As one of the most popular entertainment products, changes in drama series have always been a trickle rather than a torrent. Only by extending the time dimension can we clearly feel that the drama industry has undergone tremendous changes.
In the past few years, we have witnessed many changes, some of which have become the norm this year, while others are still in the development stage:
In 2020, female themes began to emerge, and "Thirty Only" made female group portrait dramas and movies popular. "Hot Search Drama"; short plays have just emerged, and "The Silent Truth" and "The Hidden Corner" of "Mist Theater" have brought new forms to the drama series.
2021 is the year when the main theme is close to the audience. "The Awakening Age" and "Mountains and Seas" are two popular hits that will "merge" Taiwan and Internet audiences; short videos are coming, and the competition between long and short videos has entered a fierce stage, but TV stations are gradually As time goes by, Taiwan and network dramas gradually have a clearer distinction.
In 2022, the main theme has transformed into period dramas such as "The World", and costume dramas have also returned to the center of public significance with "Menghualu" and "Canglan Jue". At the same time, the "cost reduction and efficiency improvement" of long videos has deepened, and their control over the market has not decreased but increased. The platform has begun to become an industry, and the trend of drama companies becoming "platform content providers" has become increasingly obvious. The return of advanced on-demand broadcasts in the form of on-demand screenings is also constantly testing the commercial operation level of the platform.
The time has come to 2023. On the one hand, the industry structure does not seem to have changed much. On the other hand, the order within Aiyouten is rearranged every month; fewer episodes and theater models have become the norm; the overall content of the Taiwan network is more distinct. However, there are still popular hits like "Kurst" that break the barriers between Taiwan and Internet; old genres are iterating, new genres are also emerging, and female themes are entering a new stage through repeated debugging.
The cumulative effective broadcast volume of the drama series on the entire network, which has continued to decline by more than 16% for three years, has stabilized below 5% since the year before last. After the bubbles are cleared, if 2022 is the year for the industry to "seek stability," then the industry keyword in 2023 may be "seeking change while maintaining stability."
What changes have occurred in the drama industry that has passed an inflection point and entered a new steady state? What other exciting trends will emerge?
Platform temperament development
Tencent Video, with " Flowers " that has been polished for many years, will make its debut in 2024 under the aura of Wong Kar-wai, continuing its achievements in 2023.
The past year has undoubtedly been a fruitful year for Tencent Video. First there was the science fiction drama " Three Body ", and then there was Douban 9.4's " The Long Season ", which continued "innovation" to the end. The track that I was good at in the past is still stable, and " Sauvignon Blanc " successfully took the lead in the summer season.
However, last year’s “King of Dramas” still went to iQiyi. “Kurst” led the broadcast list with 10.79 billion effective views of the feature film, which was nearly three times that of the second-placed “Sauvignon Blanc”, sweeping all major lists. single; Youku has squeezed into the top 3 broadcasts with "Long Moon Ember", and can still maintain its position as the "Big Three of long-form videos".
The era of free-for-all to establish order has become history. Nowadays, for long video platforms, in addition to the ever-changing membership growth goal, how to make more viewers stay for a long time and increase the ARPU value is equally important. The proportion of independent dramas has continued to increase for many years, and services are provided in the form of establishing a content moat, based on the most basic logical IQ.
The settling of "platform temperament" is not only an inevitable trend when content accumulates to a certain stage, but also reflects the strategic direction of each platform.
iQiyi has established its temperament with Mist Theater in 2020. The most prominent label in the past year has been "costume drama". Yunhe data shows that last year, there were a total of 5 solo dramas in the top 20 of iQiyi's effective broadcast list. Except for "Hurry", the other four are all costume dramas, namely "Changfengdu", "Lotus Tower" and "Yi Nian Guan Shan". ” and “ Peaceful as a Dream ”.
Youku, which has a less popular reputation as a "big drama", has chosen more vertical areas to develop, such as Hong Kong theater represented by "News Queen", "Can't Hide Secretly" and "When I Fly to You" Waiting for the youth drama, and the comic drama "Under the Stranger". The suspense gene that has continued since "White Night" was still reflected last year. "Who is He" ranked among the top 20 of the year with 1.26 billion feature film views.
Mango TV has been somewhat dormant in the past year. Among the top 20 broadcasts this year, only "The Return" is from Mango TV, and it is co-produced with iQiyi. No independent dramas are on the list. On the one hand, "My Earthly Fireworks" and "Camp with Love" broke the trend but consumed word-of-mouth. On the other hand, they also contributed to several 8-point dramas such as "Go Where the Wind Is" and "Pretend to Revelation". Judging from the several major costume dramas produced by the China Merchants Association, next year Mango also wants to focus on drama series to make up for the stereotype of a "strong variety show platform".
