Some time ago we paid attention to the AI transformation of local anchor stations during the Spring Festival; on the other hand, many people also discovered that local satellite TV, which was once a major viewing center, has completely become a dumping ground for online dramas:
First of all, it is a phenomenal "drama" "King" and "Flowers", after first broadcasting on CCTV8, were immediately followed by 1.5 rounds of broadcasts on Jiangsu TV and Dragon TV. Then there are the online dramas "One Thought Guanshan" and " Long Season ", which have appeared on the small screens of Zhejiang Satellite TV and Jiangsu Satellite TV respectively. What’s more, “Welcome to Maile Village” was simultaneously broadcast on three satellite TV stations in Hunan, Dongfang and Jiangsu...
(2024 New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival TV ratings results)
These incidents undoubtedly remind everyone of one thing: In the drama industry, local satellite TVs increasingly need to change their content procurement policies and broadcast models based on the situation of video websites and CCTV.
Starting from 2018, Entertainment Capital will focus on Hunan Satellite TV, Dragon TV, Jiangsu Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV and Beijing Satellite TV, which are the five leading provincial satellite TVs with high influence and market share. At that time, satellite TV The purchase price is still 2 million to 3 million per episode per platform, but now the purchase price of satellite TV has dropped to six figures, less than one-fifth of the original price. After reading the 2023 ratings data of the prime-time dramas of the five major TV stations, it is not difficult to see the new changes in the five major TV stations:
1. The number of drama series with ratings exceeding 1% has increased, and the overall performance is stable.
According to our statistics, in 2023, there were 51 prime-time dramas on the five major TV stations with average ratings exceeding 1%, and 10 dramas with average ratings exceeding 2%. In 2022, there will be a total of 45 dramas with average ratings exceeding 1%, and a total of 6 dramas exceeding 2%. From a year-on-year perspective, the ratings performance of the 2023 drama series has improved significantly, and with the lowest ratings of 0.91%, the gap in ratings has also narrowed.
2. The total number of drama series broadcast has rebounded, and the proportion of solo dramas has declined.
In 2023, the five major TV stations will broadcast a total of 87 prime-time dramas, an increase from the total number of 83 dramas in 2022. In terms of the number of solo dramas, there will be a total of 28 solo dramas in 2023, accounting for approximately 32.2%; while there will be a total of 36 solo dramas in 2022, accounting for approximately 43.4%. The proportion of independent dramas continues to decline. Compared with video websites and CCTV, the role of satellite TV is still downplayed.
Looking further ahead, the total number of TV series broadcast by CCTV and local satellite TV in 2023 will be 893, a slight increase from 2022. However, when looking at the five major satellite TV stations alone, their competitiveness in broadcasting dramas and purchasing plans for major dramas are still slightly weak. Second-run dramas, multi-run dramas and simulcast models prevail. Illustrated by
ai, by Entertainment Capital Theory
’s control over the video platform has been further strengthened, and the interactive model of cooperation with satellite TV has gradually changed. For example, "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" landed on Beijing Satellite TV in 2023, launching online dramas on stars for the first time. A new model for prime time. "Ice Rain and Fire", which has been on the video platform for more than 400 days, has been on Jiangsu Satellite TV, which can also slightly increase the ratings. Another example is "Imperfect Victims", which was registered as an online drama and was broadcast on Beijing Satellite TV and Dragon TV, becoming the first online drama to be premiered simultaneously on satellite TV and platforms.
Looking at the performance of the five major TV stations in 2023, Hunan Satellite TV’s ratings and influence are still considerable. Compared with 2022, the ratings of Jiangsu Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV and Dragon TV have also shown varying degrees of improvement. Beijing Satellite TV performs well on public security themes, but its performance in terms of ratings is slightly inferior.
(Note: The TV series covered below are prime-time dramas. The data base is the csm metropolitan ratings. The statistical time is from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.)
