Picture source @VisualChina
Text | Bohu Finance, author | Mengde
In 2021, under the impact of short videos, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video are still complaining about "profit". Behind the lack of profitability, media statistics at the time showed that the three major platforms, iQiyi (founded in 2011), Youku Video (2010) and Tencent Video (2015), had burned over 100 billion yuan in total in 10 years.
has since ushered in an explosion of micro-short dramas, especially in 2023. According to Detawen's "Micro-Short Drama Market Report for the First Half of 2023", more than 480 micro-short dramas were launched on various online platforms in my country in the first half of 2023, which has exceeded the number in the whole of 2022.
There are more and more concerns about the future of "long video" in the market, but looking at the long video platform, it is actually enjoying a second spring.
looks back on the long video platform in 2023, with frequent hot dramas and new variety shows, and the entire market has ushered in new vitality. iQiyi and Tencent Video successively achieved full-year profits, while Youku and Bilibili's losses have further narrowed.
has gone from losing money to changing markets to its second spring. What has the long video platform done?
01 The way to make money on long video platforms
"Cut down low-quality projects and concentrate on making big dramas" has become the consensus of several parent video platforms.
For example, "Hurry Up" and "Three-Body Problem" at the beginning of the year, "Sauve Acacia", "Lotus Tower", "Long Moon Ember" in the middle of the year, and "Yi Nian Guan Shan" and "Flowers" at the end of the year, etc. Very impressive results. Data from the Beacon Professional Edition shows that the number of effective drama series in the online drama market in 2023 is 294. Although the number is 10.6% lower than in 2022, the ratings have increased significantly, with the total broadcast index reaching 38.612 million, a 7.7% increase against the trend. .
And explosive dramas are the core weapon to keep members of the platform.
Take "Hurricane" which became popular in early 2023 as an example. Data from the "2023 China Mobile Internet Spring Report" released by the third-party organization QuestMobile shows that during the broadcast of "Cyclone", iYiqi received an average of 7.68 million incremental users every day and platform traffic reached 432 million. During the hit period of "Kurdant", iQiyi had 64.4% active users, 32.5% active users, and 3% pure new users.
As long-form video platforms have tended to develop into high-quality products in recent years, “members” have increased their trust in the quality of long-form series, which has played a major role in the steady growth of long-form video membership revenue. After the membership fees of the three video platforms collectively increased in 2022 and 2023, the long video platform gradually struggled out of the quagmire of losses and difficulty in making profits.
At the same time, in addition to driving users to pay, popular dramas can also directly drive advertising revenue.
Take the hit "Flowers" some time ago as an example. According to statistics from Douban user "Look at the Moon", "Flowers" has an average of 9-10 advertisements per episode, with the most having 11 advertisements, and a total of 286 advertisements. . It includes various forms such as drama premiere broadcast, past story review, opening and closing credits, interludes and creative advertisements. Funders include Chunzhen, Dove, Pepsi, Weilong, Meituan, Wenjie, vivo, Vipshop, Estee Lauder, Meisu Jiaer and other 40 brands.
It can be said that advertising can bring a lot of revenue to the platform. It is worth mentioning that despite the intensive advertising in "Flowers", users did not show much resentment, and some advertising ingenuity was still talked about by the public. This is the mutual empowerment of high-quality content and investment results. According to China News Weekly, a person related to iQiyi revealed that after the Spring Festival holiday, "Hurry Up" has received a large amount of advertising, with a single brand reaching up to tens of millions of dollars, and the brands that have cooperated in the early stage have also generally made follow-up investments. In addition to membership fees, advertising and copyright income,
major platforms are also exploring more revenue models. For example, drama screenings, offline concerts, and IP and peripheral derivatives have broken the single membership payment model in the past and strengthened the link with consumers. The difference between
and its previous pursuit of attracting new members is that the number of members of each company has now hit the growth ceiling. Now the center of the video platform’s membership strategy is shifting to old members. It is obvious that more loyal users spend money on the platform to buy more Multiple services are more likely.
Take Lotus Tower as an example.At the beginning of last year, iQiyi implemented a membership level system and points system. On this basis, it launched the "Lotus Tower" point redemption finale for the first time in the summer, attracting 6 million members to redeem points within 8 days.
The "Lotus Tower" offline concert was even more successful. 4,500 VIP members could attend the concert offline. There were 700 VIP members' exclusive seats at the venue, and 120 VIP members could also immerse themselves in the red carpet experience. . The ticket sales method is divided into online and offline. Online live broadcast tickets can be purchased by members for 30 yuan, while offline concert tickets can only be obtained by purchasing iQiyi Star Diamond membership (or membership level v7) for 448 yuan. 1 chance to draw votes.
According to reports, the "Lotus Tower" concert achieved 230 hot searches on the entire Internet, and its concert and derivative sales have exceeded 25 million.
drives the linkage of offline activities through popular online dramas, strengthening the long-tail effect of dramas and variety shows. At the same time, it also finds another growth path for the long-form video platform.
