DUANJU  NEWS

In a landscape where smartphones already dictate the pace of consumption, Nigeria appears as a natural candidate to bring duanju to Africa. However, Lagos-based project manager and producer Ajibola Olayiwola cautions that enthusiasm alone is not enough: without a method, the format will remain just a promise. Nigeria, a critical mass to transform. For Olayiwola, the potential is real, but contingent on industrial development. He states it clearly: “Nigeria can also get on board. I think it’s feasible, but there’s still a lot to be done.” His central point: structuring the entire chain, from scriptwriting to post-production, with investments and planning capable of supporting high production rates. Duanju isn't arriving in a vacuum: attention is already being captured by TikTok, Reels, and continuous vertical video. The difference, therefore, lies in the organization and editorial approach, not just the format. Olayiwola advocates a pan-African approach: "If Nigeria and Africa as a whole can collaborate, put this structure in place, and raise the funds, I think it's feasible." The goal: to pool resources, expertise, and distribution to produce identifiable vertical series that transcend the social media feed. Interview conducted by Blessing Azugama #BlessingAzugama

For a long time, duanju seemed like an anomaly. A vertical stream of very short fictional stories, saturated with close-ups, immediate plot twists, and promises of sequels at the click of a button. A grammar of urgency, designed for the phone, that might have amused streaming professionals. Except that, since the end of 2023, the “anomaly” has started to appear where it hurts: in the download charts, and then in the revenue. Figures that are changing scale The shift is first and foremost quantifiable. Appfigures estimates that 66 short-drama apps generated $146 million in consumer spending in the first quarter of 2024, compared to $1.8 million in the same period a year earlier. This acceleration isn't simply a passing fad, because it's accompanied by a change in status: these apps are no longer simply "copying" TikTok; they're capturing entertainment budgets and purchase intent that video platforms hadn't necessarily converted. ReelShort, often presented as the standard-bearer of this wave in the US market, offered the clearest illustration of it. On November 11, 2023, the app briefly overtook TikTok to become the most popular entertainment app on the US App Store, a rare occurrence in a market where TikTok is usually untouchable in terms of mainstream downloads. References to this event subsequently circulated in several industry analyses, demonstrating that it resonated with observers as a significant market moment. A model that eats up screen time The competition isn't head-to-head on usage, but rather on the scarcest resource: time. Where TikTok wins through variety and endless content, duanju apps win through continuity. Everything is designed to transform curiosity into a series. And above all, acquisition is industrialized. Adjust describes strategies where the share of paid downloads for market leaders (ReelShort, DramaBox, GoodShort) can reach very high levels, a sign of growth driven by media buying and optimized like a traditional mobile product, not like a "social" platform that relies on organic traffic. This is where the comparison with major streamers becomes relevant. Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video compete on catalog size and content budget, but they sell a longer, often more established, ritual. Duanju apps, on the other hand, sell impulse and seamless streaming. They don't necessarily replace a full evening of binge-watching; they replace fragments of the day—the very fragments TikTok has captured. When these fragments become monetizable on a large scale, duanju ceases to be a novelty and becomes a category competitor. The challenge for 2026 is therefore not whether these apps will “hold up” against TikTok or streamers, but how far they can extend their reach: more genres, more locations, and economic models capable of financing more ambitious production without losing the speed that is their strength. On this point, cases like DramaBox or Stardust TV count as much as ReelShort: the story is no longer that of a single application, but of a format that has become an industry. Sources: • The Economist – November 23, 2023 • 36Kr Global – March 3, 2025 • Global Times – November 26, 2023 • Appfigures – 2024 • Adjust – June 4, 2024

