Attention deficit television

0:00Hollywood is struggling, and I want to give Sydney Sweeney an opportunity to talk about that specifically. I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear. Movies are bombing. Christy Springsteen, Die My Love, LOL Dead, last month has been called Hollywood's worst box office run in decades. And these were prestige films. Tinseltown sees the writing on the wall and is pivoting, making a bet on micro dramas. Today on Today Explained, we'll explain what they are. But the bold-faced names of it all, Disney, Fox, Alexis Ohanian, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, pouring millions of dollars into the teeny tiny next big thing.

0:46Coming up. I might be a low-born wolf, but I am still Alpha Ash's mate.

1:04If you let you drive, you discover new things, feel you alive. The new SEAT Ibiza. From 175 euros per month. More info on seat.de and at your SEAT-Partner.

1:34is a microdrama. What a fantastic question. Thank you. Microdramas are these short episodic films and they're filmed portrait mode and they're meant to be watched and shared primarily on your cell phone. So as you're scrolling, clicking on apps, that's where microdramas appear. Okay, great. And now I have so many more questions. Microdrama, I mean, microdrama is like me texting my sister about my brother. What is it called a microdrama? Yeah, the whole point of them is that they're short, right? So they're in between films and TV seasons, but there are 60 to 90 episodes, and these episodes can range anywhere from four minutes to 10 to seven.

2:18It depends entirely on the project that you're watching. So that's why they call them micro, but it also refers to kind of the speed and the production. So we're talking about projects that have very, very, very tiny budgets, and they have a very, very, very tiny shoot time. So altogether, microdrama. What is the appeal? Yeah, I think one of the really interesting things we've seen about the internet in the past couple of years is that the way people scroll are changing the ways your attention span works. So we've already seen in cases like Mad Men. Not great, Bob. And Ugly Betty. Hi, that's me.

2:53People are watching things on their phone now, and that there is a link between how long people are willing to watch a TV show, even if it's cut up into 100, 200 parts, if it means that they don't have to get off of their phone, go onto their laptop, and log onto the streaming service where they know that that show exists. And it's also created for these kind of attention spans. So, like, you don't have time to probably watch four episodes of Ugly Betty between your commute and the office. But if you're on the subway and you have access to data, you're like, I could watch two 45-second clips of Ugly Betty.

3:29You are an attractive, intelligent, confident businesswoman. All right, so what's an example of a microdrama that's super popular? Like, what is the young and the restless microdrama or the breaking bad microdrama? So the best thing about microdramas is that they're not really dependent on these type of audiences that will give them all. So basically, there are a bunch of titles that I could, like, name. For instance, Loving My Brother's Best Friend. You have got to get over this crush. He's your brother's best friend. Or I Kissed a CEO and He Liked It. Well, boss, who was that? I haven't seen you kiss anyone like that in ages.

4:07The titles themselves aren't very inventive, but they don't need to be to capture audiences. And tell Nate I'm not going to kill his sister. I'm going to marry him. Elena, I can't be with you. I'm just a man with a prosthetic. Aidan Gold is a werewolf. An alpha. And I refuse to be his mate. How is anyone, everyone, how is money being made here and for whom? Yeah, so basically what happens, it's kind of a freebie situation where you will either get an ad, served an ad for these micro dramas, usually a very poignant part of the show. I have a proposition for you. Kind of a proposition. I know your situation.

4:49You're working three jobs, you got a pile of medical bills, and you're behind on everything else. How do you know all of that? That is exciting, is narrative driven. I will take care of all that. I'll take care of you. All you have to do is one thing for me. And then it cuts right before you find out what happens next. What's the catch? And then the ad pops up and it's like, please go to the app to continue more. You have to marry my daughter. But for people who are active micro drama watchers, what usually happens is you have a free subscription and you can watch up to a certain amount of episodes of a particular show.

