Mansa Studios teams with Macro for vertical phone dramas
David Oyelowo's Mansa Studios will team with Macro Television Studios to develop, finance and produce vertical series, meaning short episodes made to be watched upright on a phone. The partnership was announced on Monday, according to Variety. Mansa was co-founded by Oyelowo and Nate Parker. Macro Television Studios is the television arm of Macro.
Under the agreement, the two studios will develop new projects and handle marketing and promotion together. They will share ownership of the intellectual property they create, meaning they will jointly own the rights to the characters and stories. That joint ownership keeps both companies attached as shows travel to other platforms. It also spreads the cost and the risk of making them.
Mansa already distributes film, TV and short-form content across several outlets. That includes its own free ad-supported streaming service, which audiences can watch without paying a subscription, and FAST channels, meaning free channels that run to a schedule with adverts. Short-form here means programmes made in minutes-long instalments rather than hour-long episodes. The organisation has put mobile viewing at the centre of its offer, and vertical drama is cut for the phone screen.
The studio is launching three vertical shows through TikTok Minis, TikTok's space for bite-size serials, according to Deadline. One is titled My Twin Sister Stole My Man. An earlier Mansa vertical release is titled The Heiress, The Baller & The Secret Society, as reported by Eurweb. The Macro deal will extend that slate with jointly owned titles.
Macro Television Studios operates as a division of Macro. The parent company is led by founder and chief executive Charles D. King. Macro previously worked with Oyelowo as a producer on Government Cheese, the Apple TV series in which Oyelowo starred. Macro has also acquired Allblk, a subscription streaming service, from AMC Global Media. That purchase adds a subscriber-funded outlet to a business that already makes and sells shows.
For viewers, this means more short dramas built for quick watching. Episodes drop in rapid bursts. A full story can unfold in the time it takes to finish a commute. No television set required.