Hunan Satellite TV: Ratings of multiple dramas The rate exceeded 2%, focusing on urban emotional themes
In terms of TV series production and promotion, Hunan Satellite TV has long occupied a leading position in the province and Taiwan. In 2023, Hunan Satellite TV will have six drama series with average ratings exceeding 2%. The female urban emotional drama "This is the First Time in My Life", which topped the list, was co-produced by Hunan Satellite TV. It was the opening drama of last year. Once it was aired, it dominated the Spring Festival season, with an average ratings of 2.443%.
's "Where the Wind Is", which was also a hit at the beginning of the year, ranked second with an average rating of 2.425% and a Douban score of 8.7. It was a phenomenal word-of-mouth drama last year. Producer Fang Huace has achieved "Taiwan and Internet access" in the field of TV dramas.The cooperation with Hunan Satellite TV is also very close. In addition to "Where the Wind Is Going", "Our Translator" produced by Huace was broadcast on Hunan Satellite TV in January this year.
In terms of subject matter and type, urban emotional dramas are still the main focus of Hunan Satellite TV. Among the drama series with ratings exceeding 2, "A Lady's Dignity" focuses on the plight of women's survival, while "The Way Back" and "Warm and Sweet" take love or marriage as their themes. And urban light comedies such as "Sweet You" have seen a slight decline in word-of-mouth and ratings.
Golden Eagle Solo Theater will broadcast a total of 15 dramas in 2023, of which 9 are solo dramas, accounting for 60%. The solo broadcast rate ranks among the best among major TV stations. 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Golden Eagle Solo Theater. Under the Sole Broadcast strategy, differentiated drama content and channel branding can still help it break out. In addition, the linkage between Golden Eagle Private Theater and Mango TV will be further deepened in 2023. Many major TV dramas will be broadcast exclusively on Mango TV. The trend of network integration and resource synergy will become more obvious.
Zhejiang Satellite TV: The ratings have slightly improved, and the drama selection policy needs to be adapted.
The ratings data of Zhejiang Satellite TV in 2023 still made a slight breakthrough on the basis of consolidating the results of the previous year: a total of two dramas had a ratings of over 2%, which was the same as the previous year. The ratings of the remaining 16 dramas throughout the year all exceeded 1%, which was a more significant improvement compared to the 72% rate of the previous year.
Zhejiang Satellite TV topped the ratings list for the female group drama "Dazzling You" starring Yin Tao, Liu Yihao, Wang Yuanke and others, with an average ratings of 2.096%. The topic of women's workplace life still has considerable market appeal. "I Heard You Like Me", which premiered on Star, ranked second with an average ratings of 2.054%. The play is adapted from a romance novel IP. With its exquisite two-line narrative structure, it became a dark horse hit in February last year.
In terms of overall drama purchase throughout the year, Blue Theater’s selections are obviously more diverse, ranging from costume themes, period dramas to popular urban emotional dramas. In terms of costume dramas, co-produced the sweet pet drama "Stars Fall into Sugar" with Jiangsu Satellite TV at the beginning of the year, with an average ratings of 1.932%; at the end of the year, it launched "The Wind Rises in Xizhou" starring Gu Li Nazha, Xu Weizhou and others. , the ratings performance was mediocre, but the online buzz and response were acceptable. In terms of period dramas, "Dawn in the East" and "KunpengChangLang" ranked fifth and sixth in Zhejiang Satellite TV's ratings list. Among the five solo dramas, three are contemporary themes: the youth sports-themed "Tug of War" and "Swim Forward", as well as the urban romance drama "Miss Sweet and Mr. Cold", all of which show that Novel content orientation.
Jiangsu Satellite TV: The average ratings both exceeded 1, and there were innovations in the theme track.
Jiangsu Satellite TV’s evening prime time will have two dramas with ratings exceeding 2% in 2023, which is the same as last year; the average ratings of the remaining dramas all exceeded 1%. . Except for the revolutionary gift drama "Ask the Cangmang" and the contemporary urban drama "The Ordinary Road", Jiangsu Satellite TV's prime time dramas are all premieres on satellite TV. Among them, new dramas accounted for 66.67% of the number of prime time dramas throughout the year, a significant increase from 56.25% last year. Overall, while Jiangsu Satellite TV is deeply cultivating high-quality content, it also takes into account genre innovation.
