DUANJU  NEWS

Over 70% of the top twenty series fall under the category of contemporary romance, with a strong presence of billionaires, CEOs, arranged marriages, revenge, and hidden identities. Werewolf and fantasy stories constitute the main alternative genre, while series aimed at a male audience remain very much in the minority. On DramaWave, Offside: My Fake Marriage with the Soccer Superstar , directed by Thomas Pallier, a French director active in English-language vertical productions, stars Tess Dinerstein and Jared Staub in the two lead roles. The billionaire is portrayed as a soccer star. The plot revolves around a fake marriage that gradually evolves into a real relationship, a narrative structure particularly popular in duanju. The popularity of romances centered on the wealthy is also evident in The Billionaire's Backup Bride , which reunites Ihor Zaitsev, credited as creative director , and Liulia Zakharchuk, credited as screenwriter. Both have collaborated on several English-language vertical productions filmed in Eastern Europe, a region that now hosts a significant portion of productions destined for international duanju platforms. The story employs classic tropes of arranged marriage, romantic misunderstandings, and disparities in social status. Fantasy genres follow the same logic of adaptation. Rejecting My Lycan Mate reunites Ihor Zaitsev and Liulia Zakharchuk, this time with a romance transposed into a werewolf universe. Fantasy allows for a renewal of narrative conventions while retaining the emotional appeal that currently dominates the market. The ranking also shows that advertising investment alone does not explain a series' performance. Some productions achieve a larger audience despite a lower volume of advertising, indicating that other factors, such as the ability of the first episodes to retain viewers, platform recommendations, or word-of-mouth, can also influence their distribution. #SocialPeta

Date of ranking: 16/07/2026 Among these applications, we highlight those that offer series in Duanju format. Rank Application Downloads Duanju 1 Netflix 1Md+ No 2 Disney+ 500M+ No 3 Amazon Prime Video 500M+ No 4 JioHotstar 500M+ No 5 Max 100M+ No 6 Paramount+ 100M+ No 7 Crunchyroll 100M+ No 8 iQIYI 100M+ No 9 WeTV / Tencent Video 100M+ No 10 Sony LIV 100M+ No 11 ZEE5 100M+ No 12 DramaBox 100M+ Yes 13 ReelShort 100M+ Yes 14 FreeReels 100M+ Yes 15 ShortMax 100M+ Yes 16 Viu 100M+ No 17 MX Player 1Md+ No 18 DramaWave 50M+ Yes 19 NetShort 50M+ Yes 20 GoodShort 50M+ Yes 21 Story TV 50M+ Yes 22 RapidTV 50M+ Yes 23 Melolo 50M+ Yes 24 ABEMA 50M+ No 25 Viki 50M+ No 26 StardustTV 10M+ Yes 27 FlickReels 10M+ Yes 28 MoboReels 10M+ Yes 29 Kalos TV 10M+ Yes 30 Playlet 10M+ Yes 31 Rakuten TV 10M+ No 32 FlareFlow 10M+ Yes 33 Micro Drama 10M+ Yes 34 Wavve 10M+ No 35 U-NEXT 10M+ No 36 MUBI 5M+ No 37 Canal+ 5M+ No 38 My Drama 5M+ Yes 39 VibeShort 5M+ Yes 40 DreameShort 5M+ Yes

The Asian Academy Creative Awards (AACA), which annually recognize the best audiovisual productions in the Asia-Pacific region, have announced the creation of a "Best Micro-Drama" category starting with their 2026 edition. The Asian Academy Creative Awards are headed by Fiona McKay, Chief Executive Officer, alongside Michael McKay, founder of the organization and a key figure in the Awards' history. For the Academy, the format, consisting of episodes of 30 seconds to five minutes, is experiencing rapid growth driven by the development of vertical platforms and new mobile uses. The award will be presented at the Asian Academy Creative Awards ceremony on December 3, 2026, in Singapore. The category is supported by RisingJoy, a company specializing in the distribution of vertical micro-dramas, which will also host a panel dedicated to the sector at the National Winners Conference. Among the jury members is French producer Guillaume Sanjorge. The decision to add this new category stems from several years of observing market trends. It considers that micro-drama is now a fully-fledged narrative format, sufficiently developed to deserve an award on par with classic television and digital productions, such as drama series, feature films, or documentaries. Productions can be submitted in several artistic and technical categories, such as acting, directing, editing, or cinematography, with criteria adapted to the format. For micro-drama series, applicants will generally need to submit ten consecutive episodes to allow the jury to evaluate the work as a whole. Eligible works must have been broadcast between August 1, 2025 and July 31, 2026. Registration will remain open until August 1, 2026.

Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming platform, is beginning to integrate ReelShort duanjus into its mobile app. The American group, which owns NBC, Universal, and Bravo, is thus testing a format previously associated primarily with specialized platforms from China and Singapore. The agreement includes the launch of several vertical short-form series directly within the Peacock platform. NBCUniversal is also developing original productions designed for fast-paced mobile viewing, particularly around the Bravo brand. The group aims to gauge the potential of these formats to generate new viewing habits and retain an audience already familiar with short videos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. For viewers, this means that vertical dramas are starting to move beyond specialized apps and onto mainstream streaming platforms. Until now, players like ReelShort, DramaBox, and ShortMax relied primarily on their own mobile apps and massive social media campaigns. With Peacock, the format arrives directly on a service already installed on the devices of millions of American subscribers. ReelShort is one of the most prominent platforms in the Western microdrama market. The company has seen significant growth since 2024 thanks to ultra-short series designed for smartphones, often released episode by episode using a freemium model. The agreement with NBCUniversal gives it new exposure to a wider and more traditional audience. For NBCUniversal, the test goes beyond simple editorial experimentation. Major American media groups are now looking to integrate short-term mobile usage into their own platforms rather than leaving this space to specialized apps. The convergence between vertical production and streaming distribution is becoming more direct, with content designed from the ground up for rapid mobile consumption. This evolution also brings vertical dramas closer to the traditional workings of the American audiovisual industry. Established platforms are beginning to view the performance of micro-dramas not as an isolated phenomenon, but as a potential category within mobile streaming.

For several decades, Asia has been developing cultural formats designed to organize the circulation of emotions on a large scale. Duanju could be to the audiovisual world what the emoji was to writing and K-pop to the music industry: not simply a format from Asia, but a new standard with global aspirations. A bold hypothesis. And yet, for the past thirty years, several major cultural innovations from Asia, initially perceived as local phenomena, have permanently shaped customs across the globe. Manga, for example, transformed the conventions of graphic storytelling. Emojis completely altered the framework of our written communication. K-pop redefined the relationship between artists, platforms, and communities. Today, duanju seems to be following the same trajectory. The common thread running through all these innovations goes deeper than mere novelty of format or originality of content. They shift the center of gravity of culture: from the production of works to the organization of interactions. These Asian inventions all emerged precisely at the intersection of communication, technology, and emotion. This difference is fundamental: what circulates on social and digital networks is not just information. It is feelings, reactions, identifications, emotions, and subjectivities. From this perspective, manga, emojis, K-pop, and duanju clearly appear as particularly effective technologies for the circulation of emotion. Emojis compress an emotion into a symbol, even adding to language without simply replacing it or transposing it into an image like a tracing. K-pop transforms individual emotion into a collective and communal experience. Manga pushes emotional intensity to the very heart of its visual identity. Duanju, for its part, seems to take this logic to its culmination, as it is constructed as a continuous flow of emotion. Each scene is designed to elicit an immediate reaction: desire, surprise, empathy, anger, frustration, relief. Emotions are no longer merely an effect of the narrative; they become its raw material. And perhaps this is where the true innovation lies. The duanju doesn't simply tell a story adapted to smartphones and their uses. It is designed for an environment where attention is captured less by information than by emotional intensity. This intuition aligns with sociologist Eva Illouz's analyses of the growing role of emotions in contemporary economies. Emotions are no longer solely experienced individually; they circulate, are exchanged, shared, and create value. From this perspective, major Asian cultural innovations of recent decades could be understood as emotional infrastructures—systems designed to produce, amplify, and circulate emotions on a massive scale. This likely explains, in part, their ability to become global standards. Cultural standards don't prevail simply because they tell better stories. They prevail because they better reflect how an era feels, communicates, and interacts. The global success of emojis was never about pictograms. And the success of duanju is probably not due to short, vertical series. In both these examples, we are witnessing the same revolution: the emergence of formats optimized for the emotional economy of the digital age. If this is the case, duanju is not simply a new trend from China. It could be one of the first cultural formats fully designed for a society where emotion has become the primary unit of circulation, attention, and value. Thus, duanju not only heralds the future of audiovisual and digital entertainment, but also tells us something more fundamental about the future of our interactions themselves. Article written by Maëlle Billant #MaelleBillant

