Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Xu Xiaoqian
Picture source: iQiyi
iQiyi wants to break into the micro-short drama track.
html On September 25, at the 2024 iQiyi ijoy Autumn Enjoyment Conference with the theme of "Heartward Upward", Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQiyi, stated that the evolution of long and short videos is bringing competition and cooperation to the market possibilities and new room for growth. At theconference, iQiyi announced the official launch of "Short Theater" and "Micro Theater". The content of micro short dramas in the theater is exclusive to iQiyi VIP members.
has low investment, short cycle and fast returns. The short drama market is already a hot track that has been verified by many traffic players. In 2024, the development of short dramas bid farewell to the barbaric growth period. The entry of leading video websites, professional screenwriters and production teams has raised the threshold for short drama production, and has also allowed short dramas to gradually embark on a high-quality route.
launches micro-short drama theater, membership is free
In the past ten years when major long-form videos have been fighting for copyright and user scale, iQiyi has stood out by relying on high-quality content and took the lead in launching a paid subscription membership model. Popular dramas such as " Son-in-law ", "Canglan Jue" and "Crazy" often set off social media and have a very high long-tail effect.
In the field of short dramas, iQiyi has also been involved in it for a long time.
In 2020, iQiyi launched "Mist Theater", which focuses on short series. The length of the series is mostly limited to 12 episodes, incorporating layers of reversal of the climax plot, " The Hidden Corner ", "Kidnapping Game", "Silent" "The Truth" and other high-scoring short dramas on Douban are all based on this.
At the same time, the short video platform that relies on the rapid rise of fragmented content has also begun to explore the direction of structured narrative drama content. Paid micro-short dramas have developed rapidly. In the past year, the market size has grown to 37.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 268%. .
From the perspective of growth rate and development prospects, short dramas are undoubtedly an outlet that major video websites cannot miss. According to iiMedia Consulting data, China’s micro-short drama market size will reach 37.39 billion in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%. It is expected that China’s micro-short drama market size will reach 100.68 billion in 2027, with huge market potential.
Among them, short dramas targeting the silver-haired family have become a new force that cannot be ignored. Dramas such as the middle-aged boss falling in love with me, the entanglement between the nanny and the wealthy family, etc. often set off social media.
In addition, in the context of the aging trend, the market for short dramas for the elderly still has great prospects. The "Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Civil Affairs in 2023" shows that as of the end of 2023, the country's elderly population aged 60 and over will be 296.97 million, accounting for 21.1% of the total population, of which 216.76 million will be aged 65 and over, accounting for 15.4% of the total population. %.
In order to adapt to this change, Gong Yu announced that iQiyi has officially launched “Short Theater” and “Micro Theater”. The micro-short plays in these two theaters are exclusive to iQiyi VIP members, and there is no need to pay additional a la carte. Gong Yu said that iQiyi short dramas do not mean short low-cost online dramas, and iQiyi micro dramas do not mean low-quality mini program micro short dramas.
is different from the micro-short drama business model on the market where more than 90% of the revenue is used for streaming. iQiyi has explored a more benign business model and distributes more than 70% of the revenue to content producers.
According to iQiyi's broadcast plan, the "Micro Theater" will launch two new works every week. The content type focuses on male and female videos and the silver-haired community, with 1-5 minutes of vertical screen content as the main content; the "Short Theater" plan will be launched every week A new work that covers ancient romance, contemporary novels, suspense and other genres. Each episode is 5-20 minutes long and mainly features horizontal screen content.
The key leap for video websites
Although the competitive landscape of long video platforms has basically been finalized, high-quality content has always been the core indicator pursued by major platforms. It can directly drive important data such as platform revenue, number of members, and user viewing. The popularity of the
short drama track represents the variables of competition and a new round of competition.
According to Yunhe Data's "2023 Annual Short Drama Report", in 2023, Tencent Video launched a total of 218 new short dramas, with a cumulative effective broadcast of 4.6 billion; Youku launched 159 new short dramas, with a cumulative effective broadcast of 1 billion; Mango TV launched 42 new short dramas , with a cumulative effective broadcast of 400 million; iQiyi released 16 new movies, with a cumulative effective broadcast of 500 million. Compared with other video websites, iQiyi still has a lot of room for growth in the number and investment of short dramas.
In addition to traditional video websites, traffic players such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Bilibili are also investing in the short drama track. "The Mother-in-Law Stuns the Audience at the Wedding", "The Group's Pampered Mom Can't Be Offended", and "Golden Pig and Jade Leaf" have become the ace contestants of Douyin short dramas, with views reaching hundreds of millions; previously, Kuaishou went online and was directed by director Chen Kun The first domestic aigc original fantasy micro-short drama "The Strange Mirror of Mountains and Seas: Breaking the Waves".
It is worth mentioning that the entry of professional players represented by iQiyi has significantly improved the production level of short dramas, and more diverse narrative perspectives and themes have emerged, attracting a wider user group .
However, the current situation faced by the short drama market is that the phenomenon of content homogeneity is still relatively common, and there is still no phenomenon-level IP that is as popular and popular as long-form video works.
Industry insiders who are engaged in short drama projects told Times Finance that although the production cycle of short dramas is not long, the requirements for scripts are very high. The cooperating screenwriter must have experience in at least three popular works to ensure that the finished product will not fall off the chain. "Subsequent short dramas will have higher and higher requirements for scripts and production teams."
With the launch of the micro-short drama theater, iQiyi's "global ecology" of content marketing will continue to upgrade, said Wu Gang, senior vice president of iQiyi It said that iQiyi will further unleash the commercial potential of the new ecology of "long + short" drama series.
"We need to study in a down-to-earth manner what kind of long video stories 800 million users need." Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of iQiyi, said that on the road to the integration of long and short videos, we will see that the flame of long videos is still raging combustion. He believes that good long-form video content: first, must stabilize the basic market in the face of the general trend; second, must gather new momentum; third, must persist in innovation and never stop.
