Jiemian News Reporter | Hu Yujing After "News Queen" became a hit drama, TVB is accelerating its embrace of the mainland market. On June 25, during the Shanghai TV Festival, Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "TVB") held the "Hello Hong Kong·Hello TVB"

Interface News Reporter | Hu Yujing

After "News Queen" became a hit drama, TVB is accelerating its embrace of the mainland market.

On the same day, TVB announced a total of "Forensic Pioneer 6", "Black Moonlight" and " 8 new dramas including "Behind the Tower" and "News Queen 2", as well as many variety shows in cooperation with the mainland. In addition, tvb signed the latest Hong Kong drama cooperation agreements with Youku and Tencent respectively, and announced that it will jointly launch the 2024 tvb wireless artist training class enrollment plan with Douyin. In terms of

variety shows, TVB has previously cooperated with Mango TV, Youku, etc. to launch variety shows such as "Endless Sound Hong Kong Music Season", " Infinite Beyond Class ", "Asia Super Star Cluster", etc., and exported Hong Kong singers, actors and artist training systems. This year TVB will continue to cooperate with Mango TV and Zhejiang Satellite TV to launch the third season of "Hong Kong Philharmonic Season 2" and "Infinite Transcendence Class". The former will meet the audience in the fourth quarter of this year.

In terms of the "News Queen 2" crew

TVB has the most in-depth cooperation with Youku. Youku laid out Hong Kong dramas in 2013 and launched the "Hong Kong Theater" brand in 2018. In 2022, Youku launched the slogan "New Hong Kong Drama" and launched "News Queen" last year. In March this year, Alibaba Entertainment launched the "Hong Kong Arts Revitalization Plan", planning to invest HK$5 billion in multiple fields to promote the development of Hong Kong's film and television industry.

Youku Vice President Xie Ying introduced on the spot that "Black Moonlight" created by the team behind "News Queen" has been completed in March, and "News Queen 2" will be launched in December. In addition, the two parties will also cooperate to launch "After the Tower" ", classic IP "Forensic Pioneer 6" and other Hong Kong dramas. Both parties will also work together to support young screenwriters, directors and actors in Hong Kong.

Xie Ying introduced that Youku’s Hong Kong dramas currently basically cover those born in the 50s, 60s and 00s. Especially after the broadcast of “News Queen”, female users and young users on the Youku site increased significantly, with users born after 2000 accounting for 15%.

Tencent Video is also increasing its cooperation with TVB and trying to expand the Hong Kong drama scheduling matrix. Wang Juan, vice president of Tencent Online Video, said that the two parties will further expand the number of cooperation in customized dramas. In addition to the previously jointly produced "Anti-Black Heroes", "Corporate Strongman", "The Cliff of Heroines" and "Criminal Investigation Files 12", both parties will It will also develop and produce new Hong Kong dramas such as "War of the Roses" and "Golden Martial Arts". These dramas will be shot in the mainland and are expected to be broadcast in 2025. At the same time, Tencent Video launched the "Hong Kong Drama Project", introducing more than 2,000 episodes of Hong Kong dramas from TVB.

Tencent Video will also deepen its cooperation with TVB at the distribution and media channel levels, and leverage TVB’s influence among overseas Chinese to promote the series to audiences in Guangdong and Hong Kong.

According to Wang Juan, " Blossoms " has premiered on Jade Channel, making it the first broadcast outside the mainland. "Jin Yong's Martial Arts World" is expected to be broadcast on TVB in the third quarter of this year. In addition, in terms of cooperation with the OTT streaming media platform, some of Tencent Video's dramas will also be available to Hong Kong audiences through MyTV Super.

In addition to Hong Kong drama production, artist training is also an advantage of TVB. The 2024 tvb wireless artist training class enrollment plan jointly launched by tvb and Douyin will be open to zero-threshold selection across the entire network.

tvb Yi Hua introduced that the training program will be produced by the tvb team and will present enrollment selection, training and competition in a full-stage live broadcast, covering a 150-day selection cycle, producing 130 live broadcasts, 10 variety shows, and 2,000 short videos. Eric Tsang Ren is the initiator, and TVB actors serve as class teachers and teachers. The winning members will star in short plays jointly produced by TVB and Douyin and created by the TVB film and television team.

The development of Hong Kong dramas and variety shows in collaboration with Tencent, Youku, Douyin, Mango TV and local satellite TV is only part of TVB’s business layout. In its industrial sector, the live broadcast e-commerce business for the mainland is gradually becoming a core TV platform and content production in addition to new sources of income.

Peng Mingye, President of Shanghai Jade Oriental Communication Co., Ltd., announced the relevant data of tvb Douyin live broadcast sales: tvb Douyin’s two accounts "tvb delicious selection" and "tvb Hong Kong style selection" have a total of 2 million fans, and sales in 2023 will exceed 100 million, with about 14 live broadcasts per week and a total live broadcast time of more than 100 hours. On Taobao, the TVB account has 1 million fans and sales of 400 million in 2023. The frequency of Taobao live broadcasts is 5 times a week, 10 hours each time.

Peng Mingye emphasized that TVB live broadcast e-commerce mainly serves consumers in the Greater Bay Area and Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Among Douyin users’ transaction volume, 72% comes from the Greater Bay Area and 10.2% comes from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. The transaction volume of these two places on Taobao is relatively small. The former is 32% and the latter is 29%.

In terms of overseas business, according to Chen Shuhong, general manager of Television Broadcasting (International) Co., Ltd., tvbi’s business currently covers about 200 countries and regions, and its business touches about 200 million overseas Chinese-speaking and non-Chinese-speaking audiences. Southeast Asia, which is culturally adjacent, is tvb’s largest overseas market. market, TVBI covers a population of 18 million in Taiwan, China and 34 million in Malaysia, and provides content services to 5.9 million viewers in Singapore and more than 10 million viewers in Vietnam.

tvb's 2023 financial report data shows that the company achieved revenue of 3.323 billion yuan last year, down 7% year-on-year. Among its five major business segments, the e-commerce business fell sharply by 44% year-on-year, replaced by mainland business, which became its second largest source of income. , second only to Hong Kong Television Broadcasting, which is the main business.

After "News Queen", TVB has accelerated its pace of integrating into the mainland market, exploring live broadcasts, larger-scale co-productions, and systematically exporting artist training capabilities. As for whether these content production capabilities can be transformed into cross-platform and cross-regional production Commercialization capabilities still need to wait for market testing.