The hot Hollywood trend for minute-long TV shows: ‘the sort of thing you’d watch drunk at 2am’

From fight scenes lasting for one punch to plots resolved in 45 seconds, smartphone-friendly vertical dramas are growing by 8,000% year on year. Here’s a guide to the wild new medium

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f you haven’t heard of vertical dramas, chances are you will soon. These quick, grabby series – usually split into minute-long episodes – have risen unstoppably over the past couple of years, and now Hollywood is taking an interest.

Last year, the former Showtime executive Jana Winograde announced MicroCo, a studio devoted to vertical drama, and claimed that she was shocked by the amount of top-tier talent that has approached her. Two months before, former Miramax boss Bill Block launched GammaTime, which promises original microdramas by CSI creator Anthony E Zuiker.

“Every single Hollywood studio you can think of is involved or trialling,” says vertical drama consultant Jen Cooper. “For actors in America, 90% of the jobs are verticals.” Indeed, in a stagnating entertainment market, verticals are one of the few places of real growth – last year Deadline reported that revenues in the sector are up 8,000% year-on-year.