iQIYI is betting that short-form drama can deliver more than quick mobile entertainment. With the launch of Undercurrent Theater, the Chinese streaming platform is building a premium, horizontal-screen suspense category designed around longer-form storytelling, audience engagement, and revenue-sharing economics. Its debut title, “Dead of Winter,” has quickly emerged as a commercial and audience success, offering a glimpse into how streaming platforms are trying to turn short-form video into a more sophisticated content business.

China’s short-form video market is moving beyond vertically formatted clips and lightweight episodic entertainment, and iQIYI’s latest move reflects that shift.

The streaming company has launched Undercurrent Theater, a horizontal-screen short-form suspense brand intended to combine the storytelling depth of traditional television drama with the shorter consumption cycles associated with digital video.

Its first release, “Dead of Winter,” premiered August 4 and has quickly become the strongest-performing revenue-sharing short-form drama on iQIYI since 2024, according to the company.

The series reached an iQIYI content popularity index of 6,638, the highest level recorded for the platform’s revenue-sharing short-form dramas during that period. It also ranked highly across Chinese entertainment measurement platforms including Enlightent, Maoyan and DataWin.

For the streaming industry, the more significant development is not simply the performance of one drama. iQIYI is testing whether premium production values, recognizable genres, horizontal-screen viewing and a revenue-sharing model can create a repeatable business around short-form scripted entertainment.

iQIYI Puts Premium Storytelling Behind Short-Form Video

“Dead of Winter” is set in a small northeastern Chinese city during the late 1990s and follows a community police officer and a criminal investigator who were once friends.

The two reunite to investigate major cases while uncovering the consequences of an eight-year-old family tragedy.

The premise places the series closer to conventional crime television than the rapid-fire narrative structures typically associated with mobile short dramas.

That distinction matters.

Horizontal-screen video gives creators more room for cinematic framing, ensemble performances and atmospheric world-building. For suspense and crime programming, those elements can be particularly important because tension depends not only on plot twists but also on setting, pacing and character development.

In “Dead of Winter,” the cold northeastern setting and social-realist approach have become part of the show’s identity, while its fast-moving narrative has helped drive discussion across Chinese social platforms.

More than 20 derivative short videos reportedly generated more than 100,000 likes each, while viewers have already called for a second season.

The dynamic creates an interesting content loop: a premium short-form drama generates audience attention, which then produces additional short-form social content that can further extend the property’s reach.

Audience Engagement Is Translating Into Revenue

The commercial results may be even more important for iQIYI.

Within five days of its release, “Dead of Winter” generated more than RMB5 million, or roughly US$740,000, in revenue-sharing earnings, according to the company. iQIYI expects those earnings to exceed RMB10 million, approximately US$1.48 million, within nine days.

The platform’s revenue-sharing structure gives production partners a financial stake linked to viewership.

That model changes the economics of short-form content. Instead of relying exclusively on fixed licensing arrangements or advertising, platforms can create incentives for producers to invest in content capable of generating sustained audience demand.

It also gives streaming companies another way to expand their content libraries without necessarily carrying the entire financial burden of production.

The model resembles broader trends across digital entertainment, where platforms increasingly experiment with performance-linked economics, creator revenue sharing and hybrid monetization.

For production companies, however, the attraction depends on whether strong audience performance consistently produces meaningful returns after production and marketing costs.

Short-Form Video Is Becoming More Strategic for Streaming Platforms

The success of “Dead of Winter” arrives as streaming platforms face a familiar challenge: consumers have more entertainment options than ever, while competition for attention continues to intensify.

Platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and YouTube have helped normalize on-demand video across devices and formats. Meanwhile, short-form platforms have trained audiences to consume stories in shorter sessions.

The emerging opportunity is to bridge those two behaviors.

Rather than forcing audiences to choose between short-form entertainment and traditional episodic television, horizontal short-form dramas can occupy the middle ground.

The format can potentially offer more narrative complexity than short mobile dramas while requiring less time commitment than a conventional 30- or 60-minute television episode.

