New development: our "recently watched" row is now nothing but strangers betraying each other in under two minutes, and the algorithm has quietly stopped suggesting anything else. It knows us better than our dentist does, and it judges us less.
Jamie Oliver is cooking up a microdrama
When a chef this famous reorganizes his entire company around storytelling, it is worth a look at what he is reaching for first. The Jamie Oliver Group confirmed this week that its next big swing is a microdrama, made with new UK creative shop Baby Teeth, shooting in Britain this month with a global consumer tech brand attached. Details are still under wraps, but the strategic shift is loud. Going forward, the group says it will orient around formats, intellectual property (IP) and creative output, and it has named longtime campaign lieutenant Alison Corfield as Brand Director to lead the charge.
The timing is pointed. The company cut 25 of its 126 staff in December after a review, and Oliver, the original Naked Chef, says he is chasing "fresh storytelling and new digital formats to connect with people where they are right now." Turns out where they are right now is vertical. Baby Teeth, founded last year by alumni of Gordon Ramsay's brand team, Channel 4 and Condé Nast, gets to turn a household name into a 9:16 series.
Why this matters for you: A brand this big commissioning a microdrama means another well-funded buyer who needs writers, directors and crew who already think in 9:16. When a name like Jamie Oliver treats vertical as a flagship format and not a marketing afterthought, the pitch you have been sitting on just got a new front door, and a healthier budget behind it.
Sources: Deadline · Campaign · Brit Brief
🇺🇸 United States
1. A laundry-and-deodorant giant just made a 55-part soap. Procter & Gamble (P&G) released The Golden Pear Affair through its Native brand, a feature-length "microsoap" that tells a complete jewel-heist romance across 55 short vertical episodes, roughly 80 minutes in all, produced with dentsu Entertainment and starring familiar microdrama faces. P&G basically invented the soap opera. Now it is reinventing it 90 seconds at a time. → Variety
2. DramaBox is quietly building inside the Disney machine. Out of Disney's 2025 Accelerator, DramaBox and Disney Publishing are in talks to adapt young-adult fantasy novels into original microdramas, while Disney Music is exploring turning albums into vertical shorts. A swipe app and the House of Mouse, co-developing IP. Read that twice. → Deadline
3. AI dubbing is turning one vertical series into twenty. At the 2026 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, localization firm Deepdub unveiled an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) dubbing assistant built to run inside studio workflows, and microdrama platforms are the fastest adopters of AI-driven localization at scale. One shoot, a dozen languages, no re-cast. That is the whole game for a format that lives or dies on travel. → NAB Show
Here's what else is new:
Vertical video is on track to clear $150 billion in 2026. Analyst shop Owl & Co. pegs the format at roughly $150 billion in revenue this year outside China, up about 42% year over year (YoY) from $106 billion. → TheWrap
YouTube Shorts crossed 2 billion monthly users. Shorts now leads the short-form pack on reach and engagement, a reminder that the biggest free vertical stage is not an app-store download. → Loopex Digital
🌐 Worldwide
1. China's microdrama actors are fighting their own AI clones. After Youhug Media rolled out synthetic performers resembling real stars, "#ActorsReplacedByAI" trended on Weibo and platforms like iQIYI drew fire for AI performer libraries, even as roughly 93% of viewers still say they prefer human actors. The cost logic says synthetic. The audience says not so fast. → We Are Resonate
2. Europe's series industry is giving microdrama a main-stage debate. Seriencamp in Cologne hosts a dedicated three-hour session, "Turn The Screen? Vertical and Microdrama and the Future of Storytelling," this week, with a bench of European showrunners, producers and strategists. A format the festival world shrugged at last year now has a real slot on the program. → Deadline
3. ReelShort is localizing a global reality format for Brazil. ReelShort teamed with Endemol Shine Brasil to launch a Brazilian microdrama take on Married at First Sight, one of the clearest signs yet that vertical platforms want established formats reworked for local-language audiences. Reality formats and swipe apps, finally speaking the same language. → Variety
Here's what else is new:
Brazil's Grupo Abril launched a vertical microdrama app called Pop! The veteran publisher put a free app on Google Play mixing original Brazilian series with licensed international titles, a legacy media house planting a flag in vertical. → Open Gardens
Double Vision is backing Singapore's RisingJoy and a new co-branded app. The pair are launching RJoy, a vertical video app, as Double Vision takes a minority stake to co-develop micro formats across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and South America. → Variety
Today's Pick
Media Partners Asia chief Vivek Couto sat down with Variety ahead of APOS 2026 to argue microdramas have crossed from novelty into a real consumption category, with hard numbers on the US, India and the long road to sustainable monetization. → Read in Variety
From a Cologne main stage to a Jamie Oliver shoot in Britain, the people who bet early on a 9:16 script keep finding the room got bigger overnight.
Until tomorrow. Stay Vertical.