The One-to-Two-Minute Story: How ReelShort and the Telly Awards Placed Vertical Microdrama at the Center of Hollywood

Photos and Video Credit: Photos and Video by The Maker Magazine / November 2026

Microdrama has moved from a phone habit to a distinct format. Its unit is not the episode in the traditional sense, but the one-to-two-minute vertical chapter, written to be watched, paused, and resumed in the course of a day.

ReelShort, launched in August 2022, is the form's premium American example. The app is operated by Crazy Maple Studio, founded in 2017 by CEO Joey Jia and based in Sunnyvale, California. Crazy Maple is U.S. operated and Chinese-backed: COL Group, a Beijing digital publisher listed in Shenzhen, holds 49.24 percent of Crazy Maple, with 47.81 percent of voting rights. Crazy Maple is an associate of COL, not a consolidated subsidiary.

The scale is now measurable alongside long-form streaming, with a precise distinction. Disney Plus is long-form streaming, not a microdrama app, and ReelShort is not larger than Disney overall. What the data show is engagement per user. The microdrama category together recorded 2.3 billion downloads in 2025. In the U.S. in Q4 2025, ReelShort users averaged 35.7 minutes a day, ahead of Disney Plus at 23 minutes, Netflix mobile at 24.8 minutes, and Prime Video at 26.9 minutes (Omdia).

ReelShort reported 286 million total downloads in June 2026 and more than 70 million monthly users. Revenue was about $796 to $805 million in FY2025, projected at $1.05 billion in 2026.

At the top of the category, two players are essentially tied. In Q1 2026, ReelShort and DramaBox each recorded about $140 million in in-app purchases, together about 37 percent of the category (Sensor Tower). In downloads that quarter, ReelShort was No. 2 and DramaBox was No. 4, with FreeReels at No. 1. The difference is editorial: ReelShort positions itself as the premium, original English-language, Los Angeles-made player. DramaBox is the higher-volume player, with more titles and a mix of original and translated shows.

That positioning was visible in Hollywood on November 10, 2026, when the Telly Awards held its season launch in collaboration with ReelShort at The Montalban, a longstanding awards institution, placing a two-minute format at the center of its season.