As smartphones become the primary screen, part of the audiovisual battle is now being fought on ultra-short formats, consumed in binge-watching, but produced with premium fiction ambitions. It is in this context that Holywater, the Ukrainian company behind the My Drama app, announces a strategic alliance with Elefantec Global, a studio founded by Pepe Bastón, a major figure in the Latin American industry and a specialist in serialized storytelling. A partnership tailored for mass production, Elefantec Global's telenovela expertise is being combined with My Drama's duanju distribution and monetization mechanisms. Based between Los Angeles and Mexico City, Elefantec boasts a "premium" focus and a history of producing content for international platforms. In terms of volume, the stated objective is ambitious: up to 70 vertical series aimed at the Spanish-speaking public in 2025 and 2026. The average production budget mentioned is between $80,000 and $140,000 per series, a level that signals a desire to industrialize without falling into ultra low cost. The conquest strategy: distribution first, catalog second Behind the announcement, the central issue is access to the Spanish-speaking market, conceived as a combination of Spain and Latin America, where mobile consumption is already massive and where serialized dramas are culturally ingrained. Holywater highlights the traction of My Drama and its ecosystem: the company speaks of a global audience of tens of millions of people, with monthly usage metrics for My Drama. The economic rationale is clear: quickly establish a foothold through a stream of localized titles, then convert that distribution into recurring usage. Some sources indicate a Spanish-language market for the video vertical estimated at $2 billion annually, a potential audience of up to 290 million users, and a target of 10 million monthly active users as part of the expansion. Implicitly, this alliance illustrates a broader trend: duanju platforms are now seeking partners with established local industries (in this case, the Latin American telenovela industry) to accelerate production, artistic validation, and distribution. Several industry observers cite this Spanish partnership as one of the key drivers of Holywater and My Drama's international expansion. Sources: • Holywater.tech - September 17, 2025 • dev.ua - September 30, 2025 • The Odessa Journal - October 1, 2025 • Real Reel – November 10, 2025

Duanju continues to gain traction in Europe, and Portugal is now launching its own industrial project. At the end of October 2025, RTP, the Portuguese public broadcasting group, announced a partnership with SPi, a local production company, to launch what is being presented as Portugal's first vertical micro-drama project. Production: a clear package, an identified team The project is structured as a series: five series, 20 episodes per series, approximately 1 minute 30 seconds per episode, promising a variety of genres ranging from thriller to comedy. The original idea is attributed to Pedro Lopes, and the writing is entrusted to three screenwriters: Inês Gomes, Susana Romano, and Marina Ribeiro. The production team is also named: Manuel Amaro da Costa is listed as the project coordinator. Schedule: Filming announced over two months, start date confirmed Filming is scheduled to take place between December 2025 and January 2026. In early December, SPi confirmed the move to the studio phase, indicating that they had started filming the first of the five micro-dramas. Distribution: social media first, then the platform The distribution plan is explicitly mobile and social oriented: TikTok and Instagram are cited as distribution channels, with RTP Play, the RTP group's streaming and replay platform, as a third access point. On the editorial side, RTP1 speaks through its director José Fragoso, who presents the operation as a fiction project designed for vertical digital distribution, which signals a “platforms” logic rather than a simple marketing supplement around a classic TV series. Against this backdrop, international pressure is mounting: according to Sensor Tower, cumulative downloads of short drama apps are approaching 950 million by the end of March 2025, an order of magnitude that explains why public broadcasters are now testing native network formats in professional production. Sources • SPi , 30/10/2025 • SPi , 10/12/2025 • SATURDAY , 04/01/2026 • Sensor Tower , July 2025 • ECO , 04/11/2025

In the vertical drama ecosystem, Uganda sees the circulation of ultra-short series from Asia and the United States, but the founders of Binyuma TV, Edwin Ryonga and Ivan Kasagama, start from a local observation: African audiences are already watching, while a structured pan-African offering remains to be built. Their project positions itself as a platform response, designed with the continent's viewing habits in mind, with the ambition of expanding beyond the Ugandan market. From observation to platform: why Binyuma TV The starting point is very concrete. Observing his surroundings, one of the co-founders describes a format already ubiquitous in Kampala: "It seems like everyone I know, at least in Uganda, watches them, but nobody creates them." The idea for Binyuma TV was born from this asymmetry between consumption and production, and from a simple cultural conviction: "Africans like to watch their own content. That's really where the idea for Binyuma started to take shape." In their