5:29and then it costs anywhere between$4 to$15 to upload more credits so that you can finish the rest of the show. And a lot of these microdramas, because they are kind of reliant on these instant transactions, it's instant feedback, right? It's people who want to scroll, who want to keep scrolling and keep following this. They're willing to be like, okay, here's$2. Here's$3. Here's$2 to finish the show. When in reality, if you look at it, most of these microdrama apps in a yearly format cost far more than a Netflix subscription or a Hulu subscription or a Mac subscription as it were. Where do microdramas come from?

6:09Microdramas are actually an import. The very first place where they really took off in popularity was actually in China. Why? Don't give me a name! You don't have to. She's a woman of the house. Why do you do this? Between 2018 and 2020, we saw this huge, huge rise in interest in microdramas. Look, there are over a billion internet users in China. Half of them have watched these mini-drama series before, and a third of them are scrolling through them every day. So it's a huge industry. But what China really set apart from this was that you could make microdramas fast and cheap. And a lot of other countries saw the success of that and decided we can do this as well.

6:52So when the United States kind of took on all of the things that made Chinese microdramas so successful, they ran into this huge wall, which was we can make things fast and we can make things cheap. I don't know if the actors are going to like it very much. What is it like to be an actor and actress in a microdrama? It all depends on who hires you.

7:18A lot of microdramas in L.A. have tried to set themselves apart, especially these newer companies, as places where you can get great pay. You can kind of learn on the fly. You're getting a bunch of things and a lot of training that you might not get, say, if you were straight out of NYU's Tisch. But other experiences on other sets could mean that if you sign with a microdrama company who is just in it to make the content as fast as possible, a lot of actors allege these grueling hours, poor pay, racial disparity in leading roles, and lack of stunt safety. I talked to one vertical actress, 24-year-old Molly Anderson, who told me about kind of how much harder it is for women who are acting in these microdramas than men.

7:59And men have these beautiful, a lot of times handsome roles where they're the sex symbols. And micro dramas have mainly female audiences. Molly told me the male actor is going to be dressed up in a very nice suit. And maybe he's got to shed a single tear once or twice. But for the most part, he's going to stand in the back, brood, and then sweep you off your feet. For actresses, you scream, cry, throw up on command, and then you run off to go get waterboarding. You are not going to crack. You're just going to cry. You're going to cry like you've never cried before, but your spirit, your spirit will remain solid.

8:33That's the typical day.

8:39Yikes. Are you getting paid for 70 episodes? One of the interesting things about microdramas is that the contracts also vary wildly depending on what company you're working with. So as a writer, you could be looking at$2 ,000 to just hand in a script. as an author who has a book idea that they want to kind of take and use$1 ,000,$5 ,000. It really, really depends on who you're working with and how much they want it. For an actor, you're probably looking at$500 a day, which is super, super, super affordable and really great rate for people who are non-union. And from a Hollywood perspective, you can say yes to projects because you're not committing the world.

9:21And if anything, you're committing$100 ,000 here. Another$100 ,000 there. Costs and money that would frankly disappear or round up to small percentages for giant projects. I've talked to a bunch of vertical actors who are kind of caught in the middle of this. They see the way that the industry is changing and they love the idea of Hollywood executives being more willing to say yes to stories. What they're concerned about is that verticals and particularly the way that they are made will leave these actors behind in the process. Hollywood is obviously having a lot of problems right now. I think October was one of the worst months for movies, like really, really like well-reviewed movies, movies people were excited about.

10:05And then no one went to see the Springsteen thing. No one went to see the Jennifer Lawrence thing. So if you're Hollywood and you're seeing, hey, there's a way to do 70 episodes and pay an actor, you know,$500 a day and still make a little bit of money with every single person who views them, do you think that this is going to change Hollywood? I actually don't. I think microdramas are incredibly interesting. But I think the problem Hollywood sees right now is, frankly, a cowardice. Hollywood is drowning right now under this exhaustion with IP because for the past five years, executives have been afraid to make creative content.

