Every reporter: Bi Yuanyuan Song Meilu Every editor: Liang Xiao
As the curtain falls in April, the 2023 annual report card of China's film and television industry has been announced one by one. Twelve of the 20 listed film and television companies achieved profitability, and eight of them turned losses into profits, showing the gradual recovery of the industry. Among them, Wanda Film’s operating income and net profit increased significantly, becoming the industry leader.
"Daily Economic News" reporters noticed that the performance of TV drama companies is under pressure, and Huace Film and Television, the "big brother of TV dramas", will see year-on-year revenue and net profit declines in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. This also shows that the TV drama sector is entering a period of transformation. The rise of short dramas and the application of AI technology have become important directions for companies to explore new tracks.
In 2023, China's film and television industry has experienced a process of rising from the trough, and the rise of AI technology has added new variables to the development path of the entire industry.
The film industry has recovered, and Wanda Film has returned to its leading position
htmlApril has come to an end, and the 2023 annual reports of listed film and television companies have been released one after another.As of noon on April 30, choice data showed that a total of 20 listed film and television companies had released annual reports. Judging from the two indicators of operating income and net profit, the differentiation of film and television companies has further widened.
In 2023, 12 of the 20 listed film and television companies achieved profitability, and 8 of them turned losses into profits. Enlight Media (300251.sz, stock price 9.36 yuan, market value 27.459 billion yuan), China Film (600977.sh, stock price 11.9 yuan, market value 22.217 billion yuan), Shanghai Film (601595.sh, stock price 31.12 yuan, market value 13.948 billion yuan) The performance recovery will be more obvious.
Guangguang Media's net profit attributable to the parent company in 2023 will be 418 million yuan, and a loss of 713 million yuan in 2022; China Film's net profit attributable to its parent company in 2023 will be 263 million yuan, and a loss of 215 million yuan in 2022; Shanghai Film's net profit attributable to its parent company in 2023 will be 127 million yuan, and a loss of 328 million yuan in 2022.
Wanda Film (002739.sz, stock price 14.63 yuan, market value 31.884 billion yuan) is the performance "king" among listed film and television companies in 2023: operating income is 14.62 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50.8%; net profit attributable to the parent company is 912 million yuan , and the loss in 2022 will be 1.923 billion yuan.
Wanda Film stated that in 2023, high-quality films will drive growing demand for movie viewing, and audiences will return to theaters. The overall performance of the film market exceeded industry expectations. The national movie box office was 54.915 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 83.4%, and the number of moviegoers was 1.299 billion, a year-on-year increase of 83.4%. An increase of 82.5%, and indicators such as single-screen output and attendance rate have improved, but there is still a certain gap compared with 2019. With the strong help of the Spring Festival and summer festivals, the annual cumulative box office was once close to the same period in 2019. In particular, the summer festival’s box office of 20.62 billion yuan hit a new high in Chinese film history. Due to market supply and movie-watching habits, audiences still focus on watching movies during holidays, and the box office ratio during the period is still relatively high. However, the box office from March to April and September to November is relatively weak, and the phenomenon of uneven market hotness and coldness still exists.
In 2023, Wanda Film's domestic directly-operated theaters achieved a box office of 7.56 billion yuan (excluding service fees), recovering to 96.4% of 2019, 12.5 percentage points higher than the market; the number of moviegoers was 186 million, recovering to 92.7% of 2019, 17.5 percentage points higher than the market.
"Daily Economic News" reporters found that despite the obvious recovery in the film business, Wanda Film's film production, distribution and related business revenue decreased year-on-year, from 380 million yuan in 2022 to 334 million yuan in 2023; TV series production and distribution and related business income will increase from 152 million yuan in 2022 to 742 million yuan in 2023, a significant year-on-year increase of 388.51%.
The biggest change for Wanda Film in 2023 is undoubtedly the change of control. On December 12, 2023, Wanda Film’s indirect controlling shareholder Beijing Wanda Cultural Industry Group Co., Ltd. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Beijing Hengrun Enterprise Management Development Co., Ltd., Wanda Film’s actual controller Wang Jianlin and Shanghai Ruyi Investment Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter) Ruyi Investment) signed the "Equity Transfer Agreement Regarding Beijing Wanda Investment Co., Ltd." and planned to transfer its 51% equity holdings in Beijing Wanda Investment Co., Ltd. to Ruyi Investment. The transfer of control was completed on April 15, 2024. The actual controller of the company was changed to Ke Liming, and the new chairman was Chen Xi. It is understood that Chen Xi has participated in the investment and production of many popular films such as "Thailand", "Pancake Man", "Hot", "Keep You Safe" and "Hello, Li Huanying".