"The Right Way to Open Life" directed by Lin Ke and starring Huang Bo, Mei Ting, and Zhu Zhu ranked first with a ratings of 2.296%. The drama vividly and profoundly reflects the living conditions and life dilemmas of modern people. It has shortened the distance with the audience with its realism background; even though it is in the same schedule as its strong rival "Hurry", it still wins the favor of most viewers. Another one with ratings exceeding 2% is the modern spy war drama "Infinite" starring Jin Dong, Wang Likun, Wang Zhiwen. The drama is on par with "Open", with a ratings of 2.277%. This drama is another spy drama that Jin Dong starred in after "The Pretender", and the high ratings are enough to witness the strong support of Jin Dong's mother fans and aunt fans, and this kind of audience is the TV audience. main group of people.
was followed by " three-body ", "Stars Fall into Sugar" and " Even if the Wind Rises ", achieving results of 1.99%, 1.94% and 1.83% respectively. Jiangsu Satellite TV has always been known for its modern dramas and period dramas.The new year's drama "Even if the Wind Rises" is an urban emotional drama starring Jin Dong, Song Jia, Tian Yu, and Yang Jue. The drama is a good start for Jiangsu Satellite TV. The Douban scores of "Three-Body Problem" and "Stars Candy" are as high as 8.7 and 7.2 respectively, which fully reflects their success in terms of word-of-mouth and ratings. It can be seen that Jiangsu Satellite TV's foray into contemporary science fiction and costume myth themes not only demonstrates its innovative spirit and vision in drama purchase, but also further proves the loyalty of Happy Theater audiences.
Oriental TV: Contemporary themes are popular, but ratings are inconsistent
Shanghai Oriental TV’s evening prime time drama will have only one drama with an average audience rating exceeding 2% in 2023, and 15 dramas exceeding 1%. Compared with 2022, when Dragon TV only accounted for half of the 1% drama series, this year's ratings performance has improved significantly.
In terms of subject matter type, based on the modernity and trendiness of Shanghai's urban culture, Dragon TV's Golden Theater has always taken a distinctive urban temperament and realistic concern as its content guidelines. Therefore, contemporary dramas are firmly at the top of the ratings list, while period dramas are at the top of the ratings list. lean back. The realism-themed drama "The Right Way to Open Life" and the period spy drama "Infernal Affairs" were both jointly broadcast by Jiangsu Satellite TV and Shanghai Dragon TV. However, "Infernal Affairs" ranked at the bottom of Dragon TV in ratings, with only 0.827%, while "Infinite" "The ratings performance of "Dongfang Satellite TV" topped the list at 2.308%, and it was also the only drama series on Dragon TV that exceeded 2% throughout the year. It can be seen that Dragon TV's audience tends to be more inclined towards contemporary themes, and period dramas such as "The Sea in the Dream" and "Plum Blossoms of Hearts" are ranked at the bottom of the ratings, which once again shows that satellite TV needs to be cautious when purchasing dramas.
The top ten dramas with the highest ratings are all contemporary themes, such as the urban emotional drama "Prosperity", the realism drama "The Wave", "He Came from the Fire", and the family ethics drama "Dragon City" and The emotional topic drama "Imperfect Victim" of the times, etc. However, the Douban ratings of most dramas are inversely proportional to their ratings. For example, the urban emotional drama "Love Around the Corner" starring Jiang Wenli and Ming Dao was completed as early as 2016. It was released after a backlog of 7 years, and its Douban score was only 2.8. The Douban scores of "Open", "Later" and "Prosperity", which ranked among the top five in ratings, did not exceed 5.
Beijing Satellite TV: Rating performance has encountered bottlenecks. Public security dramas and period dramas are mostly public security dramas and period dramas.
