AI short dramas have driven down production costs, so are live-action short dramas now far more "valuable"?
An AI short drama produced in 36 seconds and 80% of photography studios left vacant is the most glaring juxtaposition in China's short drama industry in 2026.
The supply side expands by the second at one end, while production cuts by the month at the other. After the new round of AI video technology upgrading starting from this year's Spring Festival, the cost of AI-generated dramas has been directly compressed to the "floor price", and the claim that "AI has wiped out live-action short dramas" has emerged within the short drama industry.
Observation by Entertainment Value Official shows that live-action short dramas are no longer competing with AI on output, but an interesting phenomenon worthy of the industry's attention is that — live-action short dramas have now been squeezed into a scarce commodity, appearing far more precious than ever.
Scarcity does not equal profitability. Under the premise that platforms must produce high-quality works, the only asset that live-action short dramas can use to negotiate prices is their scarcity. But how can scarcity be turned into bargaining power? After all, what major platforms need is not "live-action" itself, but "high-quality works that can become viral hits", and at the moment, live-action short dramas are indeed more capable of undertaking this task.
01
In the September Short Drama Ranking
Lies the New Trend of Live-Action Short Dramas
The top 100 heat ranking released by DataEye Research Institute shows that the total heat value of the listed works reached 215 million yuan, a slight decline compared with August. The decline is not caused by a sluggish overall market, but by the reduction of top-tier works. There were still works that could exceed 10 million heat value in a single month in August, but none in September.
The top three on the ranking are therefore clustered in the same range: *Unexpected Win, The Silly Younger Brother Turns Out to Be the Sister's Backer* distributed by KuaiChuang and produced by Huishenghuiying takes the first place with 7.996 million, followed by *Step by Step Up* with 6.845 million, and *Mr. Fu, Stop Pretending, Your Wife Is Going to Flip the Table* with 6.803 million. The gap between the first place and the third place is only 1.19 million, which in previous months was not even enough for half the lead of a viral hit. Therefore, the competition in September is not about who is more popular, but a competition about who does not fall behind.
Another noteworthy new trend is that the period-themed work *The Eldest Miss of the Military Governor's Mansion, I Won't Seal This Gun Anymore* and the ancient costume-themed work *Second Marriage With Good News* broke into the top 15, breaking the previous situation where modern-themed works monopolized the ranking list.
On DataEye's native short drama ranking on the Douyin platform, the period-themed live-action short drama *The Eldest Miss of the Military Governor's Mansion, I Won't Seal This Gun Anymore* won the second place. The shift of themes of listed dramas also reflects the homogeneous competition in modern urban themes, which has spawned two new diversion tracks: ancient costume and period themes.
Looking further at DataEye's September heat ranking of Hongguo Short Dramas, the change in theme structure indeed confirms the arrival of the new trend. Previously, the top 100 on the heat ranking was long occupied by modern and urban daily themes. In September, the ancient-themed work *Second Marriage With Good News* also broke into the top 6, and the other ancient-themed work *I Am the Son of Heaven: Behead the Traitors* also entered the ranking list.
Through the ranking list, we can observe that the joining of new forces cannot be underestimated. *The Local Leader in Northeast China* produced by Zaichang Film, a label under Starlink Infinity, went straight to the top after its launch on September 19, with a peak heat of 67.15 million. It is the only male-oriented drama that broke into the TOP10 in September, achieving both excellent data and public praise. In addition, three new labels, Pianke Universe Theater, Cocoa Tree Theater and Zhumeng Light and Shadow, also broke into the forefront of the top 100 ranking. Among them, *Second Marriage With Good News* from Pianke Universe topped the Hongguo live-action drama ranking for many consecutive periods after its launch, which even made Entertainment Value Official exclaim: the younger generation is awe-inspiring!