TV drama companies are looking for new tracks, focusing on short dramas and AI tracks
Looking back on 2022, the six profitable listed film and television companies are Jebsen Holdings (300182.sz, stock price 5.14 yuan, market value 13.692 billion yuan), Huace Film and Television (300133.sz, stock price 8.5 yuan, market value 16.159 billion yuan), Ciwen Media (002343.sz, stock price 8.3 yuan, market value 3.942 billion yuan), Tangde Film and Television (300426.sz, stock price 8.73 yuan, market value 3.534 billion yuan) , Baina Qiancheng (300291.sz, stock price 5.53 yuan, market value 5.209 billion yuan) and Huanrui Century (000892.sz, stock price 3 yuan, market value 2.943 billion yuan). It can be seen that in 2022, companies whose main business is TV dramas still have room for profit, while film companies will suffer overall losses.
However, in 2023, TV drama companies will face challenges. On April 25, Huace Film and Television, the "big brother in TV dramas", handed over two report cards. Revenue and net profit in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 both declined year-on-year.
In 2023, Huace Film and Television achieved operating income of 2.267 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.39%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was approximately 382 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.08%. In the first quarter of 2024, the company achieved operating income of 177 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 81.69%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 30.0138 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 79.58%.
Huace Film and Television stated that short dramas are rapidly emerging and have become another important segment after TV series and movies. The "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2023)" shows that among the user profiles of popular micro-short dramas in the first half of 2023, 64.8% of users are from Generation Z, and 73.04% of users are female users. With its short duration, high frequency, and fast pace, short dramas meet the audience's fragmented viewing needs and become a useful supplement to long drama IPs; emerging channels represented by mini programs have greatly reduced the direct access of content production companies The threshold of the end audience.
In 2024, Huace Film and Television plans to start producing high-quality short dramas such as "The Man Who Keeps Time" and "My Return Is Windy 2", and will increase capital investment in short dramas.
In addition, Huace Film and Television is also vigorously developing AIGC. The company stated that in 2023, the company's R&D personnel will increase by 21.21% compared with 2022, and its R&D investment will be 25.0932 million yuan, an increase of 70.84% compared with 2022. The increase in investment will mainly be used for the introduction of AI talents, equipment procurement and R&D investment in related artificial intelligence projects. . The company will also focus on the professional film and television workflow under "film and television + AI" to establish a practical AI application/tool matrix of Wensheng text, Wensen picture, Wensen video, and Wensen audio.
A reporter from "Daily Economic News" noticed that with the wave of AI coming, film and television companies are actively deploying AI business. Wang Changtian, chairman and general manager of
Enlight Media, said at an investor exchange meeting on April 24 that Enlight Media has tried almost all AI technology software related to film and television production on the market, especially in animation production. All aspects of animation production are integrated with AI, especially in the pre-production of animation, such as image design, scene design, shot scripts, etc., which are widely used. However, AI is still in the rapid iteration stage and is not perfect yet. Enlight Media expects that with the improvement of AI functions and effects, combined with specific film production, it hopes that AI can improve work efficiency by more than 30% in the future, and at the same time reduce production costs, especially the production costs of animated films. More than 20% reduction.
Wanda Film also disclosed in its annual report that since 2023, artificial intelligence technology (AI) has developed rapidly and gradually penetrated into various industries, and has also had a positive and far-reaching impact on the film and television culture industry. In the medium and long term, AI technology will help improve efficiency and reduce costs across the industry, release production capacity for high-quality works, and at the same time help deepen the value of IP. As AI develops towards multi-modality and is applied to multiple scenarios of content production, video technology will become more mature, and the efficiency of film and television production in the industry is expected to be greatly improved.
Wanda Movies said that recently, global video generation models and application products have been launched one after another, driving the gradual implementation of AI film and television. Film and television works such as the world's first full-length AI film "our t2 remake" and the domestic "Journey to the West" AI film and television animated short series have attracted great attention in the industry.It is expected that with the continuous development and iteration of technology, the implementation of AI applications is expected to speed up and reshape the production process of the film and television industry, further promote the expansion of creative ideas in film and television animation production, game development, advertising design and other businesses, and improve production and production efficiency. The massive output of upstream content assisted by AI will also have a positive impact on terminal theaters.
Daily Economic News
