COL Group executive puts microdrama marketing above $1m against $150k-250k production
In a trade interview, Timothy Oh set out the company's cost structure: series cost $150,000 to $250,000 to produce, marketing can exceed $1m, and roughly 400 marketing experiments run each month.
What this basis means: Disclosed by the company about itself, and not independently confirmed.
Timothy Oh of COL Group described the company's microdrama economics in an interview with TellyCast published by The Drop on 6 April 2026.
A series costs between $150,000 and $250,000 to produce, Oh said, while marketing budgets can exceed $1m, because viewers are served opening episodes directly in social feeds rather than reached through conventional publicity. The company runs around 400 marketing experiments a month, testing trailer and episode variants, and recuts a title after two or three days if its opening underperforms.
On one title, the historical series From Rags to Rank One, Oh said production cost around $250,000 and the show drew one billion views within a week, with a second season released within two and a half months. He described episodes of roughly two minutes built around a hook every 90 seconds.
On Europe, Oh said COL was in discussions with broadcasters and platforms in several markets and that Germany had emerged as a surprisingly strong one. On the United Kingdom he said the format needs an ecosystem rather than individual commissions: "It does not work if someone is going to produce two or three shows. Where do they put them? Where do they monetise them?"
COL operates UniReel, Zero Plus and FlareFlow and incubated Crazy Maple Studio. Its description of itself as China's second-largest intellectual-property company is a company claim.
Companies COL Group, ReelShort