Neighbours Goes Vertical: Recutting a Broadcast Catalog for Phones
RoseBerry Media is recutting episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours into microdramas for Epis, a short-form vertical video streaming platform.
The source library is large. Neighbours ran for 41 seasons from 1985 to 2025. The starting scope is narrow. At launch, RoseBerry is adapting only two storylines from the late 2000s centered on Donna Freedman, the character played by Margot Robbie Mediaweek The Verge.
RoseBerry co-founder and CEO Guy Hameiri said the episodes will be adapted for vertical viewing using the company's proprietary AI-powered production workflow, software built in-house to handle the conversion. Hameiri described premium vertical television as a significant new entertainment category that could introduce a classic series to new audiences, and placed the Neighbours adaptation within that shift.
The format follows tight rules. Microdramas are short vertical videos, made to be watched on a phone held upright, often built around tangled romance plots The Verge. They are cheaply produced for mobile viewing, unlike network television shows with large budgets. Each installment typically opens with a hook and closes on a melodramatic cliffhanger.
That formula did not start in Hollywood. Microdramas originated in China and began gaining traction around 2018 on platforms including Douyin and Kuaishou. Microdrama apps including ReelShort, FlickReels and DramaBox offer short clips that add up to movie-length stories NPR. ReelShort and DramaBox are among the services where the format has become a hit.
Distribution scale is already large. Top micro-drama apps reached 150 million active users in Asia, according to an Omdia report reported in April 2025 Deadline. Omdia named DramaBox, GoodShort, ReelShort and ShortMax as booming in Asia and growing elsewhere at that time.
The broader context here is a clash between two production logics. Native microdramas are built for low cost, fast turnaround and phone-first framing. A 16:9 broadcast catalog, the wide horizontal TV shape, is the opposite. It was blocked, lit and edited for wide composition, group scenes and ad-break pacing. Converting that material to 9:16, the tall phone shape, without breaking eyelines, two-shots and location geography is a reframing and continuity problem, not just a cropping job. That is presumably what RoseBerry's AI workflow is meant to automate, detecting subjects, recomposing shots and cutting long arcs into one- to two-minute beats that still land a cliffhanger.
In my view, the telling choice is to start with Robbie-era Neighbours rather than new vertical commissions. Reusing a catalog lowers content risk and gives rights holders a familiar path in as mobile viewing climbs. A known soap already supplies serialized romance, recurring characters and unresolved tension in volume. It fits the microdrama structure well. If AI reframing can keep the picture legible at phone size while reducing editing labor, back catalogs become usable inventory for Epis-style services without funding a slate from zero.
Looking at what this means for platforms, the technical hurdle is only half the test. Microdrama viewers expect rapid payoff and constant forward motion. Broadcast soaps were built for slow build across weeks. RoseBerry will have to compress without creating confusion. Get that edit rhythm right, and a 40-year broadcast property gets a second distribution life among viewers who never followed a television schedule.
