Short plays have a sense of existence in the Spring Festival of 2024.

Text | Rhino Entertainment Shen Wanting

Editor | Park Fang

In this Spring Festival drama market, short plays are a bit popular.

First, a small program short play "I became a stepmother in the 1980s" overtook on social media, then Tencent’s video short play "Give her a handle" rushed to the top two in Weibo’s hot search list, and Rainbow starred in Tik Tok’s short play "Big New Year’s Day", which triggered a heated discussion …

Behind the heat and traffic is the high demand for short drama content, and the scheduled operation of short drama Spring Festival files by platforms, content companies and other parties.

A short program to recreate the myth of "getting rich"

After a period of silence, the short play of small programs took on a "splash of wealth" during the Spring Festival in 2024. What I have to mention here is "I became a stepmother in the 1980s" (hereinafter referred to as "stepmother"), which rushed to the second place in the DataEye short play heat list on February 12th.

This is a paid vertical screen short play, each episode lasts for 1-2 minutes, with a total of 82 episodes, which can be finished in two hours. To put it simply, "Stepmother" is a female short drama that makes people "go to the top". It belongs to the rural love theme in the era when the short drama market is scarce. It is probably about a female college student who went back to the second marriage pig farmer who married in the countryside in the 1980s and became the stepmother of two children. The two of them went through five hurdles and cut six generals all the way and lived a happy life.

Since the show was launched, the related content has quickly attracted widespread attention on social platforms such as Tik Tok and Weibo. As of February 19th, the topic # I became a stepmother in 1980s has been played 500 million times in Tik Tok. And according to the data released by New Wrist and Whip Cowboy, the drama topped the list of short plays in Tik Tok on the second day after its launch. On the Weibo, actor Su Lihe, who plays the male lead, also attracted a lot of "face powder" because he bumped into male stars such as Wallace Huo and Sean Xiao.

Not only that, this drama once again shows the myth of "getting rich" in the short drama industry. According to industry sources, the shooting cycle of "Stepmother" is only 10 days, and 80,000 yuan was invested in the later period, but the single-day recharge was as high as 20 million yuan. This input-output ratio is really amazing.

The reasons for its going out of the circle are as follows: firstly, it is attributed to the fact that it has no "urine point" feeling in the whole process and the people who are in line with the aesthetics of the majority of the audience. The female host is full of firepower and never has internal friction. The male host has the face and money and unconditionally trusts the female host, giving the audience a "breast-opening" viewing experience. Secondly, the male and female protagonists are online, and the drama party makes full use of this to make a big fuss about the publicity. In addition to the male coach being like a "top-notch", the female protagonist looks a bit like Han Xing Sulli in those days. In short, this wave of popularity was "rubbed" by Stepmother.

Of course, the offensive of short programs during the Spring Festival is not limited to this. Many short plays, including "Mr. Li, you are looking for the wrong wife", "The Attack Plan of Ill-tempered Villains", "the Year of the Loong’s Return to the Home with Great Prosperity" and "Emperor of Kowloon", are widely circulated on various social platforms. Among them, the urban romantic comedy "Li Zong, you have the wrong wife" from the same producer as "Stepmother" ranked first in the DataEye short drama thermal list for three consecutive days, which is also simple and rude "cool" and high configuration of handsome men and beautiful women.

However, objectively speaking, no matter the content or production, these short programs are still far from the short dramas of various video platforms, and problems such as routinization and roughness still exist. However, we must also admit that the creators in this field are always good at providing immediate emotional value to the current audience. If we find the key points of publicity again, it should not be difficult to obtain short-term high returns.

Long and short video platforms "align" with fine short plays

Small programs and short plays are hot in the Spring Festival file, and the long and short video platforms are also full of smoke.

Before the Spring Festival, the Network Audio-visual Department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television focused on promoting 16 excellent mini-short plays launched during the Spring Festival, and Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker also officially announced the film list in advance. At present, all platforms have come up with projects at the bottom of the box to welcome the first Spring Festival file belonging to short plays, and the market response of many works has reached the level of hit.

The long video platform represented by Aiyou Tengmang has not promoted short plays as much as long ones, but there are still short plays that give surprises in terms of popularity and word of mouth.

