“Minute-Long Dopamine Hits Shake the Streaming Industry” — Low-Cost, High-Volume Short-Form Content Upends the Media Landscape

“Real Life Is Exhausting—Who Has Time for a Two-Hour Movie?”
Viewing Time Among Teens and Twentysomethings Shifts From Long-Form Content to One-Minute Videos
Plunging Production Costs and AI-Driven Mass Output Fuel a Surge in Short-Form Supply

Short-form content is disrupting the long-form-dominated over-the-top (OTT) streaming market. Low production costs, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled mass production and performance-based advertising have combined to propel short-form platforms rapidly toward established streaming operators. As viewing sessions grow shorter, particularly among teenagers and people in their twenties, incumbent OTT companies are introducing vertical-video feeds to retain users. Yet the production-cost and content-supply gap with short-form platforms will prove exceedingly difficult to close.

Short-Form Drama Apps Climb the Rankings

According to Sensor Tower’s ranking of free entertainment-app downloads in South Korea on Google Play, released on Aug. 5, short-form drama apps are rapidly catching up with established OTT services such as Netflix and Coupang Play. Netflix ranked first, followed by Coupang Play and Tving, while short-form drama platform RapidTV placed fourth. It even outranked Disney+, which came in fifth. Other short-form drama platforms also entered the top 10, with DramaBox ranking seventh and Popcorn Drama ninth.

Short-form drama apps have entered a full-fledged growth phase this year. Sensor Tower data showed established OTT apps and short-form drama platforms repeatedly trading places in the rankings throughout February. Short-form drama apps occasionally overtook major streaming platforms including Netflix to claim the top position in free downloads. RapidTV reached No. 1 on Feb. 19, followed by FlickReels on March 3.

China’s short-form drama market has already expanded to a scale comparable with the country’s film industry. The market was estimated at approximately $7.4 billion in 2024, surpassing China’s theatrical box office. The expansion has been driven by Chinese platforms such as ReelShort and DramaBox, which are rapidly extending their operations across North America, Japan and Southeast Asia.

The broader global short-form drama market is also growing rapidly. Research firm Media Partners Asia estimated the market at $16 billion this year and forecast that it would expand to $26 billion by 2030. ReelShort has posted the most pronounced growth in South Korea. Its average monthly viewing time in the country increased 35% from 149 minutes in January to 201 minutes in June. ShortMax also helped drive the increase, with average viewing time rising from 294 minutes to 332 minutes over the same period. DramaBox generated combined Google Play and App Store revenue of $30 million between January 2024 and February this year, according to Sensor Tower.

Table 1. Growth Drivers and Industry Restructuring in the Short-Form Content Market

Teens and Twentysomethings Rewrite the Programming Schedule

Short-form videos are brief pieces of content distributed through dedicated platforms, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok. Designed for casual smartphone viewing, the format also allows virtually anyone to become a creator. Theatrical films and dramas produced by legacy broadcasters had long been regarded as the biggest competitive threats to OTT platforms. Short-form content has now emerged as the industry’s most formidable challenger. Its ascendancy has become irreversible. As YouTube gained influence, two-hour films were condensed into summaries of roughly 10 minutes. Users who found even those summaries too long have migrated toward videos lasting less than a minute.

The explosive growth and disruptive force of short-form content stem from its cost structure. A ReelShort production typically consists of 60 to 90 episodes and carries an average production budget of approximately $300,000. Producers film one- to two-minute episodes on compressed schedules, release the first five to 10 installments free of charge and then place the remaining episodes behind a paywall, sharply shortening the investment-recovery period.

AI is further expanding content supply by reducing the time required for planning, translation, dubbing and editing. Tools such as Seedance 2.0, a video-generation model developed by TikTok parent ByteDance, can create short videos from a single image and a text prompt and have already entered the commercialization phase. Global platforms including YouTube are also incorporating automated subtitles and multilingual dubbing into their localization processes. Small production companies without extensive filming equipment or permanent staff can now test short-form concepts and concentrate follow-on investment on projects that demonstrate audience demand.

Lower production costs leave platforms with high user-acquisition expenses. According to Sensor Tower, paid advertising generated more than 60% of DramaBox and ShortMax downloads last year and 70% of ReelShort downloads. The three platforms produced more than 5 billion ad impressions through Facebook, TikTok and other channels during the same year. As production-capital barriers have fallen, the ability to interpret user data and rapidly allocate advertising budgets has emerged as the industry’s new gateway to entry.