view, the timing is favorable for a structural reason: Africa is a phone-first market. If vertical drama has taken hold elsewhere, it's also because it aligns with the fast-paced, fragmented, and repeatable nature of mobile consumption. In the interview, they connect this shift to what they've observed in other markets: in China, and then in the United States, the format has reportedly surpassed traditional consumption patterns, prompting them to take the phenomenon seriously and adapt it to local offerings. The challenge isn't simply to replicate a model. They emphasize the need to "localize" vertical drama, both narratively and culturally. Their interpretation of the format's success rests on dramatic intensity, expressiveness, and immediately accessible narrative devices. They cite archetypes of romance and social contrast, a fast pace, and above all, a central promise: what happens next, right now? This global “grammar,” they argue, only has value if it is reframed by African codes. In their formulation, it's about respecting what works in the vertical space while adding “the African touch.” The platform is designed with this logic in mind: to give a stable form to a demand already visible on social networks, but by transforming it into culturally grounded content and a catalog. Binyuma TV presents itself from the outset as a project with broader ambitions than its point of origin. They explain that they began by exchanging ideas with tech professionals, then formalizing an approach that could “introduce this to not only the people in Uganda and in Africa.” In other words: a Ugandan base, but a continental horizon. Regarding the signs of growth, they remain cautious but optimistic. They mention encouraging feedback from discussions with vertical content stakeholders, and a positive perception when the argument for African localization is understood. They also point to a simple on-the-ground indicator: the already strong performance of non-fiction vertical content on TikTok and Reels, seen as proof of appetite, even before the rise of scripted vertical dramas. Interview conducted by Blessing Azugama #BlessingAzugama

For a long time, the notion of "China Speed" was established as an economic and industrial marker of China's acceleration. It referred to China's ability to build, produce, and deliver more quickly: a speed emblematic of its economic boom and manufacturing power. In recent years, this concept has extended far beyond the realm of factories and infrastructure. It now permeates the cultural sphere, finding its most accomplished illustration in duanju, the ultra-short mini-series originating in China. Through duanju, China Speed no longer simply shapes the economy: it redefines cultural forms, narratives, and the relationship to time. China Speed: From an industrial slogan to a worldview Originally, China Speed was a concept coined to describe a tangible reality: construction projects completed in a few weeks, cities emerging in a few years, production lines capable of moving from idea to market at very high speed. Behind this performance lies a philosophy of time. In China today, economic time is not a space for contemplation: it is a strategic resource. Optimizing it means producing value, gaining power, and remaining competitive in a globalized world. This approach has gradually spread to the digital sector (e-commerce, fintech, social platforms), and then to cultural industries, long considered secondary to economic priorities. Duanju emerged precisely at this tipping point. The duanju: a narrative at the speed of the Chinese era Duanju is based on simple principles related to lifestyles and customs, which influence the relationship to time: episodes of 1 to 3 minutes, broadcast on smartphones, often in vertical format, immediately readable plots and constant twists in each episode. Where traditional series slowly establish their characters and narrative arcs, duanju condenses. It doesn't tell less of a story; it tells it faster. Each scene is conceived as a unit of maximum efficiency: to capture attention, evoke emotion, and entice viewers to watch the next episode. This format perfectly suits an urban Chinese society characterized by density, constant mobility, fragmented free time, and daily hyper-connectivity. Duanju thus becomes the cultural counterpart to China Speed: optimized storytelling for a compressed timeframe. Optimizing emotion: a new cultural value As in factories, speed here becomes a central value of creation. China Speed is no longer just a production rate: it becomes a cultural rhythm, revealing a contemporary relationship to time, attention, and narrative, where intensity takes precedence over duration. In the world of duanju, speed is not merely a formal choice but a cultural value, an organizing principle that prioritizes immediate impact. Speed thus becomes a criterion of quality. What is slow is perceived as weak, inefficient, or even obsolete. This shift marks a profound