The rise in quality of duanju also involves works capable of combining thematic ambition with popular success. In 2023, Escape from the British Museum (逃出大英博物馆) became one of the most striking examples of this evolution, attracting the attention of media, academics, and cultural institutions. The series gently and humorously addresses a sensitive subject in China: the issue of historical objects and cultural treasures held in foreign museum collections. After the mysterious disappearance of a relic from the British Museum, a young woman appears on the streets of London with a single obsession: to return to China. The viewer gradually discovers that she is the embodiment of a Chinese treasure kept abroad for generations. This quest for home becomes a metaphor for the fate of many heritage objects scattered across the globe. The series was created by Chinese video artists Xiatian Meimei and Yang Qianyun (夏天妹妹) and Jianbing Guozi and Zhang Jiajun (煎饼果仔), who also play the two main roles. Xiatian Meimei portrays the young woman at the center of the story, while Jianbing Guozi plays Zhang Yong'an, the journalist who accompanies her on her journey back to China. While duanju are often associated with vertical series in 9:16 format, the Chinese market is more diverse. Escape from the British Museum was filmed in landscape format, a common choice for historical or cultural works that require more space for sets and staging while maintaining the fast-paced storytelling characteristic of short-form content. The series' tone is surprising in its simple and sometimes humorous approach, centered on the relationship between the two main characters. This simplicity makes the story accessible and explains its appeal beyond the usual circles interested in heritage issues. According to several international sources, Escape from the British Museum surpassed 300 million views in just a few days and became a true cultural phenomenon in China. To discover the series, here is a compilation available on YouTube: Having become a true phenomenon, the series has attracted the attention of several major international media outlets. The Independent investigated how the series has reignited the debate surrounding the Chinese artifacts held at the British Museum: The Art Newspaper analyzed the viral success of the work from the perspective of heritage and the circulation of works of art: In France, Paris Match also devoted an article to the series, presented as an offbeat fiction advocating for the return of Chinese artifacts held at the British Museum: The duanju format, often criticized for its commercial and caricatured aspects, demonstrates with this example that a very short format can support an ambitious narrative and resonate far beyond its initial audience. The success of Escape from the British Museum also illustrates the emergence of works capable of addressing historical, cultural, or heritage-related topics while maintaining the accessibility that is the strength of short-form content.

By 2025, the global market for duanju reached $11 billion in revenue, with over $9 billion generated in China. In just a few years, this format, which originated on smartphones, has become one of the most dynamic segments of the global audiovisual industry. In China, the sector's largest market, revenues increased from 37.39 billion yuan in 2023 (approximately $5.15 billion) to 50.44 billion yuan in 2024 (approximately $6.95 billion). It was in 2024 that the sector surpassed the Chinese box office for traditional cinema for the first time. Growth isn't measured solely by revenue. By the end of 2024, duanju had approximately 662 million users in China, representing nearly 60% of the country's internet users. The sector is also estimated to have contributed to the creation of over 647,000 direct and indirect jobs. This trend now extends far beyond China's borders. Platforms like DramaBox, ReelShort, ShortMax, and GoodShort are expanding their operations in North America, Europe, and several emerging markets. They are investing in local productions while maintaining the narrative elements that have made the format successful. Primarily funded by subscriptions and in-app purchases, more than 60% of the sector's global revenue now comes from these payment models. According to Omdia, the global market could reach $14 billion by 2026, with nearly $3 billion of that outside of China. This growth illustrates the accelerating adoption of the format internationally, while duanju have already become a major sector of digital entertainment in China.