Based on the comprehensive analysis of the September live-action short drama ranking, Entertainment Value Official draws such a judgment: The short drama industry in September has not become larger, but more diversified. However, single hit live-action short dramas such as *Summer Fendela* and *At Home and Outside* are becoming increasingly "precious" and hard to find. The width of themes and delivery stability are shaping new dimensions of industry competition, and the competition for live-action short dramas in the future will continue to raise the standard line.
02
The Hundred Flowers Award Trophy
Was Handed to Short Dramas for the First Time
The most memorable event worth celebrating in the short drama industry this year is that the 38-year-old Hundred Flowers Award handed its trophy to short dramas for the first time this year.
On August 9, 2026, the 38th Popular Film Hundred Flowers Award included short dramas into the honor evaluation system for the first time. This event sets five honors: "Annual Popular Short Drama", "Annual Innovative Short Drama", "Annual Excellent Series Short Drama", "Annual Influential Short Drama" and "Annual High-Quality Short Drama". It conducts a centralized evaluation of short drama works in the past year from dimensions including public praise, creative breakthrough, serialized operation, realistic issue expression and production completion.
*Taking the Surname of Langya*, *Nuo Opera* and *Marry as You Wish* won the honor of "Annual Popular Short Drama". The three works have maintained continuous popularity on broadcast platforms such as Hongguo, confirming the feature of short dramas that are close to the public. *Getting Rich Through Hard Work*, *Little Sniper* and *Heading North* won the honor of "Annual Innovative Short Drama" by virtue of breakthroughs in narrative techniques and development of theme tracks. *Northeast Love Story: Flash Marriage Rose*, *Three Family Members in the Same Class* and *Home With Love* won the honor of "Annual Excellent Series Short Drama", highlighting the long-term vitality and stable public praise of short drama IPs.
*At Home and Outside*, *Long Road With Original Aspiration* and *Surge Under the Surface* won the honor of "Annual Influential Short Drama". The three works have driven the creation trend of corresponding themes and aroused public discussions on realistic issues. *ENEMY*, *The Walker: Mad Dao Mo* and *Summer Fendela* won the honor of "Annual High-Quality Short Drama". The three works have solid scripts, high production completion and strong performance appeal, which are representative samples of the high-quality development path of short dramas.
Looking back at industry changes from the award-winning works, the themes of short dramas have been further expanded, including family, emotion and social themes close to real life, as well as new works that continue to explore narrative methods and type expression. The enrichment of work types and creative features also reflects that the industry has gradually shifted from pursuing quantity and traffic to a development stage that pays more attention to content quality, character shaping and production completion.
After the Hundred Flowers Award, on the afternoon of August 11, the "Micro Short Drama High-Quality Creation and Communication Exchange Event" hosted by Henan Provincial Radio and Television Bureau and undertaken by Hongguo Short Drama and Elephant News was held in Zhengzhou.
Zhengzhou is a well-known short drama creation base. The release of this "Double Hundred" plan proposes to create and launch 100 high-quality micro short dramas that reflect the features of the times and highlight the Central Plains culture, as well as 100 high-quality micro short dramas to be launched overseas every year.
The *Henan Provincial Micro Short Drama Development Fund Project Application Guide* released at the scene clearly lists the fund application conditions, application process and support scope, opening up channels for enterprises and creators to obtain policy fund support. Hou Chao, chairman of Richue Culture, proposed at the meeting: "High-quality micro short drama is the core way for the micro short drama industry to move from the barbaric growth of traffic to high-quality industrialization."
Shortly afterwards, on August 27 in Shanghai, the Short Drama Copyright Center of Douyin Group held the "Live-Action Short Drama Script Cooperation Exchange Meeting". This exchange meeting is focused on live-action short drama screenwriters, providing a number of cooperation policies for live-action short drama producers, and improving the support mechanism for live-action short drama scripts from collection, matching to production transformation.