transformation of cultural industries in the age of platforms and mobile technology: time is no longer expandable; it is scarce, fragmented, and subject to constant competition. The cultural speed of China no longer seeks to hold the viewer's attention over time; it aims to capture them instantly. This fast-paced approach profoundly transforms narrative time. The story unfolds as a succession of intensified presents, where waiting is minimized. The duanju becomes less a linear narrative than a narrative flow, aligned with contemporary digital practices. Contrary to a common criticism, duanju does not necessarily signify the impoverishment of culture. Rather, it reflects a shift in the hierarchy of cultural values. In the classical Western model, cultural value is often associated with duration, slowness, and psychological complexity. Duanju offers something different: immediate emotion, rapid identification, and deliberate dramatic effectiveness. This approach does not negate depth; it reconfigures it. The viewer is no longer invited to immerse themselves for extended periods, but rather to consume successive micro-shocks of emotion. The value lies in the ability to evoke feeling quickly, rather than in the time spent feeling. A cultural industry aligned with the logic of China Speed The success of duanju lies not only in its format but also in its production methods. Filming is quick, crews are small, and creative cycles are short. Platforms test, adjust, abandon, or relaunch narrative concepts at a speed comparable to that of tech startups. Major players in the Chinese digital ecosystem have understood that duanju allows for maximum responsiveness to trends, rapid monetization, and large-scale storytelling. Here we find the fundamentals of China Speed: test fast, produce fast, correct fast. Creative content then becomes a field of constant experimentation, subject to metrics of attention and performance. Towards an exportable Chinese cultural model? The question of exporting duanju is now a pressing one. Like European art-house cinema or American television series in their time, duanju could become a form of Chinese cultural soft power. Its export implies a shift in the Western perspective: accepting that cultural value no longer necessarily lies in length, slowness, or classical narrative sophistication. Duanju offers an alternative model, based on intensity, accessibility, and adaptation to global digital practices. In this sense, duanju is not an anomaly or a low-cost form of culture: it may well be the vanguard of an accelerated global culture. China Speed: A New Relationship to Time and Narrative Duanju is more than just a new audiovisual format; it acts as a cultural revealer. It shows how China applies its logic of time optimization, productivity, and efficiency not only to the economy, but also to storytelling, emotion, and cultural consumption. Duanju extends the concept of China Speed to the contemporary Chinese cultural model. It demonstrates that Chinese acceleration is not merely a matter of productivity, but a worldview where time becomes a space to be structured, controlled, and monetized, including in artistic creation. By transforming the way stories are told, China is not simply following digital shifts; it is proposing a cultural model consistent with its social trajectory. Duanju is therefore not just a trendy format; it is the cultural symptom of a China that is moving fast and now intends to tell stories quickly. Article written by Maëlle Billant #MaelleBillant

American producer Chris Wicke, who leads Embr Entertainment, is clear about the next milestone: developing their own platform and releasing an app. He says they already have what he calls a minimal viable product, but it still needs work before a public launch and before they can build a content slate designed specifically to feed the app. In the meantime, Embr continues producing for existing platforms, including a project completed for ReelShort and another script now moving into budgeting. In this short statement, Wicke adds a point that is rarely framed so directly: despite platforms relying more and more on data, it remains hard to predict what will become a hit in duanju. His reasoning is straightforward. Performance is too often attributed to a single variable, when success is usually the result of a complex mix that is difficult to isolate, casting, writing, music, and directing. For him, data can create a sense of control, but it does not replace experimentation. He also describes genre evolution as cyclical. Certain genres rise, peak, and fade, making continuous testing essential for both studios and platforms. He notes, for example, that action can be harder to translate on a small screen, while horror can land effectively if the direction focuses on actors’ reactions in tight close-ups. In his view, experimentation remains the core engine of vertical fiction, even as the industry professionalizes and more players try to become platforms rather than simply content suppliers. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Check out her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

