How soap Opera-tiktok Hybrids became A Billion-dollar Business

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8:30 AM PDT · March 25, 2026

34 min

Over nan past fewer years, a caller class of mobile apps has softly exploded into a multi-billion dollar business. They’re called “micro dramas” — short-form, mobile-first scripted shows designed to beryllium watched vertically connected your phone. Think soap opera meets TikTok, complete pinch concealed billionaire romances, disapproving werewolf mothers-in-law, and cliffhangers engineered to support users tapping. The starring app, ReelShort, made $1.2 billion in user spending past twelvemonth alone. 

On this section of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan and TechCrunch elder newsman Amanda Silberling sit down pinch Henry Soong, laminitis of Watch Club, who thinks nan micro play manufacture is still “in its MySpace era.” He has a imagination for what nan Facebook infinitesimal could look like. 

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Theresa Loconsolo is an audio shaper astatine TechCrunch focusing connected Equity, nan network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch successful 2022, she was 1 of 2 producers astatine a four-station conglomerate wherever she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered unrecorded performances and interviews from guests for illustration lovelytheband. Theresa is based successful New Jersey and holds a bachelors grade successful Communication from Monmouth University.

You tin interaction aliases verify outreach from Theresa by emailing theresa.loconsolo@techcrunch.com.

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