
01:12That's how it operates to survive.
01:15Stories like this stream in apps that prompt viewers to pay for more content.
01:20The leader in this space is Kuaishou.
01:22One media analytics company estimated Kuaishou accounted for 60% of the top 50 Chinese micro-dramas
01:29last year.
01:30A Kuaishou executive said at a media conference in January that the app featured 68 titles
01:36that notched more than 300 million views last year.
01:39He said four of their titles were watched over a billion times.
01:43Reuters has been unable to independently verify those figures.
01:47The analytics firm AppFigures said three major China-backed micro-drama apps were downloaded
01:5230 million times across both Apple's App Store and Google Play in the first quarter
01:56of 2024, grossing $71 billion internationally.
02:02For actor Zhu Jian, the industry is pretty simple, low budgets, high profits.
02:13My understanding is that it's like fast food.
02:16While long dramas are like a lavish feast, micro-dramas are more like fast food.
02:21The required investment is generally in the range of a few hundred thousand, typically
02:26between 300,000 to one million yuan.
02:31That's between $42,000 and $142,000 U.S., mere pennies compared to Hollywood budgets.
02:38The boom in micro-dramas in China has brought scrutiny from the ruling Communist Party.
02:43In 2022 and 2023, the national media regulator removed 25,300 micro-dramas, close to 1.4
02:51million episodes, due to what it called their, quote, pornographic, bloody, violent, lowbrow
02:56and vulgar content.
02:58The regulator didn't respond to Reuters' questions for this report.
03:02Zhu Jian hopes his story will follow the sort of Cinderella-style rags-to-riches path laid
03:07out in the very micro-dramas that employ him.
03:10He's a former railway employee who now lives off his pension and occasional acting gigs.
03:15But as micro-dramas gain in popularity, actors' salaries have also grown.
03:20While extras earn as little as $17 daily, leading roles can pay $280 a day, said Zhu,
03:26adding that main actors in big productions can now make more than double that rate.