Ifeoma 'Oma Areh is working from a straightforward idea: if Africa is already consuming short-form mobile stories at scale, it now needs a method and an organization to produce, structure, and monetize that energy. Alongside Elijah Affi, she co-founded Digital Creator Africa Academy, a pan-African platform designed to train the next generation of digital storytellers specializing in microdrama and to fill a critical gap in Africa’s creator economy. Her starting point is personal, almost trivial, yet revealing. She says it plainly: “I’m addicted to these stories.” In other words, this is not an isolated taste, but an audience behavior that can become market data. For her, the goal is not to “prove” that duanju can work in Africa, but to turn an existing habit into a production pipeline with cadence, standards, and a viable business model. Adapt without copying Oma Areh rejects a mechanical import of Chinese or Western formulas. Microdrama mechanics work, but execution must align with African storytelling codes: rhythms, references, and a serialized approach that resonates with local audiences. Her logic is to adapt the method, not replicate the form. Digital Creator Africa Academy fits into this approach: industry-ready training, storytelling frameworks that can be replicated at scale, and market-driven business models. Their shared ambition is to position Africa not only as a source of creative talent, but as a global engine for original digital IP, equipped to compete, scale, and lead in the future of short-form and emerging screen storytelling. The hard part remains monetization. Oma Areh describes a persistent imbalance: African audiences are real, sometimes massive, but platform confidence and revenue-generation capability remain points of friction. She sums it up as: “I get the audience, but when it comes to making money…” In other words, the economic value of African audiences is still underestimated, and imported models do not automatically fit local realities. In that context, training becomes a business lever as much as a creative one. It is not only about learning to tell stories in 9:16, but about producing with scalable frameworks, thinking market-first, and building a pipeline that makes microdrama viable, sustainable, and monetizable. Registration: https://www.digitalcreatorafrica.academy/ Interview conducted by Blessing Azugama #BlessingAzugama

Duanju News explicitly linked binge-watching, speed-watching, and the rise of the Duanju format. Here, we examine how this analytical framework was adopted by French and international media outlets, its chronology, and why it is circulating today. Context: On July 25, 2025, Duanju News proposed a simple idea to test, but one difficult to articulate clearly without taking a step back: while binge-watching normalized the process of watching content consecutively, speed-watching revealed its ultimate logic: optimizing viewing time. In this context, duanju is not just another genre, but a formal and industrial response to the compression of available time. The article in question: Faced with the frenzy of viewing, Duanju charts its own course From this point, an interesting question arises for professionals: when a framework for analysis is established before the subject explodes in public debate, how do we measure its dissemination? A robust way is to look at the chronology of re-publications, only after the initial publication date. Timeline of the cascading recovery, after July 25, 2025 On October 9, 2025, The Economic Times formulated almost the same mechanism in one sentence, “binge-watching” and “scrolling habits” as the matrix of an entertainment “born in China as duanju”, in other words a fiction that aligns with accelerated and continuous uses. On October 13, 2025, Le Figaro explained the idea as an addictive equation: micro-dramas “fueled by the combination” of two practices, “binge-watching” and “scrolling.” This is the most direct interpretation, as it clearly lays out the dual causality that leads to a format calibrated for continuous viewing. On October 13, 2025, Señal News (an international trade publication) described a consumption pattern designed for “scroll-and-binge rhythms” and invoked the concept of “binge curves,” linking the audience performance of micro-dramas to mobile-based mechanisms rather than traditional television. The same fundamental idea is present: the narrative form is reconfigured to suit a hybrid, frictionless, scroll-plus-binge usage. On December 19, 2025, The Guardian illustrates the practical consequence of this logic, with two-minute episodes following one another to the point of being swallowed in a few minutes, a binge compressed by design, making the acceleration of the player almost useless. On December 20, 2025, RTL summarized the mechanism in French