As the Red Fruit subsidy fades, has the six-month AI short drama craze come to an end?
“The cancellation of the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action drama by Hongguo will have an impact on us. We've had a hunch about this for a long time, but we didn't expect it to happen so soon,” said the head of a leading comic drama company.
The boom of AI-simulated live-action dramas seems to be shorter than expected. From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, leading Internet companies including ByteDance, Tencent, and Baidu launched independent comic drama apps one after another and introduced favorable support policies for the comic drama category. Real money and traffic were poured into the comic drama market, leading to the rise of comic dramas and the decline of live-action short dramas. Many live-action short drama companies either went bankrupt or laid off employees and transformed into comic drama production.
However, after too many players flooded into the market, the platform's “wind blower” stopped. A few days ago, market rumors said that “Hongguo Short Dramas cancelled the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action scripts. All scripts reviewed after April 27 will no longer have a guaranteed payment and will instead be based on a pure revenue-sharing model, with a sharing ratio of 20%.”
In response to these rumors, Hongguo Short Dramas stated that the claim was untrue and emphasized that the guaranteed payment policy still applied to some scripts. However, several comic drama practitioners told Tech Planet that Hongguo had indeed cancelled the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action dramas.
After the platform cancelled the guaranteed payment for live-action short dramas, the live-action short drama market nearly halved. What kind of reshuffle will the market experience after the cancellation of the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action dramas?
01
The Ebbing of Hongguo's Subsidies
Hongguo responded that “the guaranteed payment policy still applies to some scripts.” However, from the outside world's perspective, it's unclear what proportion of scripts still have the guaranteed payment policy. Perhaps only leading comic drama companies and top screenwriters have the bargaining power. The majority of ordinary companies don't have the capital to compete with the platform and can only passively accept the sudden change in the market.
As a leading player in the short drama market, Hongguo's policy adjustment has a far-reaching impact. An employee of a comic drama production company told Tech Planet that the company signed an annual contract with Hongguo for AI live-action dramas last year to produce short dramas for the platform. Now, with the adjustment of the platform's guaranteed payment policy, their guaranteed payment price has also decreased.
On the screenwriter side, insiders revealed that some people have clearly signed contracts with no guaranteed payment.
Once the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action dramas is cancelled, it will have a significant impact on the market. By May, the daily consumption of AI-simulated live-action dramas had exceeded 100 million yuan. According to data from Shenzhen Chuangliang, from January to February 2026, the daily advertising consumption of comic dramas was about 15 million yuan, reaching about 20 million yuan during the Spring Festival. Among them, narrated comic dramas accounted for 50% of comic dramas, while AI live-action dramas only accounted for 5%. In March, the overall daily advertising consumption of comic dramas reached 60-80 million yuan, with AI live-action dramas accounting for 35% and narrated comic dramas accounting for 30-40%. In April, the overall daily advertising consumption of comic dramas reached 120 million yuan, with AI live-action comic dramas accounting for 50% of the total consumption. At the end of April, comic dramas were suppressed, and a large number of products were taken off the shelves. In May, the overall daily advertising consumption of comic dramas reached 160 million yuan, with AI-simulated live-action dramas accounting for 70%.
Both the number of short dramas in advertising and the daily consumption amount of live-action short dramas have been surpassed by comic dramas. From October to December 2025, the short dramas in the market were mainly live-action shot short dramas. Comic dramas were mainly 2D comics and humorous narrated comics, with a cost as low as dozens of yuan per minute and a few hundred to a few thousand yuan per drama. There were very few AI live-action dramas, and about 300-400 2D comics were launched each month during this period.
The advertising consumption amount of live-action short dramas, which accounted for more than 70% of the total in January and February, has now been halved to more than 30% of the total advertising consumption. According to data from Shenzhen Chuangliang, from October last year to May this year, the number of new live-action short dramas in advertising was 17,667, 25,961, 25,694 respectively. More than 4,000 new dramas were launched from January to February 2026, more than 2,000 in March, more than 1,000 in April, and more than 1,000 in May. Hongguo currently launches 30-50 new dramas every day.