A special example is Bilibili. Unlike other long video platforms, Bilibili has its own temperament. As a "latecomer" in the drama field, Bilibili's content strategy is gradually moving closer to its own original temperament. "Ancient Acacia", which was born this year, is very innovative in form, just like "Sanyue Has a New Job" which was innovative in content last year. Although it is difficult to gain popularity, it has a stable reputation and can be integrated into the platform ecosystem.
Of course, in the fields of urban, ancient costume and other themes with a large audience base, several platforms are still sitting at the same table. Costume dramas are still the main force in the drama genre, accounting for 20.2% of new dramas released throughout the year, 11 of which entered the top 20 on the playlist.
In addition to seizing the market, it is equally important for the platform to choose a track that can give it an advantage.
The drama company reshuffled
, which had been silent for a whole year and only contributed the noon sunshine of "Ode to Joy 4", and joined the melee at the beginning of the year with "Dajiang Dahe 3"; the old drama company Ciwen Media had no one for the entire last year. Works have been broadcast;
The platform is developing its own temperament, while the face of the drama company is becoming increasingly blurred.
In the past, several leading film and television companies each had their own advantages, such as Noon Sunshine, which was once known as the "Light of Chinese Drama" and was good at serious themes, Tangren Film and Television, which made a lot of waves with its costume dramas, and Ning Meng Pictures, a reality-themed drama series, and so on.
Now, the industry reshuffle is a foregone conclusion. Among the larger drama companies, Huace and Ningmeng performed well last year. The former has urban dramas with good data such as "Go Where the Wind Is" and "All the Way to the Sun", while the latter has good reputation and popularity. There are masterpieces in both aspects. "Asking the Heart" and "Just Love" have Douban scores of 8 points, and "One Thought Guanshan" ranks eighth on the annual broadcast list.
And when traditional drama companies such as Noonday, Ciwen, and Yaoke are tired, rising stars are also beginning to appear frequently. Among the dramas aired last year, the "new generation" worthy of attention are Bailan Film and Television behind "Hurry", Xinglian Film and Television behind "Sauvignon Blanc" and Linghe Culture behind "The Three-Body Problem".
In addition, there were three more special entrants last year. One was Wow Haw Wow, which had initially completed its transformation. Last year, it broadcast two dramas "Secretly Can't Hide" and "The Young Man Who Sings the Dragon". The second one was from Nan. Quantum Entertainment, which was renamed from Pai Pan Entertainment, and its new label Sase Culture, whose representative works are "Long Moon Ember", the third one is the most popular culture behind "Yun Zhi Yu", and "Big Dream" "Return" and "Painted Skin" are several upcoming works.
Just like there is a "rookie wall" in the sports field, some popular drama production companies have obviously hit the wall. In 2022, it entered the public eye with the star gravity of "Canglan Jue". In 2023, "Seven Occasions of Good Luck" and "I Want to Go Against the Wind" all performed poorly; Xinguang Pictures, the production company of "The Star" also performed mediocrely.
The performance of new companies still needs to be observed, but behind the initial changes in the industry structure, the relationship between platforms and drama companies has already unknowingly changed.The long-form video platform with a huge audience has become the helmsman of the industry, controlling all directions including content.
While many newcomers are entering the venue, the new seats have not yet been settled. But at present, it seems that drama companies may no longer have the right to leave the platform and tell stories only for themselves.
Moving forward with inertia
1 month is not over yet, Fairy Sword IP has already contributed two dramas to the market, "Fairy Sword 4" and "Pray for the Present" adapted from "Fairy Sword 6". At present, it seems that the reputation has collapsed.
Content inertia still exists, the most prominent of which is the costume drama mentioned above. Although the hit formula of "big IP + traffic" seems to be a thing of the past, the data does not lie. Yunhe data shows that among the top ten dramas with effective broadcast rates last year, a full 8 were costume dramas, including "Sauvignon Blanc" adapted from Tong Hua's original work of the same name, and "Black Moonlight" adapted from the Jinjiang online article "Chang Yue Jing Ming" by Nawenbe Script", "Chang Feng Du" adapted from Mo Shubai's novel of the same name, etc.
As an important source of drama content, the types of IPs have gradually become richer. From the past, they gathered together to write romance web articles, to extending their tentacles to more fields. Among them, it is worth mentioning the serious literary adaptations. Last year there were "Echoes" and "The Road of Life", and at the beginning of the new year, "Flowers" took the lead. However, perhaps due to the difficulty of development, looking through the film lists of various platforms, there are still many dramas adapted from serious literature but few broadcasts. The sources of
ip are also becoming increasingly abundant, mainly to supplement the real-life content missing from the original channels. Zhihu Vice President Fan Junmei once told Dumu that Zhihu has recently sold the copyrights of more than 30 original stories, nearly half of which are realistic themes.
