Beijing time on April 15th, the final season of "Game of Thrones" was launched, and Tencent Video was also launched simultaneously. As a super IP that represents the highest level of industrialization of American dramas, "Game of Thrones" has achieved the ultimate in marketing and derivative industry chain development. Even if the episode ends this year, the show will still have great commercial value in all dimensions for a long time. The reporter's investigation found that the first batch of imported games issued version numbers this month, and Tencent's "Game of Thrones: Winter Is Coming" was approved, and the fan economy and IP vitality will continue in China. The reporter conducted interviews and investigations on the power of "Game of Thrones" in attracting money in China.
brings tens of billions of dollars in revenue to HBO
"Game of Thrones" is a medieval epic fantasy TV series produced and launched by the American HBO television network. The play is adapted from the fantasy novel "The American writer George R.R. Martin" A Song of Ice and Fire" series. As a super IP that represents the highest level of industrialization of American dramas, "Game of Thrones" has too many god-like labels-the most pirated American drama in the world, with more than 100 Emmy nominations and 38 awards setting a historical record , The eighth season preview has broken 81 million hits in 24 hours... Since its airing 8 years ago, "Game of Thrones" has brought huge commercial value to the producer HBO, with revenue exceeding tens of billions of dollars.
started in 2011 and was affected by "Game of Thrones". HBO's new subscriptions were strong in the past few years. Although it is difficult to determine how many users "Game of Thrones" has brought to HBO, from a global perspective, since the start of the show in 2011, HBO has had 142 million subscribers worldwide, surpassing Netflix. Such a growth rate is naturally inseparable from the credit of "Game of Thrones".
HBO has revealed that in 2015, "Game of Thrones" had 20.2 million viewers in the United States. The cost of subscribing to HBO TV’s cable service plus streaming media is approximately $14.99 per month, which means that in 2015, "Game of Thrones" brought HBO $303 million in revenue. By 2018, HBO's streaming media platform HBO NOW subscribers reached the 7 million mark. In the same year, HBO TV stations and streaming media platforms received a total of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, and operating income exceeded 2 billion U.S. dollars, becoming one of HBO's content moats against Netflix (American video content website). In addition to membership fees, HBO also earned a lot of box office by putting the last two episodes of the fourth season in theaters. The original novel of
has been fired to thousands of dollars.
is a fantasy epic drama with an overhead background. The derivatives of "Game of Thrones" are even more diverse. In addition to common figures, clothing, mobile phone cases, daily necessities, and medium-scale maps of the drama , Iron Throne, and the protagonist Xue Nuo’s swords can be purchased from genuine authorized goods, comics, games, stamps, and even beer, sneakers, etc. are the main ways to realize this IP. Upstream News·Chongqing Business Daily reporters logged into Taobao to search for "Game of Thrones" and found that the corresponding products include alcohol, clothing, makeup, toys, etc. Among them, the "Game of Thrones" whiskey jointly launched by Johnnie Walker and HBO has received Popular with netizens. The reporter found that in JD Johnnie Walker's self-operated flagship store, the bottle of whiskey priced at 269 yuan has more than 250,000 reviews. Tmall showed more than 600 transactions in April. According to this calculation, just a "Game of Thrones" whiskey, the Jingdong platform alone brought 67.25 million yuan in revenue.
With the popularity of American TV series, the original novel "A Song of Ice and Fire" from "Game of Thrones" also sells well. Upstream News·Chongqing Commercial Daily reporter learned from Chongqing Publishing House, the copyright owner of the simplified Chinese version of the book, that as of 2017, the book has sold more than 3.5 million copies. In recent years, sales of the book have continued to rise, and the specific data has not been counted. . Regarding the promotion of the sales of original novels by film and television dramas, Qu Chang, the translation of the novels of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, told the upstream news·Chongqing Commercial Daily reporter that before the U.S. drama was broadcast, the domestic sales of the book were bleak, and the warehouse was overstock Some of his old books are moldy. With the popularity of American TV dramas, people began to pay attention to the original work. Before the new version appeared on the market, volumes 1 to 4 were even fired up to 2,000 yuan.
Tencent becomes the biggest domestic winner z1The cooperation between z
"Game of Thrones" and Chinese companies is also quite successful, of which Tencent is undoubtedly the most profitable. It is reported that the TV series "Game of Thrones" has been played in China in the first seven seasons over the years, with a total domestic broadcast volume of 1.8 billion. There are also eight Baidu Tieba, with the highest number of followers exceeding one million. But its copyright does not cost the sky-high price people imagine. In 2014, Tencent Video and HBO reached a strategic cooperation to package and introduce 900 episodes of American dramas including "Game of Thrones", becoming HBO's exclusive authorized broadcasting platform on the domestic Internet. According to the "2014 Tencent Entertainment White Paper TV", the average domestic price per episode for American TV shows is US$30,000. The 60 episodes of the first six seasons of "Game of Thrones" cost US$1.8 million, which is equivalent to more than RMB 12 million. Compared to the drama, it is very cheap.
At the same time, the game "Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming", which is exclusively represented by Tencent, has recently received an imported game version number. On January 17 this year, "Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming" opened its first beta test. . Some insiders speculate that in order to create a gimmick for the game, its opening time may be synchronized with the episode.
On the 15th, a reporter from Upstream News·Chongqing Commercial Daily interviewed Tencent. There was no relevant response to the commercial development of "Game of Thrones". However, the reporter's investigation found that Tencent Video has been very vigorous for the final season of "Game of Thrones" that has just started. It not only recommends special topics on the homepage, but also provides a lot of traffic support in other programs.
Upstream News·Chongqing Commercial Daily reporter Zhang Yu