For iQIYI, that makes suspense a logical category.

Crime and mystery stories naturally support episodic cliffhangers, rapid reveals and high viewer retention. They can also generate discussion, theories and user-generated content, extending a title’s life beyond the episode itself.

The Content Slate Suggests a Larger Strategy

iQIYI is already planning to build beyond its first success.

Upcoming Undercurrent Theater titles include “The VI Group of Fatal Case,” a prequel to the popular 2001 crime procedural, and “The Murder Truth,” adapted from a highly rated original work and built around interconnected serial crimes and investigative deduction.

The selection suggests that iQIYI is not treating Undercurrent Theater as a one-off experiment.

Instead, the company appears to be using suspense as a foundation for a broader premium short-form content franchise.

That strategy also gives iQIYI an opportunity to leverage existing intellectual property and established audience interest while developing new stories.

For global streaming markets, the development is worth watching because Chinese entertainment companies have increasingly demonstrated an ability to package local genres for international audiences.

iQIYI already operates internationally, and premium Chinese suspense content could become an important part of its global programming strategy if the format can travel across language and cultural boundaries.

What It Means for Streaming and Content Businesses

The emergence of Undercurrent Theater points to an increasingly fragmented entertainment landscape in which format, distribution and monetization are becoming as important as genre.

For streaming platforms, the goal is no longer simply to commission more shows. It is to determine which content lengths, screen formats, recommendation systems and business models can generate the strongest return on audience attention.

iQIYI’s experiment combines several of those variables.

The horizontal-screen format targets viewers seeking a more cinematic experience. The suspense genre is designed around retention and repeat viewing. The revenue-sharing system connects content performance with producer economics. And the platform’s recommendation and discovery infrastructure can potentially help successful titles reach larger audiences.

That creates a model closer to a content marketplace than a traditional television commissioning system.

The key question now is whether “Dead of Winter” represents an isolated breakout or the beginning of a repeatable category.

If upcoming Undercurrent Theater titles can reproduce its audience and commercial performance, iQIYI may have established a compelling template for premium short-form scripted entertainment.

For the broader streaming industry, that could mean the next battle for audience attention will not simply be between long-form and short-form video. It may increasingly be about finding the formats in between.

Market Landscape

The streaming market is increasingly defined by content fragmentation, short-form consumption and platform-specific monetization models.

Short-form video has historically been associated with vertically oriented social platforms, while premium streaming services have focused primarily on longer episodic and feature-length programming. iQIYI’s Undercurrent Theater represents an attempt to close that gap through horizontally framed scripted content.

The strategic implications extend beyond China.

Streaming platforms globally are looking for ways to increase engagement without continuously escalating production budgets. Performance-linked revenue sharing could provide a mechanism for distributing some of that risk while encouraging production partners to focus on content that generates measurable demand.

At the same time, AI-powered recommendation systems are making content discovery increasingly important. Platforms operated by Google, Amazon, Netflix and other major entertainment companies already rely heavily on data-driven personalization to determine what viewers see next.

Premium short-form content gives these recommendation engines another category to surface.

The next stage will likely involve greater experimentation with AI-assisted content discovery, audience segmentation, personalized recommendations, creator economics and cross-platform distribution.

For iQIYI, Undercurrent Theater provides a test case for whether a premium short-form content ecosystem can become commercially sustainable rather than simply serving as another content format.

Top Insights

• iQIYI launched Undercurrent Theater to develop premium horizontal-screen suspense dramas, expanding short-form video beyond conventional mobile entertainment formats.
• “Dead of Winter” reached an iQIYI popularity index of 6,638, establishing an early performance benchmark for the platform’s revenue-sharing strategy.
• The series generated more than RMB5 million within five days, showing how short-form scripted entertainment can develop meaningful platform and producer economics.
• Upcoming crime and suspense titles indicate iQIYI is building a repeatable content pipeline rather than treating Undercurrent Theater as a single-title experiment.
• The strategy could influence streaming platforms exploring shorter premium formats, performance-linked monetization, recommendation technology and international distribution of localized entertainment.

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