Picture source @Visual China
Text | Mouyu
With the conclusion of "South to North", a new Central Eight ratings champion was born.
On the closing night, the peak ratings of "South to North" Kuyun reached 4.0335%, successfully breaking the ratings record of the 2023 popular drama "Crazy", which was produced by Bai Jingting , Jin Chen , Ding Yongdai starring in the realistic period drama, has become a well-deserved hit at the beginning of 2024.
iQiyi, one of the producers and the exclusive online broadcast platform, is undoubtedly the biggest winner, leading the online long-form video platform at the beginning of 2024.
In fact, iQiyi has created hit dramas during the Spring Festival for five consecutive years, from "iPartment 5", "Sister-in-law", " human world " to "Hurry", and this year's "Nan Lai Lai" "Northbound" has truly achieved the continuous output of high-quality content.
What is worthy of discussion in the industry is that from "South to North" extending to five consecutive hit dramas, we may be able to summarize a set of iQiyi's rules for making hits at the beginning of the year.
The Secret of the Popularity of "Nan Lai Bei Kui"
Objectively speaking, the "popularity" of "Nan Lai Bei Kui" is all-round.
Judging from the star ratings, even with iQiyi VIPs watching two episodes in advance, "South to North" can still achieve rising ratings, setting a new ratings record for the prime time of the Central Eighth Television.
Judging from the results of online broadcasts, "South and North" has become iQiyi's new "King of Investment", with 39 full episodes broadcast, and the total number of ads, total ad duration, and average ads per episode have all set new records for the platform .
It is obvious that whether it is broadcast on the station or online, the performance of "South to North" can indeed be better than that of the Spring Festival show.
Let’s break down the secret of the hit of “Southern and Northish”. In fact, it is inseparable from the two major characteristics of “ content + marketing ”:
First, use comedy techniques to deal with period dramas , and create a real and smoky atmosphere. Stories for audiences of all ages.
The story background of "South to North" is set in the 1970s and 1980s, and revolves around "China Railway + Frontline Police + Northeast Compound". The entire drama spans 40 years.
In fact, period dramas are not uncommon on the market, but a common problem with this type of drama is that it is mainly aimed at mature users and is not popular among young audiences. According to Detawen’s 2020 data, the highest willingness to watch period dramas is The strongest user age group is concentrated in 30-39 years old, which means that although period dramas have good star ratings, their online broadcast performance is not good.
For example, in 2023, the popular period drama "The Glory of Our Fathers", which was aired by Yangyi in 2023, had a peak single-episode ratings of 4.3%, but the average online broadcast volume was only 16.76 million, which was not even as good as the idol drama "The Glory of Our Fathers" that was ridiculed by the entire Internet. "Love is Camp", but this situation has been significantly improved in "South to North".
"South and North" differs from previous period dramas in that it integrates comedy into the vicissitudes of the era, and the style is lighter and warmer. Many comedy scenes are widely spread on streaming media platforms, dispelling the atmosphere of serious suffering. To a certain extent, has brought closer to young audiences, making up for the lack of popularity of dramas on the Internet in the past.
Secondly, in terms of publicity and marketing, we identified hot topics about men and women in society, and used Bai Jingting's "Going to Spring Mountain" incident to maximize the popularity of dramas.
The broadcast of "South and North" coincided with the fermentation of the starring Bai Jingting's "Going to Spring Mountain" incident. Weibo and Douyin continued to explode, and the entire Internet was hotly debated. Although the external public opinion environment is not good, it is indeed... The drama brought popularity, after all, black and red are also red.
As the "Shangchunshan" incident gradually subsided, the marketing focus of "South to North" has shifted to the hotly discussed topic of male and female emotions in society. , which has caused widespread discussion is mainly the emotional entanglement between Yao Yuling and Niu Dali. .
Yao Yuling is a complex and three-dimensional image. She is young, beautiful and loves beauty. She admires the male protagonist Wang Xin, but she quickly broke up with him after he was demoted. She is a typical egoist and looks down on the pursuer of Sosou. Niu Dali chose to break up after a short date.
A delicate and self-interested girl abandons an honest person and chooses a rich and powerful boss. This is topical enough in itself and can resonate with a large part of the audience. This kind of emotional topic is also easier to get out of the circle.
The ending of the two people also caused great controversy. The honest man Niu Dali became a big boss, took his young and beautiful wife shopping, and met the once fashionable and beautiful Yao Yuling, who was selling barbecue on the street with a disgraced face. Under the reversal of polarity, Some viewers felt happy, while others felt it was a bad idea to arrange for Yao Yuling's dismal ending.
Although there are certain shortcomings and shortcomings in the arrangement of this emotional line to a certain extent, I have to say that the showrunners are very good at understanding the emotions of the audience, and the topic of emotional opposition between men and women has sparked a lot of discussion.
iQiyi's method of producing hit movies
In fact, the success of "South to North" is not an exception. Counting back, this is the fifth movie produced by iQiyi to start the year and hit .
