Lifetime goes vertical with phone-first microdrama slate
Lifetime wants its next obsession thriller to fit in your pocket.
A+E Global Media and Lifetime have announced an expansion into microdramas and vertical video, reported by Variety on 8 October. Microdramas are stories told in very short, serialised chapters, often a minute or two each. Vertical video means they are shot upright to fill a phone screen, no turning required.
The rollout centres on MyLifetime.com and the Lifetime mobile app. MyLifetime.com will offer three original vertical films from Microhouse Films, plus seven titles adapted from the A+E Global Media library. New vertical titles are planned every two weeks, with up to seven originals by the end of the year.
The three Microhouse Films originals are “Tides of Temptation,” “Matched With a Murderer” and “His Lies Taste Like Love.” “Tides of Temptation” is executive produced by Taye Diggs, Autumn Federici and Shelby Stone. It acts as a standalone digital companion to the Lifetime original movie “Terry McMillan Presents: Paradise with You,” which debuts 7 November.
Two of the upcoming vertical originals are sponsored holiday titles from vertTV. They are “Casting Christmas” and “Destination, Christmas.” Microhouse also has “Reunion Island,” which is set to debut at the New York-based ALZA Festival, and “Recklessly in Love with My Daughter’s Best Man” in the pipeline.
The library side leans on familiar Lifetime ingredients. Seven Lifetime original films re-cut into vertical chapters for MyLifetime.com are “A Lifeguard’s Obsession,” “Burned by Love,” “Danger in the House,” “My Husband’s Worse Mistake,” “What Would You Kill For?,” “Secret of a Dean’s Wife” and “College Professor Obsession.” A+E library series cut into microseries include “Cold Case Files,” “I Survived,” “Alone,” “Ice Road Truckers,” “Forged in Fire,” “History’s Greatest Mysteries,” “Hoarders” and “Married at First Sight,” alongside nearly 200 Lifetime movies.
There is a sales plan behind it too. A+E Global Media has adapted nearly 200 titles into vertical microdramas to license to other platforms, timed to MIPCOM, the international television market where broadcasters and streamers buy and sell shows and formats. Some of that material is already live. MyLifetime.com lists “Secret Life of the Dean’s Wife,” “College Professor Obsession,” “Danger in the House” and “A Lifeguard’s Obsession” as now streaming.
For viewers, this means choice. Full-length movies on the main channel, phone-sized chapters on the app and site.