The short drama market has undoubtedly become a market dominated by AI live-action comic dramas. Celia, the head of the Shenzhen Chuangliang market, said that the hit rate (with a playback volume of over 100 million) of AI live-action comic dramas is less than 1%, far lower than that of live-action short dramas, but they account for 70-80% of the total advertising flow. The advertising flow amount of single AI live-action comic dramas varies significantly. Only a very small number of hit dramas consume more than 40 million yuan, and there are few projects with a consumption of over 10 million yuan. However, there are many projects with a consumption in the range of 3-5 million yuan.
In terms of ROI (return on investment), for hit projects with high consumption (such as over 4 million yuan) in the comic drama market, the ROI can usually reach 1.6-1.8, and the upper limit of the ROI for phenomenon-level hit dramas is uncontrollable.
Now, the platform's support strategy has shifted. Hongguo Platform has cancelled the guaranteed payment for AI-simulated live-action dramas and shifted its support to live-action shot dramas, prompting comic drama companies to turn to other platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou for the first-round release.
02
Forcing the Market to Pursue High-quality Works
The trend of short dramas first shifted from live-action to comic dramas. After the shrinkage of the live-action short drama market, it shifted back from comic dramas to live-action short dramas.
Recently, the National Radio and Television Administration held a promotion meeting for the “High-quality Micro Short Drama Creation and Dissemination Plan.” Six major key platforms including Douyin, Tencent, Mango TV, Migu, Kuaishou, and Dianzhong will invest at least 6 billion yuan in total to support the creation of high-quality live-action short dramas.
Le Li, the chief editor of Hongguo Short Dramas, also announced at the “First Short Drama Industry Conference” hosted by the Short Drama Copyright Center of Douyin Group that the guaranteed support budget for live-action short dramas on Douyin in 2026 will exceed 1.5 billion yuan, and the average guaranteed payment per drama will increase by about 60% compared with last year.
If we start from October last year when Hongguo launched its independent comic drama app, it means that the platform's support and subsidies for comic dramas and AI-simulated live-action dramas only lasted for half a year.
“The platform will definitely be more cautious in spending money, especially a leading platform like Hongguo. I heard that the cooperation on comic dramas with TikTok overseas has also been postponed,” said a copyright manager in the industry.
Whether it's the cancellation of the guaranteed payment for live-action short dramas or AI-simulated live-action dramas, the strategic considerations of Hongguo Platform are easy to understand. The platform no longer needs to compete by quantity. After leading players have expanded their scale and captured the largest market share, they need to consider the issue of profit realization. It's a common understanding in the short drama market that 90% or more of short dramas don't make money. When the platform invests a large amount of real money without seeing returns, it will naturally cut losses in time.
Moreover, when the short drama market is filled with low-quality comic dramas, it actually lowers the overall market reputation. After platforms have been promoting comic dramas for half a year, no phenomenon-level hit drama has been born. Reducing the investment in comic dramas also reduces the production of low-quality comic dramas from the supply side.
A short drama practitioner told Tech Planet that ByteDance is now focusing on the commercialization of comic dramas, including brand customization and product placement. This is similar to the commercialization path of live-action short dramas in the past. The industry insider believes that it's not that comic dramas are going to decline, but that low-quality comic dramas are going to decline. Many teams in the market are competing to produce high-quality comic dramas.
The industry needs high-quality comic dramas. Many comic dramas on the market have a considerable playback volume, but the user reputation is not good. The above-mentioned industry insider said that her company has produced hundreds of dramas, but only a dozen have a playback volume of over 100 million (across the whole network). From the perspective of comic drama companies, users have their own tastes and may not necessarily like comic dramas, but as long as they can make money, they can continue to produce them.
It's worth mentioning that while Hongguo cancelled the guaranteed payment for some AI-simulated live-action dramas, Huolong Comic Dramas under Tencent, another platform, spent a large amount of money to sign leading production companies. An insider from a leading platform said that although Huolong has a small market share, dramas exclusive to Huolong can achieve a good playback volume. Leading companies with bargaining power have signed exclusive contracts with Huolong and received an exclusive cooperation price of 20 million yuan. “Because Huolong has no competitiveness and can't compete with ByteDance in terms of traffic entry, the new platform can only rely on content differentiation.”
This article is from the WeChat official account “Tech Planet” (ID: tech618), written by Zhai Yuanyuan and republished by 36Kr with authorization.