10:47Microdramas, on the other hand, succeed by creating serialized content with storylines that are virtually public domain. So it's IP, just so many IPs crammed together that you're like, yeah, I guess I'll watch it. Sure, I'll watch this werewolf billionaire CEO. Do you see what I mean? All of those buzzwords smashed together. I don't think this will change Hollywood. But I think it's because microdramas aren't intending to change Hollywood. But microdramas aren't about, you know, taking over the Emmys, taking over the Oscars. I doubt that you could find a microdrama CEO who says, yes, I think kissing my brother's best friend is going to sweep this year at the Oscars.

11:25That's fine. I'm not afraid of some competition. But what they want to do is target viewers during their in-between time. These kind of passive scrolls that you know can kind of give your attention to an ad or a three-minute clip about a cheerleader or a hockey player or a kind of sexy werewolf. This is where microdramas thrive, and this is why I think they won't ever actually take over Hollywood, because they don't want your attention. Microdramas work the best when you're not really watching them. Because if you were going to watch a microdrama like you might watch the new Springsteen movie in a dark room with your closest friends, you've got nothing but time to look at the screen.

12:09I bet if you watched a microdrama like that, you would go, wait a minute. I don't think this makes sense. This might not even be good.

12:30How could rules were never her thing not be good? Just me? C.T. Jones writes for Rolling Stone. Coming up, is TV getting dumber? Yes, of course it is. You don't need me to explain that. But did studio executives order it to get dumber? We're going to ask.

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16:41Rebecca! Rebecca! Rebecca! Hop in! Cool. Which seat? You choose. Which seat should I take? Today Explained is so back with Julia Alexander. Julia is a media correspondent at Puck News. So, Julia, in the first half of the show, we talked about micro dramas. You know what these are? Yes. Do you have a favorite one? In the sense that they're all the same, I suppose I enjoy all of them as much as I dislike all of them. What is the appeal? What is the love and hate grounded in? Do you know what it is? It's not for me. And I understand the love for it, though. I think the Venn diagram of people who like microdramas and people who love to read smutty fan fiction is like one giant circle.

17:29And I think actually the appeal of microdramas is that they're not a Netflix original or a Martin Scorsese movie. They're the complete opposite. They're a guilty pleasure at 99 cents a chapter. We were going to title this episode The Second Screen Problem, but nobody actually knows what that means. When people in the industry talk about the second screen problem, what do they mean? So it depends on who you're asking in the industry. If you talk to creatives, the second screen, meaning the phone that you're watching TikToks on while watching a movie on your big TV or the iPad you're surfing Exxon while watching a TV show on your big TV, The second screen is just a lack of attention that is being paid to the main movie or film on the television.

18:13But if you talk to executives, the question or the problem of the second screen rather is one of does the adoration for TikTok and Instagram reels and YouTube shorts mean that people will spend enough less time with our streaming services that they'll cancel and we have to fight back for those subscribers. but before the phone came around people would do this with magazines and they would do it with books and they would do with other things we've always been distracted by other forms of entertainment competing for our attention we've just never had as many things competing for such tiny slices of the attention pie and instagram is much more compelling than like reading a dean Kuntz novel during the TV show.

18:59Yeah, it requires far less brainpower. I want to ask you about something that got everyone so angry when we found out about it earlier this year. So there was reporting in N Plus One saying that Netflix executives are telling writers to dumb down the writing in TV shows and movies and make it really clear what is happening. So this scene from the movie Irish Wish is used as an example in their reporting. We spent a day together. I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain. But that doesn't give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I'm marrying Paul Kennedy.

19:43Do people in the industry as you are, do people who cover the industry, did they know that this was happening? So I think it's important to clarify that no one is out. And by no one, I mean no executive is out saying, dumb this down. No executive is out in the town saying, hey, by the way, make shittier television. That's really going to help us when we increase prices again. right what they're saying if this is being said to people and I have personally never heard it in my reporting if what there's what they would be saying is we understand that our audience has less attention than they might have 10 years ago and our audience has more opportunities to put that attention on another video format whether they're watching reels or tiktok and we understand that that is our direct competitor in a way that you know someone flipping through a magazine or watching a movie, that was not necessarily going to be a direct competitor.