In 2020, the group comedy "iQiyi 5" produced and broadcast exclusively by iQiyi won the annual online broadcast title with an average episode viewing volume of 141 million;
In 2021, iQiyi's exclusively broadcast male channel drama "Love Apartment 5" "The Son-in-law" once again won the annual online broadcast title of the year with an average episode broadcast volume of 147 million;
In 2022, the period drama "In the World" set a new viewing record in the past five years, and the average online broadcast episode exceeded 100 million. As a production As one of the parties and the exclusive online broadcast platform, iQiyi stole the show;
In 2023, the anti-gang criminal investigation drama "Kangbia" hit a new high in ratings in the past nine years, with an average of 250 million online episodes, making it a well-deserved king of dramas. iQiyi is also one of the producers and the exclusive online broadcast platform;
In 2024, the 2024 crime-solving drama "South and North" once again replicated the success of the hit.
For five consecutive years, iQiyi’s new-year dramas have become annual hits, and the diversified content themes have also proven that the success of hit dramas is not accidental. We may also be able to summarize a set of rules for making hit dramas.
Looking at iQiyi’s five popular dramas at the beginning of the year, whether it is content production or publicity and marketing, they are mainly produced around the high topicality of and the strong emotional .
A very obvious phenomenon is that a hit drama must have a hot topic, and the topic that is most likely to become a hot spot is nothing more than the special emotional topic .
For example, the hit point of "The Son-in-Law" is that an ordinary man becomes rich and beautiful when he marries into his wife, and if he succeeds in starting a business, he will eventually gain both career and love. It is essentially a refreshing drama that satisfies the male audience; the hit point of "Human World" is the family relationship, which mainly revolves around It unfolds around the three brothers and sisters of the Zhou family with different personalities, reflecting the parent-child relationship of the older generation.
Whether it is marriage, parent-child relationship, or the brotherhood of the Gao family and the middle-aged love between the elder brother and sister-in-law in "Crazy Blast", or the strong woman Zhuge Dali in " Love Apartment ", they have essentially found something that can arouse a large-scale discussion topic, and use it to echo public sentiment, which brings us to the second key point - strong emotion.
Breaking dramas are sure to tap into the emotional resonance of the audience, create an emotional connection with the audience, and retain the audience during the busy Spring Festival.
For example, Zhou Bingkun and Zhou's father in "Human World" reflect the relationship between ordinary children and serious fathers. The most outstanding scene in the whole drama is the quarrel between father and son. Both the elder brother and sister are promising, but the younger brother is very Mediocrity, under the long-term suppression and accusations from his father, Zhou Bingkun finally broke out, "If you say something that is offensive, you will say it, and I will deduct it wherever it hurts."
This father-son line can make many viewers empathize. Children spend their entire lives seeking approval from their parents, but they are always imprisoned by excellence in the worldly sense such as good studies, high wages, and decent jobs, and cannot satisfy their parents.
The "brother-in-law" marries Bai Fumei and reaches the pinnacle of life, which satisfies the emotional needs of male audiences. The pyrotechnic content of "South to North" can bring a more realistic experience to the audience... The essence All of the above are able to provide with emotional value to viewers.
has proven through the stable output of hot hits of different themes that this style of play really works, and iQiyi’s new year hot hit production rules have taken shape.
Realism dominates iQiyi
In addition to the hit production method, another obvious feature of iQiyi’s hit dramas is that it is gradually moving closer to realist-quality dramas, which to a certain extent affects iQiyi dramas production direction.
iQiyi’s popular dramas in the past three years are basically realism fused with other themes. For example, "In the World" is "reality + era", "Crazy" is "reality + anti-blackness", and "South and North" is "Reality + era + police and criminals", realistic themes are indeed more likely to produce popular .
Objectively speaking, this situation occurs mainly because of changes in audience preferences. Stories about ordinary people that are closer to life and more realistic are increasingly able to arouse emotional resonance among audiences. At the same time, age-related dramas with realistic themes The barriers to viewing dramas in are gradually being broken down.
According to the "2021 Chinese TV Drama Development Report" released by CCTV, among the ten most popular domestic dramas among young audiences in 2021, reality-themed dramas account for six. Young audiences are gradually getting closer to realist dramas. For this reason, Such dramas have brought greater online buzz, and to a certain extent, they have also catalyzed the development of realistic themes in the drama market.
By the first quarter of 2022, with a total of 33 domestic TV series with 1,138 episodes released, the number of reality-themed drama series has reached 25 with 851 episodes, accounting for 75.76% of the total. Realism is gradually occupying the drama series market.
With the changes in the market, iQiyi’s drama production focus has also shifted to realistic-quality dramas. In the Radio and Television’s 2023 Chinese drama selection list, iQiyi has six dramas shortlisted, five of which are realistic. The subject matter, and half of the 2024 film list announced by iQiyi is a realistic drama.
There is no doubt that iQiyi is ahead of other video platforms in the field of realistic themes, , but to some extent it has also led to the stylization of content themes . Among the top 10 most popular iQiyi TV series in 2023, in addition to reality-themed dramas It’s a costume drama that continues to be popular.
In comparison, the content of Tencent and Youku's drama series is actually more diversified. They focus on emerging fields such as science fiction and comic adaptation, and the content ecological construction is more complete. Tencent's " three-body ", Youku's "The Stranger" The early adopter of "Part 2" also opened up a new situation in the drama market.
is of course a foolproof way to reverse film and television production with the aim of producing hit dramas, but we also look forward to seeing more new surprises brought by iQiyi, perhaps from the 2024 " Fox Fairy Matchmaker" " series and Liu Cixin's "Ball Lightning".