In terms of popularity, Tencent video’s costume love miniseries "Give her a handle" is outstanding. After it was launched, the popularity in the station quickly broke through 20,000 and reached the top of the cat’s eye short drama list for several days in a row. # Jewel Lee gave her a handle #, # gave her a handle with great stamina #, # gave her a handle he or be# and other topics have repeatedly boarded the hot search in Weibo.

The play is directed by Zhou Xiao, the director who has created many well-known short plays, such as "This man is a little cold" and "Ten Thousand Slags at the Phoenix", and starred by Jewel Lee, a popular actor in the short drama industry. The plot focuses on sadism, complicated relationships between characters, crazy literature, and a lot of other elements.

In terms of word-of-mouth, "Young Master and Me" of iQiyi’s "Little Funny Theater" got a score of 7.4, which is a good result in the short drama market. As a derivative customized short drama of the Aiqiyi ace comedy variety "The Annual Comedy Contest", the drama was created by the Aiqiyi Sesame Pod Studio, which produced many comedies such as "Broken Elite" and "Love Apartment 5", and incorporated many elements such as the Republic of China, modernity, martial arts, infinite flow, etc., so that the industry can once again see the feasibility of the linkage between variety and drama.

On February 8th, the mini-drama "Aunt’s World New Year’s Eve" focusing on the elderly was jointly broadcast on Mango TV and Tik Tok, and then landed on Hunan Satellite TV, which became the first work of both sides after the release of the "Excellent Short Drama Support Plan". The drama was once on the hot list of Tik Tok during the Spring Festival. In addition, The Little Beast and the Demon Catcher, which was created by Escape from the British Museum’s creative team, has been broadcast on Mango TV, Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker, Bili Bili and other platforms. As of February 19th, the average praise of the drama in Tik Tok has exceeded 1 million.

On February 17th, the micro-short drama "Flying Youth" launched on Youku focused on the theme of rural cultural tourism in the new era, and deeply integrated the beauty, food, culture and plot, which conformed to the mainstream trend of the short drama industry.

Short video platforms, represented by Tik Tok and Aauto Quicker, pay more attention to the Spring Festival file of short plays, including single-film publicity, in-station drainage, and the participation of head film and television companies and famous actors.

Tik Tok is dominated by short dramas derived from popular movies or long dramas, such as "Beyond it" derived from the animated film "The Lion Boy". A Juan, My Way Home is Windy, which is adapted from the hit TV series Go to a Windy Place, and Tianya little nyonya, a derivative of the long drama little nyonya, etc. There are also many production companies behind them, such as Baina Qiancheng, Huace Film and Television and Changxin Media.

It is noteworthy that the urban family short play "The Great New Year’s Day" starring Rainbow and Li Chuan has caused extensive discussions after it was launched in Tik Tok, and most of them focused on the disputes on topics such as "Rainbow went to play a short play" and "Rainbow responded to play a short play". The play, jointly produced by Perfect Film and Tik Tok, is the perfect follow-up to "Full-time husband training plan" and "Wake up! Another short drama with realistic theme after "Love Brain", the production standard is a long drama.

The star effect is even more obvious in Aauto Quicker. Four of the six short dramas of the Spring Festival are performed by stars. Among them, three short dramas of stars, I Open a Bar in Dasong, Yuanyang Duane and Super Sitting Class, which are co-operated with Tmall, have assembled a number of long dramas such as Zhang Xiaolong, Xi Lan, Chun Li, Andrew and Guo Xiaoting. Song Muzi and Qiao Shan were invited to the star short play "All the Way Home" by JD.COM Auto and Aauto Quicker. However, compared with Tik Tok, the short plays launched in Aauto Quicker before and after the Spring Festival are not strong in overall popularity, but they are still profitable in business.

The Spring Festival holiday has ended. Judging from the competition pattern of short dramas in this year’s Spring Festival, short dramas will still be the focus of all platforms in 2024, and "quality" will become more and more mentioned words. What needs to be vigilant is that quality is the general trend, but we should also avoid putting the cart before the horse. The investment in stars, clothing and other aspects can certainly be icing on the cake, but the improvement of content quality is the most important thing.