No. 1 · Week of November 5, 2026 · The October roundup

AI took over the slate as TV went vertical

Plus who hired in October and the jobs open now.

We tracked 387 vertical drama stories in October. Here are the ones that matter, plus who hired, from the studio career pages we watch every day.

The 30-second version

• AI now makes most new releases. Two-thirds of new microdramas outside China in the third quarter were AI generated, up from 3% in the first quarter (The Hollywood Reporter, Oct 20).
• TV networks went vertical. Channel 4, Bravo, BET, A+E and Fox all announced microdramas in the same month.
• YouTube added seasons and episodes to Shorts.
• Writers did most of the applying on our site, though only one in five new jobs was for a writer.

Who hired in October

We added 429 jobs from 33 companies in October. Of those, 122 were creative and content roles: writers, producers, editors, AI artists, directors and the people who run content. The rest were tech, sales and ops jobs at the same companies.

One studio posted 39 of the 122 on its own, and 23 of those had "AI" in the title, from AI writers to AI directors. The next seven studios posted 5 to 8 each. Across everyone, 44 of the 122, more than a third, had "AI" in the title. Pro members see which studios are hiring.

By role, we counted 25 writing jobs, 19 producing jobs, 18 editing and post jobs and 18 AI artist and AI filmmaker jobs. Only 15 of the 122 listed pay.

Readers clicked apply 291 times in October, and 193 of those clicks went to writing jobs. The most-clicked was a remote Writer role at TrueShort, with 73 clicks, and it's still open.

Jobs open now

• Senior Writer, Pocket FM, remote.
• Editor + Motion Graphics, Luma AI, remote, $126,000 to $147,000 a year.
• Sr. Content Producer, Newform, New York City, $110,000 to $120,000 a year.
• Content Operations & Strategy Manager, CandyJar, San Francisco, $120,000 to $150,000 a year.
• Producer, Creative Studio (Temporary), Tubi, Los Angeles.
• Digital Creator / AI Artist, Holywater (My Drama), remote.
• Shorts Production Intern, Dhar Mann Studios, Burbank, $17 an hour.

More in writer jobs and remote jobs.

Another 94 creative jobs are in their first 30 days, when only Pro members see the company and can apply. A few of them:

• A remote screenwriter contract at one of the biggest US short drama apps.
• A showrunner role in Burbank.
• An associate editor role in San Francisco paying $80,000 to $100,000 a year.
• A remote microdrama director role.

Free members see them after day 30.

TV networks moved in

Channel 4 made its first microdrama, The Guest List, a five-part series with beauty brand Sol de Janeiro starring Jadesola Odunjo from Netflix's You (Deadline, Oct 13).

Bravo ordered its first scripted microdrama. Charmed by a Southern Monster stars Southern Charm's Craig Conover and Nicole Mattox and premieres November 9 on the Peacock app (Deadline, Oct 23).

BET premiered its first microseries, the thriller Her Baby, on linear TV on October 7. It will be recut as a microdrama for aTwist later (TheWrap via IMDb, Sept 22).

A+E Global Media has adapted nearly 200 library titles into vertical microdramas and will license them to other platforms. Lifetime's app adds a new vertical title every two weeks (Variety, Oct 8).

Fox had two deals. Kevin Hart's Hartbeat is launching 25 live-action vertical series on My Drama, and Fox gets a first look at film and TV projects developed from them (Deadline, Oct 13). Fox and Endemol Shine are also making a scripted horror microseries inspired by Fear Factor, 30 three-minute episodes for My Drama (TheWrap, Oct 27).

Sony Pictures Television signed TikTok creator Thea Von Engelbrechten to a first-look deal. Her animated microdrama Hazelwood premieres November 13 on YouTube (Variety via Yahoo, Oct 22).

WWE's first ReelShort movie, Agent of Shadows, came out October 23 with Drew McIntyre, Jacob Fatu and Booker T (Wrestling Headlines, Oct 10).

