• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

TikTok is building on its continued investment in episodic content through a new partnership designed to bring a slate of creator-led vertical microdramas or "micro series" to the social-media app and its stand-alone mobile streaming platform PineDrama. 

For the initiative, TikTok has tapped Made By Us Studios, a content developer powered by creator-management company Made By All, which focuses on branded content that fuses Hollywood-level production with the creator economy. 

During MIPCOM Cannes 2026, TikTok and Made By Us unveiled details surrounding their first two projects together -- “Player” and “The Knock.” 

Both micro series star a mixture of popular creators and Hollywood actors, including Hannah Stocking, Adam Rose, and Zaria Simone, as well as Hollywood production companies – Spooky Pictures (“Paranormal Activity,” “Weapons,” “The Ring”) -- and music composition from Grammy-award winning artists like Moby. 

TikTok’s upcoming slate of micro-series builds on the company’s recent partnership with Hoorae, a company owned by actor, writer, producer and comedian Issa Rae, which brought the micro-series “Screen Time” exclusively to TikTok and PineDrama. 

Since its April launch, “Screen Time” has amassed almost 580 million views across the globe, becoming the top-performing show of all time on TikTok and PineDrama. 

According to TikTok’s announcement, the success of “Screen Time” demonstrates “a growing demand for premium, story-driven content built for the For You feed.”

Over the past few years, soap opera-style microdramas have become a hit on TikTok, generating $1.3 billion in the U.S. last year via direct payments from viewers, according to a Business Insider report.

To harness the growth of fandom around serialized video content on the app, TikTok launched a “Series” feature in 2023 that allows content creators to package collections of premium long-form content behind a paywall.

Last year, the company also launched its dedicated Minis Center and its mini dramas app PineDrama across the U.S. and Brazil.

As micro-series and podcasts gain traction in markets across the globe, a new study shows that creators involved in episodic content may have more influence with consumers than social-media influencers, with 81% of creator fans reporting that they trust creators at least as much as their close friends. 

Therefore, the rise of episodic content may provide brands with a more authentic, engaged way to target audiences.