The microseries economy is now valued at $150 billion globally, and that’s excluding its biggest market in China. Holywater Tech and Owl & Co.’s released their first-ever State of Microdrama report on Thursday, with research stemming from in-product data from Holywater’s MyDrama and MyMuse apps as well as a user survey of 2,737 respondents.
The vertical video economy has increased 41% compared to last year. Holywater also found that the male audience for its microseries platform MyDrama increased by 2,800% in the past seven quarters, jumping from 1.1% of monthly active users to 30.3% users. Male viewers watch 1.4 times more sci-fi and fantasy content than female viewers and respond to adapted IP half as much. They’re also more likely to find microseries through YouTube and app-store searches.
MyMuse, Holywater’s platform for AI-generated vertical shows, converts users into paying subscribers at roughly the same rate as microseries made by real actors, directors and writers. The conversion rate for MyMuse is 23.6% compared to MyDrama’s 23.9% conversion rate for live-action shows. Microseries platforms like MyDrama and MyMuse work by letting users watch a certain amount of content for free before charging them to watch more episode, either directly or by requiring them to purchase in-app currency. Also, when it comes to AI-generated shows, nine out of 10 paying subscribers keep watching after 100 minutes.
Considering the overall low quality of most microseries, both live-action and AI-generated, this insight seems like it will likely be contained to the microseries bubble rather than one that may apply to Hollywood overall. But since microseries have become so essential to younger talent breaking into the industry, it’s a trend that may have staying power in the long term.
The study also found that 70% of MyDrama viewers watch vertical series in bed before sleep, the hours that are typically referred to in the TV industry as prime time. Heavy users average 13.1 hours a week, an almost 38% increase from five months ago.
As for demographics, in the past five quarters, the number of viewers aged 22 to 27 has more than tripled. More than half (65%) of microseries users have been watching the content for less than a year. As for what people are watching, 74% of viewers watch romance microseries, with 76% of women watching the genre.
