In the past, the entertainment industry has not had a good time. Whether it is film and television dramas, movies, games or even artists, the upstream and downstream of the industry have been more or less affected. Under the cold winter, the prospects of the entertainment industry are also confused. How to get out of the cold winter?
Recently, at the Iqiyi World Conference, Iqiyi released a number of entertainment industry support plans, involving movies, film and television dramas, games, animation, online texts, artists’ brokers, etc., which seemed to set a fire in the cold winter of the entertainment industry. Even Hou Hongliang, president of Noon Sunshine Film, lamented: "Winter has passed and summer has arrived." If, as Hou Hongliang said, winter has passed and summer is ushered in with the help of video websites, then, under the cold winter of this round of entertainment industry, the video websites under the control of the BAT Big Three have undoubtedly become the biggest winners, and their dominance in the entertainment industry has further expanded. Many years ago, Bona Film President Yu Dong’s statement that "all film and television companies will work for BAT" is also becoming a reality.
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Entertainment industry accelerates reshuffle in winter.
Wind data shows that during the four years from May 2015 to May 2019, the investment in the film and entertainment industry showed an obvious cliff-like downward trend, with two obvious lows in 2016 and this year. In 2015, the investment amount of the industry was 13.091 billion yuan, which was reduced to 6.452 billion yuan in the following year, which was more than half. Then it entered the fast lane of rising. In 2018, the investment amount reached 53.777 billion yuan, which will be more than half this year, and the investment amount is only 262 million yuan.
Affected by the cold winter, in 2018, the number of repertoires publicized by filing in China continued to decline, with a total of 1,061 and 41,887 episodes, down by 9.7% and 10.3% respectively compared with 2017. And short videos began to flood people’s lives, and the fragmentation time was gradually filled, and the market space was further narrowed.
The performance of film and television listed companies is also not optimistic. Even Huace Film and Television (300133.SZ), the leading film and television drama, earned 5.797 billion yuan last year, up 10.52% year-on-year, with a net profit of 211 million yuan, down 66.71% year-on-year, and deducted non-net profit of 121 million yuan, down 78.22% year-on-year. More than half of the film and television listed companies, such as Huayi Brothers (300027.SZ), Ciwen Media (002343.SZ), Huawei Culture (002502.SZ), Tang De Film and Television (300426.SZ) and Hualu Baina (300291.SZ), all suffered losses last year, among which the former "film brother". A large number of game listed companies released loss-making financial reports, among which, the "loss king" Tianshen Entertainment had a pre-loss amount of 7.8 billion yuan, of which 4.9 billion yuan was accrued for goodwill impairment.
"Behind the decline of the film and television industry is the outbreak of some industry problems under the rapid development for many years, mainly focusing on the two elements of over-reliance on IP and stars. As a result, the value of stars and IP is rising, and video websites are constantly posting money. However, with the high pay of star artists corrected by all parties last year, IP has repeatedly failed, and the original industrial value chain model is no longer suitable, so it is necessary to build a new industrial value chain." Zhou Chen, an entertainment industry analyst, said.
According to statistics, among the TV dramas with TOP45 broadcast volume of Tencent Video in 2018, TV dramas with non-big IP and non-traffic stars accounted for 62.22%; In TOP35′ s variety show, the proportion of non-big IP and non-traffic stars is as high as 54.17%. Wang Juan, editor-in-chief of Tencent Video, said that with the ebb tide of big stars and big IP, users will be more critical, and good works in the future will need to meet users’ psychological demands, be well-made and be innovative.
Since last year, three major video websites, Youku, Iqiyi and Tencent Video, have jointly issued a document to boycott the high pay of stars. IP failure has also aggravated the cold winter of the film and television industry. Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of iQiyi, said that the previous big IP model was shattered. Typical examples are Tian Sheng Chang Ge and Wu Dong Gan Kun, which are far below the expected results.