Younger users are accelerating this shift. A report published in February by digital marketing platform KT Nasmedia analyzed the digital consumption patterns of 2,000 internet users aged 15 to 69 nationwide. Among short-form viewers in their teens and twenties, the proportion engaging in follow-up activity—including repeat viewing and sharing content links—exceeded 70%, well above the all-age average of 62.5%.

OTT Platforms Roll Out Short-Form Services

As the short-form offensive intensifies, OTT companies are introducing vertical-video feeds to respond to changing consumption patterns. Short-form video has already become the dominant content format among trend-setting users in their teens and twenties. Industry analysis indicates that the preference for videos delivering immediate entertainment within a brief period has spread across all age groups, eroding demand for long-form narratives.

Netflix recently unveiled Clips, a vertical short-form feature. Users who discover appealing titles while browsing short-form content can immediately add them to “My List.” The feature also supports direct playback from the title’s page and allows users to share content with friends and acquaintances. According to market research firm Digital i Agency, YouTube viewing time has already surpassed Netflix across 20 major markets worldwide. Average viewing time per YouTube account globally increased from approximately 87 minutes in 2024 to 99 minutes last year, while Netflix viewing time declined from roughly 100 minutes to 93 minutes over the same period.

The Walt Disney Company introduced Verts, a short-form video feature for Disney+, in March. The function allows users to watch scenes from Disney+ films and series as short vertical videos, swipe through them and then proceed directly to the full-length title. Amazon Prime Video has also entered the short-form market by adding Clips to its mobile app. The feature repackages highlights from Prime Video films, television series and sporting events into brief vertical videos. Users can browse multiple clips consecutively through a feed and add the corresponding long-form title to a watchlist or purchase or rent it immediately.

South Korean OTT companies have also moved to stem user attrition. Tving provides internally produced short-form content spanning dramas, entertainment programs and sports through the Shorts tab in its app, with links directing viewers to full-length titles. In June, it also launched Comedy Short League, a short-form adaptation of the established entertainment program Comedy Big League for streaming audiences. Wavve is working with a specialist short-form production company to develop drama and entertainment content lasting approximately 10 minutes.

Return of 24-Hour Programming

OTT operators are also reviving conventional television-style programming strategies, including live channels and sports broadcasts. Netflix is considering placing live channels that continuously stream selected programs or genres around the clock on its home screen. The initiative would recreate the experience of channel surfing within a streaming service. The company is reportedly also examining bundled subscription offerings that would allow users to subscribe to other streaming services, including NBCUniversal’s Peacock, through the Netflix app.

A growing number of OTT companies are investing heavily in sports broadcasting. Coupang Play has secured rights to major competitions including the English Premier League (EPL) and Major League Soccer (MLS), while Tving has attracted baseball fans through exclusive coverage of the KBO League. Sports broadcasting entails substantially higher production and operating costs than conventional content because platforms must maintain live-streaming infrastructure, on-site production crews, captioning services and other supporting systems.

Short-Form Offensive Disrupts the Gaming Industry

The compression of video consumption is also reshaping the pockets of spare time traditionally occupied by mobile games. A survey of 10,000 people aged 10 to 69 conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency found that South Korea’s gaming participation rate fell 9.7 percentage points year on year to 50.2% last year. It was the lowest figure since the survey began in 2015. The rate has declined for three consecutive years, falling from 74.4% in 2022 to 62.9% in 2023 and 59.9% in 2024.

The figures reveal two concurrent trends. Short-form video has moved into the time slots previously occupied by mobile games during commutes and other brief intervals, while gaming participation has shifted toward highly engaged PC and console users. Mobile games built around instant access and short reward cycles are now competing directly for screen time with vertical videos governed by the same behavioral logic.

The two formats also share a substantial portion of their user bases. Sensor Tower’s analysis of short-form drama users’ app activity in the third quarter of last year found that games accounted for more than 30 of the top 100 co-used apps in the United States and more than half in Brazil. In several Latin American markets, short-form drama apps generated more revenue than multiple mobile games released during the same period. The boundary between their business models has also blurred. The short-form industry’s strategy of acquiring users through advertising and inducing them to purchase a succession of brief episodes closely resembles the performance-marketing and in-app purchase formula refined by the mobile gaming industry.