Douban Reading has sent two works to Tencent Video and Mango TV this year. They are "Good Things Come in Twos", which has ranked among the top 20 views of the year, and "The Pretender Revelation", which has a Douban score of more than 8 points. The latter The original author Liu Cuihu also has an adapted work "Half-Mature Men and Women" to be broadcast; the copyright of "The Three Brigades" to be broadcast at the end of the year is from the non-fiction writing platform NetEase Renjian.
In addition to the huge influence IP brings to the drama market, the inertia of female themes also continues, but it seems to be weakening year by year. In the past few years, female dramas have experienced several changes in popular labels, from female group dramas to dual heroine dramas, from sister-dog love to "double strong", every year there are popular works to carry the banner. Last year, it was slightly on the decline, with dramas such as "A Lady's Dignity" and "Her City" performing mediocrely.
However, the female consciousness that occurred simultaneously with the public opinion field and was implanted in the drama has survived. "My World's Fireworks" was criticized by the public opinion field because the heroine was too romantic, and the "All the Way to the Sun" " "Falling in Love at the New Year" triggered another discussion about independent women, and the "half heroine" model of "One Thought Guanshan" also caused dissatisfaction among the audience. In addition to the content of
, there are also new things born based on inertia in the form of dramas this year, such as the finale screening ceremony that started in the summer of 2022 and continues to this day. New successful samples have been found in "Lotus House", and " The new gameplay of "drama and variety linkage" is a variety show derived from the series contributed by "Ning'an Like a Dream".
For the drama market, 2024 will still be a year to fight against inertia and find new directions.
Looking forward to changes in theater
Tencent Video’s x theater will be the most popular theater in 2023. The first drama "The Long Season" was selected as the first word-of-mouth drama of the year with a Douban score of 9.4. The subsequent broadcasts of "Happy Face" and "Under the Bustling City" also stabilized their reputation and gave X Theater a label. Premium labels.
However, x theater seems to have had a bad start to the year. This year's first film "Black Earth Silence" scored 7.4 on Douban, which has dropped to 6.8 as of press time - this is not to criticize this "disappearance" after the highlight, but just to confirm it again. Now, the most important point in the operation of "theater" is still the subjective performance of human resources, rather than the so-called "all high scores". Content products are not standard products, and the goal is to score, but some are not prioritized.
The theater model was officially proposed in the era of online broadcasting. It can be traced back to the "Love Youth Theater" and "Love Suspense Theater" launched by iQiyi in 2018. However, what really attracted attention inside and outside the industry was the incubation of "The Hidden Corner" "The Theater of Fog".
Mist Theater also broadcast four dramas last year, namely "Moses on the Plains", "Echoes", "13 Years of Ashes" and "The Three Brigades". The good news is that except for "Echo", all the ratings exceeded 7 points, and "13 Years of Ashes" even squeezed into the 8-point series. However, the temperament and discussion level of "Mist Theater" seems to be far less than that of 2020.
At present, several major platforms have formed a stable theater matrix. iQiyi has Misty Theater, Love Theater and Xiaodou Theater, Youku has five major theaters: Pamper, Suspense, Family Fun, City and Hong Kong Theater, Mango TV has Monsoon Theater, Tencent Video Last year, it launched the x theater and the "bench unit" and "firefly unit" which are very similar to the theater model.
The birth logic of these theaters is slightly different. Among them, the more mainstream ones are still Mist Theater, which integrates dramas of the same type for scheduling and accurately captures the target audience. X Theater and Monsoon Theater are relatively similar in terms of content, with different drama styles. However, the underlying logic of the former is the exploration of Taiwan-network linkage, while the latter points to Tencent Video’s pursuit of high-quality content.
When Mist Theater was born in 2020, the theater model emerged along with the broadcast format of short plays. When short dramas first appeared, they attracted industry attention for a long time. The reason is not only that the number of episodes has become shorter, but also that compared to Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, where the drama industry is mature, seasonal short dramas can carry both innovation and typing. The expression is more adaptable to the audience’s viewing habits, and it also means innovation in the investment model.
However, the theater has been drifting on the domestic long-form video platform for many years, and it still has not been able to find a clear enough direction, such as the implementation of the season broadcast model that the industry has long awaited, and a strong enough brand effect that can also be heard at the audience level.
These points are not only to create a form of broadcasting, but also require the continuous sharing of content and a clearer development strategy, as well as the further maturity of the industrialization of drama series.