Lin Weizhou, head of screenwriter operation of the Short Drama Copyright Center of Douyin Group, said that the current platform's live-action short drama script cooperation is divided into two forms: "Daily High-Quality Works" and "Thousand-Drama Plan". "Daily High-Quality Works" focuses on character shaping, encourages creators to give full play to the advantages of live-action short dramas, and impress the audience with plot conflicts and delicate emotions. The theme directions include "urban emotion", "ancient style love", "family emotion", "urban counterattack", "ancient history" and so on.
Lin Weizhou, head of screenwriter operation of the Short Drama Copyright Center of Douyin Group, shared the live-action drama script policy
The "Thousand-Drama Plan" is clearly targeted at works with 40 to 50 episodes, with priority given to themes of modern romance, urban brainstorm, period love and realistic issues. Lin Weizhou emphasized that "This plan does not limit the creative space of screenwriters, but aims to solve the current pain point that some excellent live-action short drama scripts are difficult to be put into production." Because such works are easier to build clear character relationships and emotional returns in limited scenes.
Looking back at the recent intensive activities related to live-action short dramas, we can feel the determination of relevant departments and the industry to support live-action short dramas. Live-action short dramas have not cooled down due to the barbaric growth of AI dramas. Algorithms can only be responsible for how many people finish watching the works, while awards respond to the social value of whether the works are worth discussing. The former can buy viewing volume through traffic investment, while the latter can only win public opinion and reputation by content.
03
The General Trend Has Been Determined
Live-Action Short Dramas Will Be More "Precious" in the Future
On October 11, *China Micro Short Drama Development Report (2026)* was released: the market size of China's free micro short drama market in 2026 is about 57.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8% — while the growth rate in 2025 was 113%. Another set of figures is more glaring: 430,000 micro short dramas were launched across the whole network in the first 8 months, 13 times of the whole last year, of which AI dramas accounted for more than 90%; in the same period, the start-up volume of live-action short dramas fell by about 75% year-on-year.
In July, the daily active users of Hongguo Short Drama reached 168 million, a year-on-year increase of 107%, exceeding the sum of the daily active users of iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku and Mango TV. The production capacity has increased by 13 times, but the revenue has only increased by 8%.
What AI replaces is the scarcity of "production", not the scarcity of attention. The pain of the industry is very specific: 128,000 dramas were launched in the first quarter of this year, of which 122,000 were AI dramas, accounting for more than 95%, and the online volume of live-action shooting dramas is less than 1/20 of AI dramas.
The number of crews starting work on a single day in Xi'an and Zhengzhou bases has dropped from more than a dozen at the peak to one or two. The daily salary of top actors has dropped from 50,000 to 100,000 yuan to about 10,000 yuan. A producer joked: "Live-action works have been squeezed out of the main track by AI."
The "preciousness" of live-action dramas is gradually emerging in three dimensions:
The first layer is the "high cost" in the cost structure. The shooting cycle of live-action short dramas is about 25 days, and the crew of dozens of people, real scenes, props and scheduling cannot be saved. The core team of AI short dramas has 3 to 5 people, and can produce one drama in 3 days, with the cost only 1/10 or even lower than that of live-action dramas. As a result, live-action dramas have retreated from the "mainstream production capacity of the industry" to the "high-priced flagship category". But the high cost is only because it cannot be saved, not equal to being valuable. The high cost is on the book, while "precious" means others are willing to pay more for it.
The second layer is that the attention from the demand side has become "precious". As of May 2026, the unique users of short dramas reached 851 million, accounting for 66.7% of netizens, and the monthly average duration per person was 26.9 hours, exceeding that of online video platforms. Both the number of users and the duration have peaked, and the audience's screening cost has risen. Their behavior has changed from "watch whatever you swipe" to "recognize people, recognize reputation, and recognize content that can be discussed". More bluntly, 221,900 AI dramas were launched in the first half of the year, the rate of dramas with over 100 million views was only 0.47%, and the revenue per 10,000 views dropped from 30-100 yuan to 5-10