RoseBerry Media is cutting episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours into short vertical clips, and Variety is calling them “microdramas.” The clips will live on Epis, a short-form streaming platform. The question is simple: what even is a microdrama?
The format originated in China, where short serialized videos first caught on with audiences on platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou in 2018. These bite-sized, melodramatic productions are often built around romance plots and are cheap to produce, designed for viewing on mobile phones. Most microdramas are vertical content, though not all vertical content carries the feel of a genuine microdrama.
The Australian Test Case
The long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours aired for 41 seasons between 1985 and 2025. The RoseBerry version is currently repurposing just two storylines from the late aughts era, both revolving around a character portrayed by the now-internationally famous Margot Robbie. Guy Hameiri, RoseBerry cofounder and CEO, said the show is “an iconic piece of television history” well suited to vertical viewing thanks to the company’s AI-powered production workflow.
He added that the project is likely to demonstrate how “premium vertical television will become a significant new entertainment category” — a way of introducing new viewers to a classic series.
How Microdramas Actually Work
The format originated in China, and one of its early breakout hits was Kuaishou’s Unexpectedness, a satirical comedy following a man’s efforts to reach his goals. When social video platforms began integrating e-commerce, brands recognized microdramas as a means to sell goods directly to viewers. Short-form video revenue was expected to grow to $500 million by 2021, then rise to $7 billion by 2024, and eventually reach $16.2 billion by 2030.
Microdramas tend to follow a formula:
- They open with intrigue
- They close on melodramatic cliffhangers
- They lean on well-established narrative tropes
- They leave viewers guessing about twists
Their verticality and short segments make them phone-screen content.
What Neighbours Is Not
The gap between Neighbours and a standard microdrama could not be wider. Microdramas grew into hits for outfits such as ReelShort and DramaBox, made at low cost. RoseBerry’s approach bears some resemblance to what Tattle TV did with Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog earlier this year, and to what startup Snips is doing with shows like Big Brother and MasterChef. An audience may exist for these things, but it feels dishonest to group them with the campy, bite-sized series that shaped the format in the West.
All over the world, microdramas are often treated as low-quality entertainment. The reason is simple to see: they use familiar story patterns, take wild turns, and break into brief pieces. Because of their modest budgets, they gave young actors and directors a steady source of work. That arrangement has now ended. Recent months have brought generative AI, which has torn apart the microdrama market for human performers in China.
The Industry’s Buzzword Problem
The industry has adopted the term “microdrama” to refer to repurposed clips of existing material. Both streamers and studios are chasing vertical content across the board, spurred by a need to reclaim viewers from competitors such as TikTok and YouTube, where brief narratives have flourished. Studios have mostly opened with recycled footage displayed in scrolling feeds intended to show off content that is meant to be viewed horizontally. While these feeds serve discovery well, they do not amount to an original entertainment format worth much fuss.
There is a danger that casting old films and TV shows as short pieces leaves people out of chances such as those RoseBerry’s partnership with Epis offers. It is also unclear how and whether this new vertical presentation of Neighbours might result in royalty payments to the show’s original cast and crew.
What sets Neighbours apart is its budget and the caliber of its cast’s performances, which distinguish it from the campy, bite-sized shows that defined the genre. The term “microdrama” fits far better with low-budget, melodramatic videos made in China than with a show that has run for forty years and counts a now-internationally famous alum among its cast.
A new kind of premium vertical television is being tested through RoseBerry’s project, which stands as an attempt to turn it into a major new category. Its fate rests upon how viewers regard it: as something new and different, or as a real new method for watching a classic series. The people running the industry are counting on it being seen as the former. The final verdict will come from the public.
Source material: “What even is a ‘microdrama’?,” The Verge.
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