Madrid’s Matadero, a former slaughterhouse turned cultural hub, hosted Iberseries & Platino Industria this week, and the biggest topic wasn’t a new show or a deal — it was the rise of microdramas. The sixth edition of the Spanish-language content industry’s largest business event drew executives from around the world, and the conversation kept circling back to the same question: is the microdrama bubble about to burst, or is it just getting started?
Microdramas Dominate the Halls
Marcela Kartaszewicz, head of communications at DramaBox, opened the “Vertical & Viral: The Rise of Microdrama” panel by welcoming Hollywood’s push into the format. “A lot of studios are jumping into the vertical space,” she said. “The more, the merrier.”
Kartaszewicz framed the trend as a positive for the whole industry, but she refused to let content quality slip out of the conversation. “Content is king,” she emphasized. “It has been. It is. It will always be.”
The genres that are currently hot include LGBTQ+ stories and young adult romance, plus a wider range of love stories than ever before. Thrillers are coming too, according to Kartaszewicz, who pointed to thriller tropes appearing in scripts and audiences responding to them. “The audiences are expanding, and with that comes a genre expansion,” she predicted.
Budgets vary wildly depending on where the microdrama is made. Sasha Tkachenko, head of studio at My Drama by Holywater Tech, gave a rough breakdown:
- Eastern Europe: Tkachenko did not specify which currency she was referring to, but the numbers suggest a significant gap between low-cost production hubs and premium American locations.
- U.S. productions: €120k to €250k
- L.A.: the most expensive site overall
Tkachenko said microdramas typically run at least 55 episodes, with each episode lasting around 60 minutes.
Pedro Lopes, director general of content at SPi in Portugal, offered a cautionary note about audience habits. He explained that usually, “people watch the first five [episodes] and then move on to another [show].” That kind of behavior is a feature of the format, not necessarily a problem for distributors.
Spain as a Co-Production Bridge
The co-production landscape was another major topic, with a panel titled “Breaking Rules: The Co-Production Landscape.” The session brought together Iris Bucher of Quad Drama in France, Peter Lohner of Beta Film in Germany, Nathalie Perus of Atlantique Productions in France, Femke Wolting of Submarine in the Netherlands, and Alfredo Bermúdez de Castro Berbel of Spain’s Secuoya Studios.
Bucher expressed frustration with the current state of European co-productions. “We wish we would do more with the Spanish broadcasters as well,” she said. “As Europe, we need to have a voice. So for now, big countries for co-productions are France, Germany, Italy, but I think we all wish we could work more with Spain, not just shoot there.”
The data backs up her desire. Gloria Saló, director of production and content consulting at Spanish consulting and market research firm GECA, and her colleague Lucía Gómez, content and formats analyst at the company, presented figures showing that France-Belgian co-productions lead the European field, accounting for 41 percent of all international co-productions from 2023 to 2026. Spain-Portugal co-productions were identified as a “fertile” area that could be explored in the future.
But the cross-continental picture is thinner. Only 18 Europe-Latin American co-productions were recorded over the same period, or 6 percent of the total, led by Spanish-Mexican and Spanish-Argentinian projects.
King Charles III and Ozzy Osbourne
One of the most memorable sessions came from Ingke Purrmann, co-founder and chief revenue officer of JustWatch Media, the business-to-business arm of international streaming guide and database JustWatch. Her message was simple: demographics do not tell you what someone watches.
She used two famous British men as an example. Both were born in 1948, married twice, and lived in a castle. One was King Charles III. The other was the late Ozzy Osbourne. Their tastes in media and entertainment were almost certainly very different, Purrmann suggested, even though their demo profiles matched perfectly.
The comparison was a delightfully absurd way to illustrate that demos don’t tell you what someone watches.
Jaime Otero, vp, partnerships at Parrot Analytics, added a global data point. South Korea has been a big driver of demand growth for Spanish- and Portuguese-language (SPLATAM) content. The country’s SPLATAM series demand jumped 243 percent over the 2024-2026 period, Otero noted. Spanish and Portuguese speakers have become fans of Korean content, and now Korean viewers are returning the favor.
What the Data Actually Says
The microdrama boom is real, but the business model remains fragile. Short episodes, low budgets and high churn mean distributors need to keep audiences moving to the next show. The thrillers Kartaszewicz mentioned could be the answer — audiences are reacting to them, and the genre is expanding.
The co-production data shows a gap between Europe and Latin America. Spain is part of the transatlantic axis, but its co-production involvement still has limitations. The 18 Europe-Latin American co-productions represent a tiny fraction of the overall landscape, led by Spanish-Mexican and Spanish-Argentinian projects.
The JustWatch session was a reminder that audiences are not predictable. Two men with identical life stats watch entirely different things. That is the lesson for content creators: know your demos, but do not assume they define what they want to watch.
| Session | Speaker | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical & Viral: The Rise of Microdrama | Marcela Kartaszewicz, DramaBox | Microdramas, content quality, genre expansion |
| Breaking Rules: The Co-Production Landscape | Iris Bucher, Quad Drama | Co-productions, European vs. Latin American markets |
| JustWatch session | Ingke Purrmann, JustWatch Media | Demographics vs. actual viewing habits |
The conference covered a wide range of topics, from microdramas to co-productions to global demand trends. The microdrama players all expressed confidence in the format’s continued upside, while the co-pro experts admitted they wished Spain would play a bigger role in their deals.
Source material: “Woody Allen’s Madrid Film, King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne, AI, Microdrama and M&A: Iberseries Wrap,” The Hollywood Reporter.
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