France operates one of the world's most interventionist audiovisual funding systems. Through the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC), part of the revenue generated by broadcasters is reinvested into content creation. Often presented as a pillar of the French cultural exception, this model has long supported film and television. But adapting it to the digital economy remains an open challenge. It is in this context that the suspension of the CNC Talent program has reignited debate over the place of web-native creation within French cultural policy. Beyond the domestic controversy, the issue raises a question relevant to the global audiovisual industry: how should creation be funded in an era of global platforms and mobile-first consumption? The CNC Talent program sought to apply the French model of support for creative works to the web. But unlike cinema, digital platforms are not dedicated to fiction, documentaries, or animation. They combine audiovisual works with news content, entertainment, influencer content, educational material, and services. This hybrid nature makes it more difficult to apply a funding model that was originally designed to support clearly identified cultural works. At the same time, the duanju, or microdrama, market is growing rapidly. In China, these short-form series designed for smartphone viewing have reached an industrial scale. During the Grand Debate at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival in September 2025, CNC President Gaëtan Bruel noted that the Chinese microdrama market had surpassed the country's box office revenues. On that occasion, he also stressed the importance of "following and understanding these trends," while describing microdramas as a "perfect counterexample" to the vision of creation traditionally promoted by the CNC. A few months later, during the 2026 Creation Day event, he referred to "highly standardized content" driven by "addictive mechanisms." This criticism of addiction nevertheless raises a question of consistency: where should the line be drawn between a cultural work and an engagement-driven product? The CNC already funds the video game industry, a sector where user retention, progression, and loyalty mechanisms often play a central role. It is also worth noting that the duanju format relies on a fiction-driven business model that is far more structured than those of many digital platforms and social networks. Companies such as ReelShort and DramaBox control the entire value chain, from production and distribution to monetization, within closed applications designed specifically for serialized content. The debate over how to fund digital creation was reignited in early June by Justine Ryst, Managing Director of YouTube France. During a hearing before the French Senate, she noted that the Video Services Tax generates more than €44 million per year, while only €3 million was allocated to CNC Talent. She also called for a reform of the program. France has already integrated streaming platforms into its audiovisual funding system. Since the SMAD decree came into force in 2021, platforms such as Netflix and Disney+ have been required to invest a portion of their revenue generated in France in French and European productions. If this regulatory approach is carried through to its logical conclusion, duanju could eventually enter the scope of policymakers' discussions as well. Even if the format does not currently align with the CNC's stated priorities, its international growth and increasingly structured business model may make the issue harder and harder to ignore. Article written by Guillaume Sanjorge #GuillaumeSanjorge

On April 26, 2026, DramaBox, one of the world's leading duanju platforms, announced the opening of its advertising inventory to programmatic buying through a partnership with The Trade Desk, one of the world's largest players in digital advertising. Advertisers can now purchase advertising space on DramaBox using the same tools they use for connected TV, video platforms, and major digital media. This integration gives DramaBox access to a much larger international advertising market than campaigns negotiated directly with brands. For the platform, this development provides a new source of revenue to complement episode purchases and subscriptions. This is a significant opportunity in a sector where user acquisition costs remain high and competition continues to intensify. Other players are also exploring this avenue. In China, Xiaomi launched the Weiguan Duanju app with free access supported by advertising. Platforms like ShortMax and GoodShort also offer some of their content for free to broaden their audience. Advertising is thus playing an increasingly important role in the duanju economy. Long focused on microtransactions, duanju platforms are gradually adopting revenue models closer to those of video streaming. With this partnership, DramaBox continues this evolution while strengthening its appeal to major international media buyers. As the audience for duanju grows globally, major players in digital advertising are increasingly interested in this market, with DramaBox now being one of the most visible platforms outside of China.

Note: Despite their similar names, shortflix.net and Shortflix India are two separate entities with no known connection to each other, and their activities and operations differ. The information presented in this article relates exclusively to shortflix.net. The international expansion of duanju is also beginning to raise new issues surrounding distribution rights. Several series originally released on official platforms now appear to be republished on third-party websites without clear attribution or any identifiable licensing agreement. This is notably the case for the French series Les aventures avec ma voisine, also distributed under its English title Next Door Adventure. Produced by Sanjorge Production, the series was recently found on the platform shortflix.net without any known authorization from the production company. According to information obtained by Duanju News, Stardust TV has reportedly confirmed its intention to initiate legal proceedings against shortflix.net. Other platforms also appear to be affected by the situation, as their catalogs are referenced on the platform, including FlickReels, ReelShort, DramaShorts, CandyJar, NetShort, ShortTV, DramaTV, MinuteDrama and FlexTV. Unlike simple indexing websites, shortflix.net directly monetizes the series available on its platform, using a model similar to that of official microdrama applications. This situation comes at a time when some creators are already facing automated copyright claims on official platforms. As a result, identifying rights holders within the international duanju ecosystem could become a significant issue for the industry. With the global rise of the vertical format, the protection of creative works, licensing rights, and the unauthorized circulation of content could quickly become a major challenge for the duanju industry.