A tacky love triangle, overly-dramatic dialogues, a mind-bogglingly unreal but addictive storyline, jealousy, betrayal, revenge, tons and plenty of werewolves, and extra—all packed into bite-sized episodes spanning lower than three minutes. Enter the world of ultra-short drama-streaming platforms which might be more and more gaining steam in India—a market the place 86% of Web customers, which equals a whopping 707 million folks, take pleasure in over-the-top (OTT) audio and video companies, in line with a current report by the Web and Cell Affiliation of India (IAMAI) and consulting agency Kantar.
The premise of such dramas is gripping, and so is the format—TikTok-style vertically-shot ultra-short movies that you simply scroll to look at the following episode.
ReelShort is one such streaming service that’s more and more grabbing eyeballs in India, a significant shopper of each Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. In January itself, the app was downloaded 4 million instances and generated a income of $3 million worldwide, in line with market analysis firm Sensor Tower.
Whereas the US is the most important marketplace for this China-backed app, India is the second-biggest, in line with the information aggregation agency Similarweb.
Staggeringly, the app, which is little-known amid the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, et al, is among the many highest-grossing leisure apps within the nation. As per Sensor Tower’s newest figures, the app stood fourth among the many top-grossing leisure apps in India—nicely above Netflix, which ranked fifth. On Google Play Retailer, the app stood third. Apparently, the app that stood second was DramaBox, one other ultra-short drama streaming platform.
Since its world launch in August 2022, ReelShort made $22 million in income, Joey Jia, the chief government of Loopy Maple Studio, which owns the app, advised The Wall Avenue Journal.
The format is exclusive and so is the best way of the income mannequin. In contrast to the normal OTT platforms for which one wants to purchase a subscription to be able to begin watching the content material, one can begin the ReelShort dramas at no cost. Nevertheless, after some time, one has to pay, or view an advert, to look at the following episodes—an ideal recipe because the storylines develop quick and episodes finish on a cliffhanger, making customers loosen their purse strings.
Whereas the income mannequin is exclusive, the price of making a collection is as little as $300,000 or much less, in line with The New York Instances. Examine this with Netflix. Based on Forbes, simply an episode of The Crown Season 5 price a whopping $14.4 million.
Nevertheless, in contrast to Netflix and different such platforms, ReelShort isn’t an app for somebody who has a number of hours in hand. Somewhat, it’s one thing that one would watch when brief on time and on the go.
Not solely ReelShort and DramaBox however quite a few different ultra-short drama streaming platforms have launched in India, equivalent to ShortTV and FlexTV.
Notably, conventional OTT platforms, too, have tried their fingers on the brief video format. Netflix’s Quick Laughs, which the platform began testing in India final 12 months, is a working example. These are TikTok-like movies of clips from Netflix reveals. A question to the corporate, nevertheless, didn’t elicit any response.
Amazon’s miniTV has a bunch of brief movies, spanning round 10 to fifteen minutes. Equally, Disney+ Hotstar, too, has a slew of brief movies with lengths of lower than an hour. The identical is the case with Zee5.
Whereas leisure platforms are more and more catering to the decreased consideration span and the recognition of the short-video platform, with vertically-shot scrollable movies that hardly span three minutes, the ultra-short streaming platforms are instantly tapping on the TikTok craze. Neither the storyline nor the best way the movies matter a lot, and the emphasis lies on gripping the customers’ consideration inside seconds, and conserving them hooked for hours.
Whereas the development reportedly began in China in the course of the pandemic, the craze of those smartphone-friendly streaming companies is rapidly catching up elsewhere, particularly in India.
