Vertical drama, two ways: A producer and app developer on playing the long game with short form

Short, sticky and with no signs of slowing down, the vertical drama mania that has gripped the entertainment industry is finally touching down in the U.K.

The Lodger, re-imagined from Tattle TV

There are wildly different estimates of how much the vertical drama business is worth, but Media Partners Asia estimated that 2025 revenues in China, where the ‘duanju’ format originated, exceeded an eye-watering $9 billion.

Over in the U.S., where short-form’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last year, headline-grabbing deals such as Fox Entertainment’s equity stake in Ukrainian vertical drama operator Holywater and scripted pact with creator Dhar Mann last month have illustrated how seriously legacy players are beginning to take the burgeoning format.

As the U.K.’s vertical offerings start rolling out onto market, we’re seeing the first local test cases. Will local producers and app developers manage to sustain businesses in the Wild West of vertical dramas? Can they sidestep the crushing marketing costs required to get eyeballs to the platforms?

To dig into the mechanics of how the U.K.’s pioneering vertical video makers are navigating the format, Indie Hustle caught up with two vertical drama specialists playing very different roles in this space: production house Onset Octopus, which is carving a niche as a trusted supplier to platforms such as DramaBox and ReelShort; and EMC Productions, founders of Britain’s first vertical drama app Tattle TV, who are focusing their efforts on licensing and commissioning.

Read on to learn more about:

• The budgets, production timelines and tech behind successful vertical dramas

• Why the U.K. is ‘wide open’ as a short-form market

• How vertical dramas are keeping actors and crews in steady work

• How one app is keeping marketing costs low and growing organically

• Why leveraging AI is necessary to scale a vertical drama app

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