Long and short video join hands
In April last year, Tencent Video became the third long video platform to join hands with Douyin after iQiyi and Sohu. The cooperation announcement released by Douyin shows that the two parties will explore aspects such as joint promotion of long and short videos and secondary creation of short videos. The focus of the cooperation is undoubtedly the partial opening of Tencent Video’s copyright library to Douyin, which will be a strong support for second-generation content.
The fierce exchange of long and short videos a few years ago is still fresh in my mind. When short video was on the rise, it was also regarded as the biggest competitor to long content. Long video holds key film and television copyrights, and has continuously fired bullets at short video platforms over copyright issues. The bosses of Aiyouteng also attended industry conferences One after another spoke, pointing the finger at Dou Kuai B - this happened only two and a half years ago.
But now it seems that long and short videos have not continued to compete, and they are not competitors on the same track. Instead, they have been able to shake hands and make peace, choosing a path of win-win cooperation: long videos need the traffic of short videos, while short videos do not. Long video content is required.
The biggest impact of this combination of long and short videos is undoubtedly the ecology of drama marketing. The more social platforms there are, the more "voluminous" the drama promotion will be. The opening of copyrights will provide more outlets and ways to promote promotion. According to the 2023 summer drama report released by Douyin, the number of views of videos related to new dramas in the summer last year increased by 217% year-on-year. Among them, the most topical one was "Sauvignon Blanc", with 24.5 billion views on the main topic.
When it comes to linking artists for publicity, the short video platform has also brought new increments to the publicity market. For example, the dance challenge of the protagonist group in "Lotus Tower" has exceeded 10,000 hits, and the cumulative likes have exceeded 10 million. According to statistics, the total number of views of videos related to drama announcements released by artists during the summer season last year was nearly 3.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 15%.
In addition to the must-have Weibo and the rising Douyin, Xiaohongshu, which has begun to make efforts in entertainment content in the past two years, has also entered the horizon of drama promotion.At the beginning of the year, "Go Where the Wind Is" became popular on Xiaohongshu, earning it the name "Xiaohongshu Drama". The outfit of the "sister-in-law" in "Crazy" aroused widespread discussion on Xiaohongshu, and "Apocalypse of Pretending" "During the broadcast, many creative staff also joined Xiaohongshu to share their filming experiences.
The long- and short-form video handshake will inevitably bring about many new opportunities in the short term. As for how the content between the two will influence and penetrate each other, and what consequences it will bring, we still have to wait and see for a few more years.
Audience autonomy
The latest terminology in the drama industry in 2023 is "turning the table".
Although "My Human Fireworks" only has a score of 2.8 on Douban, it has contributed countless jokes to the public opinion field and also promoted the new top star Wei Daxun. The latter defeated the male protagonist Yang Yang and updated his Internet label from a comedian to a comedian. The ceiling of the domineering president.
Coincidentally, "The Night Is Still Light" broke through "Meng Yanchen"'s dominance of the TV series' derivative super-script list, and also followed a similar path: the CPs of the second male lead Cheng Lei and the second female lead Lu Yuxiao in "Yun Zhi Yu", The limelight also overshadowed the male and female protagonists. Going further, there are Chen Duling, who became famous for his "beautiful" heroine in "The Moon", and Gao Ye, who became famous as the "sister-in-law" in "Crazy".
The supporting actors collectively "come to the table", which is just one of the manifestations of the audience's higher participation in the drama industry. The rise of the Internet has drawn viewers into the industry from just watching in front of the TV, providing a place where they can communicate with peers about plots and comment on the content of the series. New forms such as double-speed viewing, barrage, and second-generation content have emerged. , which makes the audience’s evaluation system more rich and three-dimensional.
But now, the level of participation has been upgraded, and the audience is fully demonstrating their autonomy. The creators have undoubtedly paid attention to this trend, and the audience is indispensable in almost every aspect.
Crazy "smoothing" projects like "Hard to Coax" are to test the audience's satisfaction; "Sauvignon Blanc" and "The Secret Fragrance" provide multiple male protagonists to satisfy audiences with different preferences. We have the "freedom to consume CP"; the Reuters photos leaked during the filming can warm up the target audience in advance; and the reason why "My World's Fireworks" overturned is because it went against the values commonly recognized by the public.
In essence, under the premise that long-form videos are more dependent on membership income, drama series are works and also products available for the audience to choose from. Then, it is natural and logical for the audience, as consumers, to have their needs taken care of.
However, what is placed in front of content producers is still the proposition of standing firm in the constant changes: countless past experiences tell us that creating more new things, rather than blindly catering to trends that cannot be grasped, is the most important thing. More important things.