Platforms and money

Microdramas passed 6.5 billion views on YouTube in the first half of 2026, and YouTube says 40% of microdrama views came more than 30 days after an episode went up (Social Media Today, Oct 27).

TikTok signed its second big microdrama deal, with Made By Us Studios, for creator-led series on TikTok and its PineDrama app. The first one, with Issa Rae's Hoorae, produced Screen Time, which has nearly 580 million views (The Hollywood Reporter, Oct 14).

PineDrama passed 100 million downloads about nine months after launch. It's free and pays for episodes with ads (BigGo Finance, Oct 12). Owl & Co. data shows PineDrama took more than half of all microdrama views across the top apps outside China in the third quarter (The Hollywood Reporter, Oct 20).

Tencent launched a free short drama service inside WeChat, with ads between episodes (TechNode, Oct 14).

Orange will carry ReelShort in 17 countries across Africa and the Middle East, starting with four markets this year (We Are Tech, Oct 15).

And one app closed. Top Gun: Maverick producer Tommy Harper shut VeYou on November 6, about six months after launch. He'll keep making shows for PineDrama and YouTube, and told Business Insider the play for an independent company is to be "the best supplier to those platforms, not to compete with them for installs" (Business Insider, Oct 26).

AI and the people it affects

GASP tracked ReelShort's new releases all year. In January none of 16 new dramas were labelled AI made. In September it was 201 of 221 (GASP via The National Law Review, Oct 7). A GASP spokesperson: "What the numbers show is speed."

The audience hasn't fully followed. Owl & Co. found that at ReelShort, live-action titles were more likely than AI titles to stay in the top 10% by views a month after release (The Hollywood Reporter, Oct 20).

ByteDance's Dreamina opened a short drama studio with its own script, image and storyboard models, plus a remake mode that rebuilds an existing drama for a new region (Pandaily, Oct 27).

Neighbours became the flashpoint. Fremantle is recutting old episodes into a microdrama built around Margot Robbie's character, using an AI-assisted editing tool. Fremantle says the tool doesn't create new scenes, faces or voices. Former cast members pushed back, and the actors' union MEAA and the Australian Writers' Guild are involved (The Guardian, Oct 26).

The SAG-AFTRA Verticals Agreement turned one. It covers productions under $300,000, with leads at $250 for an 8-hour day and other performers at $164. SAG-AFTRA's Jessica Johnson says producers were "afraid that working with SAG-AFTRA would slow them down" (TheWrap, Oct 19).

Numbers worth saving

• Men are 54% of UK microdrama users, 50% in the US and 47% across all markets Omdia surveyed. Omdia's María Rúa Aguete: "In the UK, men are actually the majority." Omdia forecasts $14 billion in global revenue this year (Omdia, Oct 13).
• One in five consumers now watch microdramas, from a dentsu survey of 8,400 people in 12 markets. Among viewers, 45% said they're more likely to buy a brand they saw featured in one (The Drop, Oct 12).
• Bob's Discount Furniture says the first season of its microdrama drove $9 million in sales (Chief Marketer, Oct 14).
• In China, about 1.3% of AI dramas released in the first half of 2026 reached 50 million views, its break-even mark for an AI drama (BigGo Finance, Oct 14).

Dates for your calendar

• November 11 to 13: Micro Drama Summit. Live online · Replay included for 1 year.
• November 24 to 25: Vertifest Magaluf in Mallorca, Spain, with a pitch contest for ten projects (TodoTV News, Oct 16).
• December 11: early entry deadline for the Telly Awards' new microseries track, 56 categories (Variety, Oct 13).

Worth a read

• New York's first microdrama film festival searches for its audience, The Verge, on the Alza festival and the filmmakers behind it.
• The Microdrama Boom: a Bloodbath in the Making, The Ankler. The top 16 apps outside China put out 32,000 titles in three months.
• Microdramas are set to upstage Hollywood's A-list, Reuters Breakingviews, on the money.

See you next week. Know a story or a job we missed? Hit reply.

The Vertical Times is the weekly news and hiring paper for vertical drama from Vertical Drama Jobs.