Cover Story: China’s Micro-Dramas Steal the Show and Momentum Seems Unstoppable

By the time Le Li took to the stage at a national media forum in late October, the room was already overflowing. Attendees packed the aisles with smartphones raised and eyes fixed on the editor-in-chief of ByteDance Ltd.’s Red Fruit app — or Hongguo in Chinese — now the country’s largest micro-drama platform. With a calm but confident tone, Le delivered a bold projection: China’s micro-drama industry, barely five years old, is fast approaching the 100-billion-yuan ($14.05 billion) mark.