In 2022, Beijing Satellite TV will only have one drama series with a ratings that exceeds 2%; however, by 2023, there will be no drama series that has exceeded 2%, and it will only take the top spot in the ratings. A score of 1.842%. Among the 18 dramas throughout the year, a total of 15 dramas had an average ratings of more than 1%. Whether comparing the ranks of the five major TV stations horizontally or looking at the entire year, Beijing Satellite TV's ratings are still slightly declining.
The contemporary urban drama "Warm Spring Sun" with the highest ratings is very novel in its theme orientation. It takes the entertainment and entertainment industry ecology as its theme and stars Huang Zitao, Wu Gang and others. It presents popular celebrities and veterans both inside and outside the drama. The "play" between actors. Although the show is quite topical and "explosive", the overall popularity is not very satisfactory.
Compared with other satellite TV that focuses on urban emotional dramas, Beijing Satellite TV’s Quality Theater last year’s drama selection strategy was more inclined to dramas involving public security cases. The hit drama "Hurry" at the beginning of the year and the national security counter-espionage drama "Agent Mission" at the end of the year ", occupying the fifth and fourth positions respectively in the Beijing Satellite TV ratings list, slightly boosting the satellite TV ratings. In addition, "Undercover Police Girl", "Public Prosecution", "Opponent" and "Sentencing" all involve criminal investigation-related themes such as anti-narcotics, prosecution, and contemporary espionage.
On the other hand, period dramas are also a major feature of quality theaters. The drama series ", the Eve of ", which has the second highest ratings, belongs to the legendary genre, starring Ou Hao and Zhang Huiwen. During the summer, there was "The Heroic Days of the Iron Horse" about the life in the railway factory in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China; at the end of the year, the revolutionary historical drama "Kunpeng Strikes the Waves" was broadcast in conjunction with Zhejiang Satellite TV and Guangdong Satellite TV. However, compared with Zhejiang Satellite TV's average ratings of 1.842%, the performance of "Kunpeng Strikes the Waves" on Beijing Satellite TV was relatively sluggish.
Conclusion
After analyzing the drama ratings of the five major TV stations in 2023, we summarized the characteristics and trends of this year’s drama market:
1. Realistic themes are advancing rapidly, genres are blooming, and there are only a handful of dramas with good reputations.
Excluding back-up dramas, the five major TV stations broadcast a total of 87 dramas throughout the year, including 67 contemporary dramas, accounting for 71.26% of the total; 13 period dramas, accounting for 14.94% of the total; and costume dramas only accounted for 7, accounting for 8.04% of the total.
It can be seen from the subject types that dramas that are close to the people, describe current life, and convey realistic concerns have become the mainstream of TV dramas. Period dramas have successfully broken through the industry with their special sense of historical weight and artistic quality. There will be a spy war in 2023 The suspense dramas "Bo Bing" and "Infernal Affairs", and the major historical revolutionary drama "Ask the Cangman" have all received high ratings and won a good reputation; while costume themes are mostly broadcast online and are rarely broadcast simultaneously on satellite TV.
Excluding the mainstream urban emotional dramas, there are pastoral life healing drama "Where the Wind Is" that leads the audience to fade away from glitz and return to tranquility, there is also the anti-espionage drama "The Secret Service" set in the current background, and there are also contemporary insight topics The drama "Imperfect Victims" deeply analyzes social issues; industry dramas abandon the syrupy appearance that has been criticized many times, delve deeply into professional content in various professional fields, expand narrative space in medical, public security, firefighting, finance, jewelry and other industries, and show Produce colorful workplace group portraits; the success of the hard science fiction drama "The Three-Body Problem" injected a boost into the market and stimulated the creative enthusiasm of workers in the science fiction field.
