Microdrama: Industry Saviour Or The End Of Content As We Know It?
Last week, Streamlined attended the APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia, for the first time since 2023. Back then, the streaming wars were still in full swing; the global and regional streamers were announcing huge slates of local-language productions; competition seemed healthy, and subscription numbers and ad revenue were both growing.
What a difference a few years make. While the streamers were still very much present at APOS, most have retreated into producing local-language content in just a few Asian territories. Appearing on APOS panels, they talked as much about bundling, cost rationalisation and integrating ad tiers as they did about content. They’re also aware that long-form content is losing engagement to social media, messaging, microdramas and gaming, and wondering how to react.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be growth in Asia over the next five years. Vivek Couto, founder of APOS organiser Media Partners Asia, presented figures estimating that the Asian screen economy would grow from $179bn this year to $200bn in 2031. But what’s interesting is that he predicts the fastest growing revenue stream will be retail media and commerce. Subscriptions to SVOD platforms are still growing, but the initial boom is over, and the decline in traditional TV advertising is wiping out gains in digital advertising. Just three platforms – YouTube, Meta and Netflix – own more than half of online video revenue.
Couto also said that in future revenue will flow to those platforms that can “close the transaction loop”, i.e. persuade consumers to buy digital and physical products rather just passively consuming content, the playbook already followed by Amazon globally, Alibaba in China and JioStar in India. From the consumer perspective, that means we should prepare ourselves for a whole lot of intrusive advertising and “calls to action”. Take-up of Connected TVs (CTV) is growing fast across the region, emerging as another screen that may help boost subscriptions to long-form content, but is also regarded as a more effective device to sell us stuff.
