Streaming Radar articles on vertical drama
Vertical drama decoded: analysis, predictions, experiments
Open Intelligence
AI LAB
2026-04-05
I Spent $120 Trying to Make an AI Vertical Drama About Cats. It Was a Disaster.
$120, 6 AI tools, 90 seconds. Total disaster.
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PREDICTION
2026-03-20
The Forbidden Dimension #2: The Vertical Invasion
A Big 5 will acquire a micro-drama app before end of 2026
90 days remaining
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PREDICTION
2026-05-07
The Forbidden Dimension #3: Vertical Drama Tips Into AI
A fully AI-generated series hits #1 on ByteDance's biggest microdrama platform
CALLED
Called in April 2026 — 'Bodhi Linshi' (60 eps, Seedance 2.0) took #1 on Hongguo, 800M+ views in under two weeks.
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ANALYSIS
2026-06-25
The Forbidden Dimension #4: Vertical Drama's Fantasy Island
A map of the estate: the model everyone fears is only one room in it
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ANALYSIS
2026-07-09
The Last Werewolf
The billionaire werewolf died by press release. The question is who inherits.
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ANALYSIS
2026-07-27
The Chinese micro-drama factory crosses the border
Two American studios walk in the same morning — through different doors
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INTERVIEW
2026-08-25
Gennadiy Fefelov, Vertical Drama Line Producer
60 episodes, 7 days, 25 people, $100–200k — and the month the orders stopped
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INTERVIEW
2026-09-01
Guillaume Sanjorge, France's duanju pioneer
He bought the format's domain names in thirty countries — and of an industry's three pillars, France holds one
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INTERVIEW
2026-09-08
Gilles Daniel, French Micro-Drama Screenwriter
One to eight thousand dollars a season — the price French screenwriting had already reached before the format arrived
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INTERVIEW
2026-09-15
Hugo Brisbois, Co-Founder of Sweetz
Forty-five per cent of one series' shots run through AI, all of another's, zero nowhere — and a million euros that buys tests, not series
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Premium Intelligence
🔒 ANALYSIS
2026-03-15
Why Hollywood is playing defense, not offense
8 studios · 12 deals · 10,000 words
March 2026: Google, Disney, NBCUniversal and Lifetime pile into the Chinese format they dismissed six months ago.
🔒 ANALYSIS
2026-03-10
When an app burns $1 on UA, who actually profits?
6 ad networks · $26B market · follow the money
When a mobile-drama app burns $1 to acquire a user, who actually pockets it? Spoiler: not the app.
The Big Picture
Vertical drama is no longer a niche, and it is no longer a paywall. China has swung from pay-per-episode to free and ad-funded, AI now writes and shoots a large share of the output, Beijing has put the billionaire CEO under notice, and the open question is which purse buys the genre that replaces him.