as “a mix between infinite scrolling and binge watching”. Why does this broadcast matter, and what does it say? An intelligence provider doesn't "predict" based on intuition. They formalize a readable causal chain early on, then document its validation in reality through verifiable, dated, and comparable recurrences. Here, the chain is stable and subsequently appears in multiple media. The second type of broadcast concerns the AI robots used by newsrooms. Since 2024, journalistic practice has increasingly integrated AI assistants to explore topics, summarize, map sources, compare perspectives, and accelerate research. This doesn't replace investigative journalism, but it changes the way analyses circulate; a clear analytical framework becomes immediately reusable by tools that index, synthesize, and redistribute information. In this context, Duanju News observes, via its internal technical logs, a particularly sustained activity of indexing robots and automated agents on topics related to duanju, a sign that the site is not only read by humans, but also “ingested” by the new AI-assisted search chains which then feed professionals, analysts and newsrooms. What emerges here is a clear professional fact: a structuring interpretation was formulated very early on, then adopted, with the same structure, by media outlets published later. It now circulates within an ecosystem where journalists and AI tools accelerate the transmission of analytical frameworks. This is precisely the role of an intelligence provider: to produce effective analytical frameworks and to document their dissemination, with supporting evidence and a chronology. Article written by Guillaume Sanjorge #GuillaumeSanjorge

TikTok is adding a new entry point to Duanju: Minis, an integrated section that groups together mini-programs, including 9:16 "mini dramas" for binge-watching. The goal is to allow audiences to discover, watch, and pay without the usual hurdles of downloading a dedicated app, creating a new account, or making off-platform payments. An important point for Western audiences: at this stage, this isn't a new app to install, but rather an internal TikTok feature. According to Business Insider, TikTok added this section discreetly, with a gradual rollout. In practice, this means that access may not be visible to all accounts simultaneously, depending on the market and TikTok's activation process. When Minis is available, the user opens TikTok as usual and accesses a Minis section that aggregates both mini-games and more than a dozen mini-drama apps, without leaving the app. In Minis, TikTok highlights integrated mini-programs that host experiences and content directly within the app, with a subset dedicated to micro-dramas. Specifically, the user watches a series of very short, serialized episodes, built on the same mechanics as micro-drama apps: romance, betrayal, fantasy, and cliffhangers at short intervals. This integration addresses a well-known conversion problem: a significant portion of the audience discovers micro-dramas on social media, but monetization primarily occurs in separate apps, creating friction precisely when interest is highest. TikTok explicitly aims to reduce this friction by keeping viewers within their trusted environment and offering a more seamless viewing and payment experience. A model that wants to keep payment inside The clearest economic signal is the price incentive: in Minis, some offers display around a 10% discount when the user pays through TikTok, rather than switching to the external app. According to producers interviewed, TikTok is also testing licensing schemes worth up to $10,000 per series, coupled with advertising revenue sharing for episodes released for free on the platform. Underlying this is the platform's balancing act between two objectives: capturing the value of the payment and capturing the time spent watching. The first extends the "everything in TikTok" approach already established by TikTok Shop. The second increases advertising inventory and retention. For studios and producers of micro-dramas, the offer is ambivalent: potentially massive exposure and a reduced acquisition cost, but a risk of cannibalizing direct monetization if the compensation (license + ad sharing) doesn't offset production budgets that often range from $100,000 to $300,000 for a full-length vertical film. The move also reflects a strategy of importing a model: ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has already proven successful in China with micro-dramas consumed natively within the Douyin ecosystem. TikTok is now attempting to offer a similar model in Western markets with Minis, keeping the user within the app during the crucial viewing and payment stages. The goal is to capture a share of the micro-drama market outside China, estimated at around $3 billion annually, in a context where platforms are seeking to control discovery, viewing, and transactions. Source : Business Insider , December 26, 2025