02 Differentiation and Opportunities
It is not difficult to find that optimizing costs and focusing on high-quality products have been the main themes of almost all long-form video platforms in the past year. But looking back at the performance of Aiyouteng in 2023, the three companies show a relatively obvious trend of differentiation.
For example, in terms of financial performance, iQiyi’s net profit in the third quarter reached 475.9 million yuan. Although Tencent Video does not have specific data, according to Sun Zhonghuai, vice president of Tencent and CEO of Tencent Online Video, in the middle of the year, Tencent Video has achieved four consecutive quarters of profitability. Youku seems to be lagging behind. In the interim report for fiscal year 2024, Alibaba mentioned Damai.com and Alibaba Pictures, but did not mention Youku.
This also coincides with the performance of the three on the content side.
Judging from the content, iQiyi is obviously more popular. According to the "2023 Drama Webcast Performance and User Analysis" report released by Yunhe Data, among the top 20 new drama series that will be effectively played for 30 days in 2023, iQiyi has 9 exclusives and Tencent has 6. , Youku has 3.
Judging from the quality of the series itself, Tencent Video’s quality control is even better. Among the top 10 Chinese dramas rated on Douban in 2023 (16 in total), Tencent Video won seven seats on the list, among which "The Long Season" and "The Three-Body Problem" were firmly ranked first and second.
Youku seems to be less than the top but more than the bottom. Relying on dramas such as "Long Moon Ember", "Song of Youth", "Secretly Can't Hide" and other dramas, Youku also won five seats in the top 30 effective drama broadcast list of Yunhe Data in 2023. The ratings of "The Young Man Who Calls the Dragon", "News Queen", and "Under the Stranger" on Douban also exceed eight points. But on the one hand, Youku has always been inferior to iQiyi and Tencent Video in terms of popularity and quality; on the other hand, Youku is also not as good as the first two in terms of monthly activity data. Analysys Qianfan data shows that from 2020 to 2022, Youku MAU (monthly active users) were 326 million, 239 million, and 163 million respectively, declining year by year.
However, for long-form video websites, hot products are both honey and arsenic. On the one hand, popular products mean stable subscriber income, but on the other hand, popular products are often counter-intuitive and anti-standard. Gong Yu, the founder and CEO of
iQiyi, said in an interview that iQiyi as a whole now votes together to decide whether the project is passed. The core value of this mechanism is to reduce the probability of failed projects. However, popular content is not determined by mechanism and business intelligence, but by the wisdom of a few elites.
Therefore, in addition to popular products, long-form video platforms are also exploring new opportunities, such as micro-short dramas. Compared with medium- and long-length dramas, short dramas have lower production costs and are more vertical and targeted in content. For example, this year's popular micro-short drama "Invitation" not only involves suspense, revenge and other elements, but also introduces eye-catching settings such as childhood sweethearts. The filming period of "Invitation" was 23 days, and the production cost was only about 5 million yuan, but Tencent's current share of the project alone exceeds 20 million yuan.
Judging from the performance in each field, Tencent Video and Youku have made greater progress.
In 2020, Tencent Video launched the vertical screen serial micro-drama brand "Mars Short Drama" and the "Mars Project" to support the development of high-quality micro-short dramas. A year later, Tencent Video officially launched the industry’s first micro-short drama brand “Shifen Theater”.In the first three quarters of this year, new micro-short dramas on Tencent Video accounted for half of the mainstream long-form video platforms.
Youku started earlier. In 2019, Youku opened the "Little Theater" channel, and then launched the "Fuyao Plan" in 2021. This year's films including "Love for Three Lives" and "Contract Bride" have achieved good results.
Compared with the previous two, iQiyi is much more cautious. Gong Yu said that iQiyi currently only uses an advertising model as a broadcast platform and does not produce micro-short dramas. Because the aesthetics of this business are very different from the aesthetics, talent types, and business ecology of iQiyi’s current main film and television business.
In addition, going overseas is also a major theme for the entire content industry in 2023. Data shows that in 2023, Chinese dramas have ranked first in Thailand's online broadcast market share, surpassing Korean dramas. However, both censorship differences and aesthetic differences are restricting Chinese dramas from going global.
Once upon a time, for a parent video platform, profitability and growth were almost a pair of paradoxes: scale required burning money, and under this condition, profitability was almost impossible. As the cold winter approaches, each company has shrunk its front lines and focused on high-quality products. On the contrary, it has achieved good results.
Reference source:
1, Node Finance: In 2024, how will long videos soar to produce more flowers? 2. Zinc Finance: iQiyi and Tencent Video are profitable, only Youku has not caught up. 3. Qiupai: Review of the 2023 long video platform drama series, has Aiyou Tengmang finished playing the "good cards"?