Let’s look at the Douban score. The five major local satellite TV stations all have major dramas with Douban ratings exceeding 8, including "Hurry", "Three-Body Problem", "Where the Wind Is", "Ask the Cang Mang", "Secret Agent Mission" and "Hometown". Among them, more than 920,000 people gave "Kurst" a score of 8.5, more than 410,000 people gave "The Three-Body Problem" a score of 8.7, and more than 300,000 people gave "Where the Wind Is" an 8.7 score. It is worthy of being the most popular drama of the year. three.
However, only a few top dramas have supported both word-of-mouth and ratings. Most of the lower dramas have received a mediocre response, with ratings hovering around 5 to 7 points. Relatively speaking, the number of low-scoring dramas has increased compared with last year. For example, "Love at the Corner" and "My World of Fireworks" were given low scores of 2.8 by netizens due to clichéd plots, mismatched actors and backward concepts.
2. Provincial TV stations are generally passive. Under attack, deepening media coordination may be a way to break the situation.
In 2023, the number of independent broadcasts on provincial satellite TV stations will decrease, and most of them will be syndicated dramas or follow-up dramas. This trend is not new last year, but has become the norm in recent years. Generally speaking, provincial satellite TV has become more passive. Both the drama selection and procurement and production systems are under attack, and their competitiveness has weakened.
On the one hand, with the policy of "watching major dramas on the main channel" has become a foregone conclusion, CCTV has developed its own high-quality drama production system by virtue of its broadcasting volume and censorship speed. Then, in terms of broadcasting models and drama procurement, the gap between provincial satellite TV and CCTV is getting worse. Multiple rounds of follow-up broadcasts have also become a "effort-saving" way for various satellite TV stations to implement broadcasting strategies.
At the same time, major video platforms control the distribution of drama series, and platform-customized dramas and self-made dramas dominate the market, affecting the supply of provincial satellite TV dramas. Although local satellite TV stations have film and television production agencies under their jurisdiction, since their self-production capabilities cannot keep up with market demand, they can only purchase synchronized dramas from Taiwan and the network, or share the risks equally with other satellite TV stations. However, it cannot form a differentiated advantage, and its individual competitiveness is not outstanding.
Hunan Satellite TV Golden Eagle Private Theater has relied on its ability and confidence to maintain high ratings to create many popular solo dramas and continue to stabilize the core competitiveness of its own brand. Its prime-time exclusive drama series totaled 10 throughout the year, accounting for 62.5% of the total number of dramas broadcast.
But took a closer look at the remaining four major TV stations' exclusive broadcasts, and the number did not exceed half of the total. And in terms of top dramas, only "Go to Where the Wind Is" is a Hunan Satellite TV solo drama, and the rest are syndicated dramas or follow-up dramas. Phenomenal dramas such as "Kurst" and "Three-Body Problem" adopt the strategy of simultaneous broadcast between Taiwan and the Internet, but local satellite TV can only follow the broadcast in the 1.5 or second round.Although this can fill the satellite TV broadcast schedule, it cannot grab the ratings immediately and can only gain post-heating.
In the final analysis, the era of satellite TV has passed, and the dominant relationship between satellite TV and platforms has been completely overturned. In the absence of the disadvantage of 's lack of self-driving force, satellite TV urgently needs to follow up on online drama series and adjust its drama purchase and scheduling strategies based on the performance of the platform.
As mentioned above, during the Spring Festival in the past, "One Thought Off the Mountain" broadcast by Zhejiang Satellite TV and "The Long Season" broadcast by Jiangsu Satellite TV were registered as online dramas and were later selected as the "Online Audiovisual Premium Programs" of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. And was granted permission to go to the stars. During the Spring Festival, the two ranked high in ratings among the five major TV stations. Dragon TV also launched "In Blizzard Time" synchronized with Tencent Video Network, which uses a winter love story to match the holiday atmosphere.
The battlefield in the drama market is not in front of the television. Now, with the opening of the policy for online dramas to be released on stars, satellite TV is constantly connecting with streaming media, breaking the boundaries between stations and networks, and expanding the market competition space. Choosing the right big projects and betting on hit dramas can also boost the ratings of satellite TV and improve their personalized competitiveness.