The cold winter of the entertainment industry is mainly reflected in the upper reaches of the industrial chain, but video websites have not been affected too much. On the contrary, the influence of online channels is constantly expanding. According to the China TV Drama Industry Development Report 2019, 382 new dramas were broadcast in 2018, of which the number of webcasts is more than twice that of Shangxing dramas, accounting for over two-thirds, and the quality of online dramas is getting stronger and stronger.
Hou Hongliang said: "The emergence of online video has subverted the traditional TV play mode and industrial model, and the online channel has natural advantages. Take online drama as an example, online drama should be consistent with its communication form, viewing scene, revenue model and user’s demands, instead of simply premiering on the online platform. In traditional TV dramas, every creation must strive for the largest number of viewers, so that it is possible to obtain better viewing data from a small number of sample households. The choice of paying users of online dramas is very clear. It is very important to study the demands of target audiences and accurately locate works. Therefore, the direction of online drama creation must be market segmentation, typology of themes, and whose strategy and content are more accurate. "
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The rise of video websites to build a new world of entertainment
From the initial second-round broadcast platform of movies and TV series, to the linkage between Internet and TV stations, and then to the solo broadcast of self-made TV dramas, the voice of video websites is constantly improving, and video websites have also paid a lot of financial costs. In this case, video websites need to strengthen the control of upstream and downstream to better control costs and expand profit models.
Wang Xiaohui said: "The copyright of new media has dropped from 18 million to 8 million now, and most of them are at 3 million." On the other hand, build your own IP, stars and related TV dramas. Last year, Gong Yu, the founder and CEO of Aiqiyi, put forward the vision of "Apple Orchard", that is, to expand the content ecology of Aiqiyi from video to pan-entertainment fields such as literature, animation, live broadcast, games, e-commerce, ticketing and artist brokerage.
At the Iqiyi World Conference, iQiyi systematically displayed 21 application service product brand matrices including iQiyi main station, Chibabu, iQiyi bubble, iQiyi sports and iQiyi VR for the first time. At the same time, the two innovative directions of iQiyi original film plan and interactive content technical standards were officially released, aiming at providing solutions to the problems currently faced by the partners in cinema films and multi-content fields through business model innovation and technology and content combination innovation.
The increasing dominance of video websites means that video websites will continue to strengthen content control, and a number of external entertainment companies will also be embedded in the industrial chain of video websites to strengthen cooperation.
Then, when there are problems with stars and IP, can video websites lead content creation to reduce industry risks and build a healthier industry ecology? In Gong Yu’s view, video websites have three magic weapons: one fish eats more, original content and technical support. Content originality is the basis for video websites to integrate internal and external resources to create high-quality content, while technical capability support is to continuously reduce the risk of film and television investment and improve the ability to create explosions through artificial intelligence, big data and even the latest film and television technology such as interactive video technology. The mode of eating more than one fish is to help maximize the value of entertainment content, and only a few major video websites can achieve these three points at present.
After the cold winter is a new round of rapid development of the entertainment industry, and the dominant players will become video website giants.
In the face of the cold winter, Wang Xiaohui believes that the superposition effect of the emerging generation with different consumption views and wealth after the 1980 s and the Internet users after the 1990 s has brought stronger impetus to the entertainment industry. "Users have a stronger demand for high-quality content and a stronger demand for high-quality content that is suitable for their own personalized content. After 80, you can pay for the game, and after 90, you can pay for The Avengers. The locomotive of this industry is the Internet, which has revolutionized all industries, including our entertainment industry. In the current era, the trend of the entertainment industry and our update cycle and frequency of fresh content are getting shorter and faster. " Wang Xiaohui said.
A large part of the growth of the entertainment industry is the growth of the content payment market, which is a big plus for video websites. In 2018, the number of subscriptions of global streaming media surpassed that of cable TV, and the number of online video members in China surpassed that of cable TV. In 2018, the iconic paid income of iQiyi became the largest source of income.
No matter who dominates, it is basically centered on the audience. Hou Hongliang said: "In the process of constantly exploring the mode, type and differentiation of entertainment content, the most correct thing to do is not to despise the audience, not to give up the creative subject, not to lower the production level and awe of creation, and to constantly present it with more professional images and expressions."