Current State of Overseas Short Drama Promotion, 2026-05-24

1. Among paid short drama platforms, the leading names are still ReelShort, DramaBox, NetShort, DramaWave, and GoodShort. The second tier includes products such as MoboReels and DreameShort.

2. The content direction has taken a major turn. There are not many translated dramas going overseas anymore. The main reason is that fewer people are producing these dramas domestically now, so there is simply less content available to export. Even for dramas still being produced, many are not necessarily suitable for overseas distribution. The current trend has shifted from ordinary motion comics toward AI live-action dramas.

3. People’s imagination around AI live-action drama has become richer as well. It is no longer just the old billionaire CEO formula. Teams are starting to make more “Western-style” mythological themes, and not just werewolves or vampires. Since AI can generate these things, people are now making Western-style genres that were difficult to produce before, and the results are not bad. NetShort has been especially noticeable in this wave.

4. For AI live-action dramas, NetShort and DramaWave are currently the more prominent ones. Overall, NetShort’s drama quality looks higher at the moment. Second-tier platforms are also shifting toward AI live-action dramas, and the results are decent. MoboReels’ recent drama quality has been quite stable, but its production capacity still lags behind the leading players.

5. If short drama is fast-food delivery, AI live-action drama is like a budget meal bundle. Its audience skews more toward lower-tier markets. If you look at comments under some new dramas on major platforms now, you will see users saying things like, “Finally, a drama with real people.” Some users still want to eat something a little better.

6. The decay speed of AI live-action dramas is really fast. In the past, a good live-action drama could sometimes run for one to two months. Translated dramas could run for about a week. Now with AI live-action dramas, weaker ones may last two days, and better ones may last about a week. Overall, the scale they can run is still far below real live-action dramas. But the advantage is volume: there is a lot of supply.

7. Given the characteristics of AI dramas, the requirements for media buying are actually higher. This is not about technical difficulty, but about physical workload. In this volume-stacking model, NetShort and DramaWave do have a clear advantage.

8. Real live-action dramas still have opportunities. It may be better to position them directly as “quality” dramas, reduce poor-quality titles, and attract core users to stay. Short drama users already watch across multiple platforms. After they eat the budget meal somewhere else, if your platform has something good, they will still come back and pay.

9. The biggest recent variable is not these AI live-action dramas, but PineDrama plus TikTok mini-program short dramas from ByteDance. First, they are free. Second, they are buying traffic aggressively. Melolo is also ByteDance’s product, but its traffic buying is relatively milder. More importantly, the conversion flow of TikTok mini-programs is extremely smooth. The result is that they consume a lot of user time. The obvious impact is that mid- and low-quality dramas basically cannot make money when running paid campaigns. Dramas of similar quality have already been quickly washed through by TikTok plus PineDrama. Once users have watched this type of drama there, expecting them to pay for the same kind of content elsewhere is unrealistic. Paid platforms only have hope if they produce more high-quality dramas. TikTok mini-programs still have a short-term dividend, but recently more than a dozen platforms have already passed through, so the space will probably become crowded soon. Especially once competition heats up and ad-platform incentives disappear, late entrants will likely become cannon fodder again. It is fine to chase the dividend, but do not hang everything on it.

10. Whether it is AI drama or real live-action drama, try not to make low-quality dramas anymore. If you make them, they probably will not sell. The more intense the competition, the higher the requirements for the drama. Do not assume that because AI tools are powerful, your drama quality has also improved. If your improvement speed is slower than industry development and the rise in user expectations, then if you fall behind, the result is still bad.

11. Between quantity and quality, quality is more important. AI can improve production efficiency, but mass-producing garbage is useless. Stable, high-quality output is what can ultimately make money. Producing a large pile where every title is bad will only make the team and partners lose confidence.

12. Do not hang yourself on one platform. After Hongguo gained a dominant position in China, producers may not even get much soup to drink. After making high-quality content, it is better to cooperate with multiple platforms as much as possible. The overseas market structure is not settled yet, so multi-platform cooperation can maximize returns. If the quality is weaker, even putting it on YouTube may recover a little, although it may still lose money. Overseas ByteDance currently only has free dramas; it does not have much advantage in paid drama platforms. Working with several leading paid drama platforms may not produce worse returns. For free dramas, there is also FreeReels, which has the largest DAU, and revenue sharing or selling dramas may not necessarily be worse than working with ByteDance.

13. Piracy is rampant. This is also quite obvious for AI dramas, but many producers may not even know their work has been pirated. There are all kinds of pirated resources on Dailymotion and YouTube. Work with leading platforms directly, let them distribute the dramas widely, and do some copyright protection. They also have incentives to report other pirated copies.

If there is anything else you want to know, you can ask me privately. Just do not ask me for data.