Microdramas move up the value chain as top studios bet on vertical storytelling

Microdramas are no longer just a short-form experiment being driven by specialist apps. Over the past few months, established content studios, OTT platforms and storytelling companies have begun entering the space through partnerships, dedicated studios and sizable production commitments.

The latest is EPIC Studios and Rusk Media, which have partnered to create 50 original vertical drama series for Rusk's Alright! TV. The slate will span mythology, drama, mystery, thriller and romance, with the companies aiming to build one of India's largest libraries of owned vertical-drama IP.

The ambition goes beyond the initial slate. Aditya Pittie, Managing Director, The EPIC Company, says the company aims to have more than 250 titles by the middle of next year. “Vertical dramas are experiencing massive global and domestic growth, reshaping how content is consumed,” Pittie says. “A slate of 50 original series is just the beginning.”

For Rusk Media, the partnership brings together EPIC's storytelling capabilities across television, streaming and films with Alright! TV's digital-first distribution. Karanvir Sofat, Co-founder & CRO, Rusk Media, says the collaboration is aimed at delivering premium entertainment that combines storytelling with “the pace and accessibility today's viewers expect.”

Earlier this year, one of the biggest production houses in the country - Yash Raj Films (YRF) - made a strategic investment in Rusk Media. Under the partnership, YRF will oversee the creative direction of original animation and vertical micro-drama IP, while Rusk Media will produce and distribute the content through its proprietary Alright! TV platform and global digital channels.

The scale of such high-profile commitments is significant because it signals a change in how the Indian film industry is viewing the format. Microdrama is increasingly being treated as an IP and production opportunity, rather than simply another short-form engagement product, industry experts say.

According to Pep Figueirêdo, COO of PTPL, “Microdramas are now a 'daily mobile habit' and a 'trending opportunity' that even traditional studios in India like YRF are capitalising on. Investors are now recognising stronger RoI potential in audience intelligence and adaptable IP, viewing these assets as more valuable drivers of scalable and sustainable returns.”

RedSeer Strategy Consultants estimates the microdrama category itself doubled from roughly $125 million in annual recurring revenue in September 2025 to nearly $260 million by November 2025 — one of the fastest growth curves in India’s digital entertainment landscape.

According to “The state of microdrama”, a study conducted by ShareChat & Moj in collaboration with Kantar, finds that 80% of social media audiences now prefer microdrama, with 86% of viewers spending more than 15 minutes watching every day and 54% returning for a repeat session, evidence that the format has moved firmly from novelty to routine. It further reveals that microdrama creates a high-attention advertising environment, delivering 84% brand recall and 82% purchase intent, outperforming traditional short-form content on key brand metrics.

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IP engine or testing ground?

The initial attraction of microdramas was straightforward: one-minute episodes, mobile-first consumption, faster production cycles and potentially lower production costs.

But the more interesting opportunity could be IP discovery. In April, Pratilipi launched Double Tap Films as a data-backed microdrama studio, drawing on its ecosystem of more than 20 million stories and over two million authors. The company says those stories generate more than 800 million reads each month, giving it a pool of audience-validated narratives before production begins. 

Ranjeet Pratap Singh, Co-founder & CEO, Pratilipi, describes the opportunity as a change in the screen itself: “India has always been a country of storytellers. What has changed is the screen.”

The collaboration model potentially reduces some of the uncertainty around developing new IP. Instead of beginning with a blank page, studios can identify stories that have already generated engagement, adapt them for vertical video and use audience behaviour as an early signal of their potential. That makes microdrama potentially more than a content format.

However, many still believe that established production houses are moving toward microdramas because the format offers a low-cost testing ground for new characters, stories and audience behaviour while allowing studios to convert successful concepts into larger films, series and franchises, effectively turning microdrama into an IP discovery engine rather than simply another content format. 

“Internationally, South Korea offers a strong parallel where companies such as Kakao Entertainment and YLAB have moved from owning digital storytelling IP into directly producing screen adaptations so they can retain more of the downstream value across dramas, games, merchandise and other formats,” said a filmmaker. 

He adds, “China's microdrama ecosystem demonstrates why this is attractive, with low production costs, rapid turnaround and multiple monetisation routes encouraging established production companies to enter the space. For an Indian company, the opportunity is therefore potentially less about competing with specialist microdrama apps on episode volume and more about using the format as a commercially disciplined laboratory for discovering the next generation of scalable Indian IP.”

Studios meet digital-first platforms

Applause Entertainment's partnership with Story TV earlier this year reflects a similar shift. The companies agreed to co-produce and distribute a slate of short-form content, while Story TV acquired rights to Hello Mini to adapt the existing IP into a vertical format. Story TV, launched by the Eloelo group in July 2025, has itself been scaling its production pipeline rapidly. The platform says it now has more than 1,000 titles across Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and has attracted more than 50 million users.

The attraction for established studios is clear: specialist platforms bring mobile-native storytelling and audience understanding, while traditional content companies bring IP development, production infrastructure, talent and marketing capabilities. The partnerships emerging across the sector are therefore less about traditional studios replacing digital-first players and more about combining these capabilities.

One of the biggest questions around the category is whether low-cost, high-volume storytelling can create enduring intellectual property or remain dependent on short-term engagement spikes.

Yubraaj Bhattacharya, filmmaker, quips. “Everybody is doing microdrama because that’s the bulk of the work in the market. Even established and big production houses are not saying no to this work which is available in volume. I haven’t come across a case of serious money being spent on microdrama - something that would get a good writer / director / actor to get involved. If that happens then yes, microdrama as a genre can take off.”

The screen is changing—and so is the storytelling

Microdramas are not simply shorter OTT shows. They are built around the behaviour of the mobile feed: immediate hooks, compressed narrative arcs and frequent cliffhangers designed to encourage viewers to watch the next episode. That is also why distribution is becoming more fluid.

The BuzzFeed Studios–muVpix partnership announced in July will produce more than 100 vertical titles over two years for distribution across TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, FAST/CTV and the muVpix platform. The first title, Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined, has been shot in both vertical and horizontal formats.

The model points towards a future in which a single IP can be created for the mobile screen but distributed across multiple environments.

For studios, the appeal ultimately may not be the one-minute episode itself. A successful microdrama can provide something potentially more valuable: a tested piece of IP with an existing audience. That opens possibilities across longer-form OTT, films, audio, gaming, merchandising or international adaptations. Established IP can also be repurposed for vertical consumption, as Applause's Hello Mini demonstrates.

But the category still has to prove that rapid audience growth can translate into sustainable monetisation. Platforms are experimenting with advertising, subscriptions and transactional models, while production economics remain relatively new.

The next battle may therefore not be for the most downloads or the largest catalogue, but for who can discover, own and scale the next breakout story—one vertical episode at a time.