Article | Entertainment Herald, Author | Wang Ye The drama market in the first half of 2024 is quite a bit like "a hundred schools of thought contending". Although it failed to reproduce the unique and coquettish performance of last year's "Horse", many high-quality dramas have e

text | Entertainment Herald, author | Wang Ye

2024The drama market in the first half of 2024 is quite a bit like "a hundred schools of thought contending". Although it failed to reproduce the unique and coquettish performance of last year's "Horse", many high-quality dramas have emerged one after another, with constant "little climaxes" along the way.

From the content point of view, the drama market shows a trend of intensive cultivation. There are frequent masterpieces in mainstream genres such as ancient costumes, eras, and cities, and dramas of various types show their talents. At the same time, major platforms have also actively invested resources and launched a series of high-quality drama series with both commercial value and artistic standards, jointly promoting the prosperity and development of the drama market.

This trend not only shows the steady development of the drama market by “reducing quantity and increasing quality”, but also indicates that the domestic drama market is moving towards a more diversified and refined future.

The trend of "reducing volume and increasing quality" is obvious, with 4 popular movies leading the market

Lighthouse data shows that a total of 149 dramas were effectively broadcast in the first half of 2024, a decrease of 12 dramas compared to 161 dramas in the same period last year, but the cumulative number of feature films played However, it bucked the trend and grew by 35.1%, with the average number of views increased by 97 million. The broadcast performance of star dramas on online platforms is also excellent, with a growth rate of 38.8%, and the linkage effect between Taiwan and the Internet is significant.

Among the top 10 most played TV series in the first half of 2024, "Qing Yu Nian Season 2", " and Feng Xing " and " Blossoms " are strongly leading the way, ranking in the top three. Among them, the cumulative views of the top 10 feature films have exceeded 1 billion, while the views of "Qing Yu Nian Season 2" and "Hong Kong Phoenix" have exceeded 2 billion, showing the high-quality competition in the drama market. In terms of

online dramas, " Mo Yuyunjian " relied on its outstanding performance to reach the top with the shortest broadcast time, and the cumulative number of feature film views exceeded 2.3 billion. Followed closely by "Xi Huazhi" and "Huajian Ling", these two works have also achieved impressive results of more than 1 billion views. It is worth mentioning that these three online dramas are all based on costume themes, which once again proves the popularity of costume dramas in the drama market.

data as of 2024.6.26 data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition Tabulation: Entertainment Herald

Comprehensive TV series and online dramas, it is not difficult to find the characteristics of frequent hits in the drama market in the first half of 2024. In particular, the four works "Flowers", "Walking with the Phoenix", "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2" and "Mo Yu Yun Jian", greatly promoted the popularity of the entire market with their strong performance during the broadcast.

Judging from the playback data, these four works have achieved a gap-like lead in the market share of full-length drama series on the entire network in a single day, with peaks between 25.81% and 35.44%, far exceeding other dramas in the same period. Among them, the single-day viewing volume of "Flowers", "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2" and "Mo Yu Yun Jian" have exceeded 100 million times, while the single-day viewing peak of "Walking with the Phoenix" has also exceeded 90 million times. This data is in sharp contrast to the highest single-day views of other dramas in the same period of 68 million times.

At this level, these four works can be said to be the well-deserved hit dramas in the first half of this year.

Data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition

deeply explores the "secrets of getting out of the circle" of these four works. The key to standing out among many dramas lies in two core elements.

First of all, these four works have achieved varying degrees of innovation and breakthroughs in content. "Flowers" relies on excellent story text and ingenious lens language to achieve the ultimate pursuit of artistic creation and aesthetics; "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2", on the basis of inheriting the core of the previous work, cleverly integrates realism and Absurd comedy; "Traveling with the Phoenix" combines the ancient costume fairy tales with the core of modern women, showing the life attitude of women in the workplace returning to nature; "Mo Yu Yun Jian" focuses on the growth and struggle of ancient women, triggering contemporary women's awareness of awakening think deeply. These innovative elements make these works more unique and attractive in content.

Secondly, these four works all use long-term thinking to develop dramas. " Flowers" took 6 years of preparation and 3 years of filming before it was finally presented to the audience; the script writing of "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2" took 3 years to ensure the rigor and completeness of the plot; "Traveling with the Phoenix" experienced The five-year script development and production cycle strives for perfection in every aspect; and "In the Clouds" started writing the first draft of the script at the end of 2021, showing the attention and investment of the production team. This model not only allows the work to achieve excellence in all aspects of script polishing, actor selection, filming and production, but also fully guarantees the high-quality output of the work.