20:36So it's not about dumbing down. It's about acknowledging where the future of competition is coming from. That actually makes a lot of sense to me. From the perspective of the business, what actually surprised me is how many people seemed so furious about this. So I hate scripted television so much, especially lately. I don't know. It's just mind-numbing. But I can't help but feel that this change is going to lead to the downfall of society. Where do you think, as consumers of the stuff, as the people watching, why does this make us angry? I think we all want to believe that we are of higher quality caliber than in fact we are.

21:15And by that, I mean, you look at all these people who are outraged. I mean, I'd be outraged. If someone came out and said Netflix is, you know, purposely dumbing stuff down, I'd be like, well, that sucks and I don't like it. But in reality, I was watching Frankenstein the other night with my fiance and he was playing Candy Crush the entire time. And then in a group chat the next day, he's complaining about the quality of films. But the quality of the film, such as Frankenstein, a beautiful Guillermo del Toro movie, which is not the Lindsay Lohan Irish wish. It has nothing to do with a Netflix executive coming out and saying, you know, you've got to dumb this down.

21:51It has everything to do with the fact that they're responding to what people are saying and the actions that they do. And if people really did not want Irish Wish, they would not watch Irish Wish. But the Lindsay Lohan Christmas movies, for example, and all those other kind of Netflix fare that we associate with a specific trope are heavily watched. One of the effects of what you're seeing play out is that we had a golden age of television about 15 years ago. It's your job. I give you money. You give me ideas. You never say thank you. That's what the money is for. Say my name. Heisenberg. You're goddamn right.

22:32I'm so looking forward to seeing your mother again. When I'm with her, I'm reminded of the virtues of the English. But isn't she American? Exactly. Voters is going to resign. And I'm about to become president. America! 15 years ago, a lot of the bigger movie stars and the writers and directors in film who didn't want to make Marvel movies and didn't want to make big sci-fi blockbusters moved to TV. And so for a period of about 10 to 15 years, we had a great moment of just stunning, well-written, gorgeous television. And then what happened was the competition for eyeballs on the TV screen and started to really speed up and you had YouTube come in.

23:18Oh, wow! Woo! Double rainbow all the way across the sky. Oh, my God. You had Mr. Beast. Who would win in a game of tug-of-war? The strongest man on earth or 100 kids? All of a sudden, people were watching this type of fare on their television screens. And that meant that they were watching less Netflix or less Hulu or whatever it might have been. So all of the prestige fare that really worked on cable, you know, 20 years ago, it stopped working as much today. And so you're getting a lot more unintentional slop, but it's not because they're trying to produce it. It's that they're trying to produce just more content than ever before.

24:05And if you put quantity over quality, you're going to inherently get some rough gems mixed in with all those diamonds. Could you envision a world where viewers say, we don't want the slop, we don't want the dumb shows, we want prestige, or is that unlikely to ever happen? I actually think that's exactly what's going to happen. And it's going to take some time. But here's what I think is going to happen. The amount of generative AI contents we talk about, Sora 2, you think about even these micro dramas a little bit, which in part are being made because of generative AI technologies that are allowing them to make things cheaper and faster.

24:46This is going to increase the amount of content. We're going to enter an infinite content era, and a lot of it's going to be really sloppy. And as humans who love good storytelling, it's like how you were seeking out really good TV, and I try to seek out really good TV and films. we're going to have to go and figure out where that is and we're going to pay for it. And so you might have an Apple TV Plus or a Netflix in 20 years, 25 years, be$40,$50 a month, but you'll pay for it because they will end up leaning into higher quality programming and backing away from some of the slop as that slop takes over all of our other content viewing.