In summary, the success of these four works is due to the innovation and breakthrough in content, as well as the long-term thinking of the drama development model, which has won the love and recognition of the broad audience.

The average playback performance has improved, and the trend of diversification has been highlighted

In the first half of last year, the TV series "Hurry Up" triggered a phenomenon-level nationwide viewing craze. Its feature film playback market share was as high as 7.74%, making it the leader in the drama market at that time. However, the drama market in the first half of this year showed a completely different scene. The most significant change in is the narrowing of the gap between top projects and the improvement of average playback performance.

Specifically, although the number of views of the top projects in the first half of this year failed to surpass "Hurricane", the overall performance was more balanced and stable. Judging from the data, the playback volume of this year's top five dramas has reached the level of last year's runner-up "Long Moon Ember" (2.85 billion), and the total playback volume has exceeded 10 billion, far exceeding last year's top work. This change not only shows the improvement of the overall broadcast performance of the drama market, but also symbolizes that the drama market is gradually getting rid of the situation of "one company dominates".

What is even more eye-catching is that among the top 5 dramas this year, dark horse dramas such as "Mo Yu Yun Jian" and "Xi Huazhi" are impressively listed. This further proves the rise of waist dramas, and the drama market is gradually moving towards a new pattern of letting a hundred flowers bloom and symbiotic diversity.

The reason is that the prosperity of the drama market in the first half of this year was mainly due to a number of high-quality and distinctive high-quality dramas.

In terms of realistic themes, , "The Great River of Time " successfully broke the curse of sequels. It not only continued the excitement of the previous work, but also achieved transcendence in storyline and character creation; "Looking South and North" deeply explores the theme of the times. , led the audience to witness the tremendous changes in people's lives; "Fireworks" vividly showed the transformation and growth of three generations of women with delicate emotional depictions and real character portrayals, touching the heartstrings of countless viewers; "'s long journey" "Season " has become a highly acclaimed masterpiece with its sophisticated production and excellent plot. "My Altay" is like a warm pastoral song, bringing the audience into a world full of beauty and hope. It makes people feel the tranquility and harmony of life...

These works are based on realism and incorporate their own unique artistic styles and textures. Douban scores are generally above 7 points, which fully demonstrates the trend of high-quality dramas in the drama market.

In terms of love themes, the drama market in the first half of the year also showed a diversified development trend. The monopoly of ancient puppet dramas has been broken. While ancient puppet-themed dramas such as "Xi Huazhi" and "Hua Jian Ling" continue to be loved by the audience, modern love dramas have also suddenly emerged, with many excellent works such as "Flowers" and "Yao Yao". "Long Time Love", " Cheng Huan Ji ", " During the Blizzard Time ", " The Story of Rose ", etc., have met the audience's needs for diverse love stories.

costume drama The market also performed strongly.The strong return of "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2" has consolidated the status of male-channel costume dramas, while the adaptation of classic IPs such as "The Case of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty" has brought costume suspense dramas back to the audience; the suspense drama market has been dominated by "White Night" and "Mist" Theater lead the way, continuing to bring exciting masterpieces to the audience; on the comedy track, the " Country Love " series continues to be popular, and Xiaodou Theater has also launched a number of high-quality dramas that have achieved both word-of-mouth and ratings.

These highly popular dramas have diverse themes and styles, meeting the personalized drama viewing needs of different audiences. In popular tracks such as costume dramas, urban dramas, and suspense dramas, excellent works with the potential to "break the circle" emerged in the first half of this year. These works not only attracted the attention of a large number of viewers, but also injected new vitality into the drama market and promoted the prosperity of the entire market.

Data source: Beacon Professional Edition

In addition to long-form dramas continuing to be loved by the audience, the drama market in the first half of this year has also seen an obvious change, that is, the proportion of short-episode high-quality dramas has increased significantly. Among them, dramas with 12 episodes or less accounted for more than 10%, which doubled compared to the same period last year. At the same time, the market share of dramas with 25-32 episodes also increased, increasing by 8.7 percentage points, while the overall share of dramas with 33 episodes and above decreased by 14.2%.

As a new favorite in the film and television industry in recent years, short-episode dramas have entered a stage of large-scale development. Their fast-paced and high-quality content features are increasingly loved by audiences. This content form not only has a movie-like quality, but also can develop the storyline in depth within a limited space, giving the audience a more compact and engaging drama viewing experience.

Take the highly acclaimed "Rebirth" and "My Altay" in the first half of this year as examples. The former cleverly tried multi-perspective narratives within 10 episodes, presenting the audience with a rich and complex story world; the latter The author retains the characteristics of the original prose collection, and weaves a warm and touching story in 8 episodes through delicate brushwork and soothing rhythm.

These two works to a certain extent heralded the future development direction of short series, that is, more delicate and texture-oriented creations, and launched the concept of "mini-series" in one fell swoop.

The three major platforms have good momentum, and Tencent Video has become the biggest winner

From the perspective of broadcasting, the drama market in the first half of this year has almost achieved a "seamless connection" for hit dramas.

From "Flowers" at the beginning of the year to "Traveling with the Phoenix" in March, to "Qing Yu Nian Season 2" in May and "Ink and Rainy Clouds" in June, these works not only demonstrate the commercial role of high-quality dramas The huge potential in value also highlights the significant enhancement of the video platform in developing and operating dramas.

Specifically in terms of data, in the first half of this year, the three major platforms Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent Video all submitted qualified report cards. Compared with last year, the number of its solo dramas and the number of feature films have increased, and its market share is almost the same, showing fierce competition.

Data source: Beacon Professional Edition

Among them, Tencent Video became the biggest winner in the drama market in the first half of the year with its precise strategy and diverse content layout. With the help of many hit dramas, it not only became the platform with the highest growth in the first half of the year, but also won widespread praise from the industry and audiences. Some time ago, the topic #tencent四continuously exploded and became a trending topic on Weibo, attracting more than 400 million views.

Specifically, "Flowers", "Walking with the Phoenix", "Celebrating More Than Years Season 2" and "Rose Story", which were huge hits in the first half of this year, are all produced by Tencent companies such as Penguin Films, China Literature, and Xinli TV. Especially "Celebrating Years Season 2", although its reputation is slightly lower than that of the first season, its single-day peak viewing volume is as high as 119 million, firmly ranking first in the drama viewing volume this year. In addition, Tencent Video has also made steady progress in regular tracks such as sweet pet dramas, launching popular works such as "In the Blizzard Time" and "The Story of Joy", both of which achieved good ratings.

data as of 2024.6.28 data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition Tabulation: Entertainment News

Compared with Tencent Video, Youku has shown a completely different path in content strategy. With its unique creativity, it has achieved clever breakthroughs in ancient puppets, suspense and other genres, showing the charm of "cool writing" like "Mo Yu Yun Jian".

In the first half of this year, Youku continued to upgrade its theater operations and content innovation, launching three unique theaters. "Love Theater" focuses on female power, attaches equal importance to originality and adaptation, and explores real-life issues; "White Night Theater" upgrades the suspense experience, and many works have been widely praised and sold well overseas; "Hong Kong Theater" revives Hong Kong arts and leads the market with its exclusive film library . While actively expanding the boundaries of content, Youku accurately grasps the aesthetics of young audiences and achieves change while maintaining consistency.

data as of 2024.6.28 data source: Lighthouse Professional Edition Tabulation: Entertainment Herald

iQiyi is taking a steady and steady route. Although there were not many hit dramas in the first half of the year, it spared no effort in cultivating high-quality dramas. In the first half of this year, in addition to insisting on exploring realistic themes for all people, iQiyi also launched the mini-series concept of "Mote Theater", which combines cultural tourism linkage with artistic expression, and is both artistic and commercial. In addition, "Xiaodou Theater" has also successfully launched a number of highly acclaimed comedies, injecting new vitality into the comedy market.

data as of 2024.6.28 data source: Beacon Professional Edition tabulation: Entertainment Herald

As for Mango TV, it was relatively quiet in the first half of this year. The drama with the best broadcast performance is "Xing Feng", which was broadcast in conjunction with Tencent Video. A solo work without leaving the circle. However, this is also a normal phenomenon in the drama market.

After all, the emergence of hit dramas is always difficult to predict, but every hit drama will affect the pattern of the entire industry.

Conclusion

Taken together, the H1 drama market in 2024 has delivered a satisfactory answer.

On the one hand, the market has shown an obvious trend of "reducing volume and increasing quality". The cumulative number of feature film broadcasts has increased instead of falling despite the decrease in the number of dramas. Four hit dramas have continued to play a leading role in the market; on the other hand, , the average market playback performance has improved, the trend of genre diversification has been highlighted, showing a development trend of a hundred flowers blooming. In terms of

platforms, the three major platforms, Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent Video, have good momentum, among which Tencent Video has the most outstanding performance. h2 has arrived, who can stand out in the fierce competition? The second half of the game is more exciting, let us wait and see.