Source: Media Internal Reference (CMNC)
Relative to the competition of big dramas, hot docking, in 2021, the documentary market is remarkable, the TV screen has emerged "Forbidden City", "Why China", "Fireline Rescue", "Yuelu Academy", "Next Meal" and other works, and the network platform broadcast "Dunhuang: Born legend", "Life String Season 3", "Jianghu Restaurant Season 2" and so on occupy the heat.
In Douban, "Talk to Strangers Season 4", "Book Brief Reading China", "Get Rid of Poverty", "119 Please Answer", "Positive Wind and Anti-Corruption Are Around", "Little Boy", "Stick! "Teenagers" and "I Am Not a Stupid Child" have 8 works with high ratings of more than 9 points. Among them, "Talk to Strangers Season 4" topped the highest score with 9.4. In addition, 39 works such as "Under the Meal", "After 90", "I am in Dunhuang", "City True Heroes 2021", "Life String Season 3" and other 39 works have a Douban score of 8.
Obviously, in 2021, the documentary market will continue to show a high-pitched trend, not only emerging "Get rid of poverty", "Positive Wind and Anti-Corruption is Around", "Sweeping Away Organized Crime and Eliminating Evil - For the Sake of Guotai Min'an", "Approaching Daliangshan" and other masterpieces around the main theme, as well as "Li Bai", "Wang Yangming", "Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber" and other character documentaries. Food documentaries such as "Under the Meal", "Taste of the Master", "Jianghu Restaurant Season 2" and so on continue to occupy the audience's taste buds; cultural documentaries such as "Forbidden City", "Yuelu Academy", "I am in Dunhuang", "Dunhuang: Born and Legend" and other works are quite thick historical and humanistic storytelling.
The documentary sector has become a breakthrough point
As we enter 2022, major radio and television and online audiovisual platforms have opened up the documentary market. Under the background of the comprehensive management of culture and entertainment, among the 2022 content film lists released by major platforms, the humanistic documentary section has become a new breakthrough direction. From the perspective of themes, each platform involves such as food, society, history and culture and other user groups and strong monetization possibilities, and actively layout according to the existing IP, young trends and the characteristics of the times are equally important, and there are different degrees of innovation in the presentation form.
Oriental Satellite TV - "Heaven and Earth", "Human World", "Traceability" and "View of the Present" four chapters to create the influence of Haipai documentary.
In 2022, Oriental Satellite TV has basically scheduled the key content planning of weekly documentaries throughout the year. Most of these documentaries are planned and created by the Documentary Center of Shanghai Radio and Television Station, and are divided into four chapters: "Heaven and Earth", "Human World", "Traceability" and "Viewing the Present", focusing on Chinese practice, Chinese culture, Chinese aesthetics and Chinese wisdom from different perspectives. Among them, the documentaries "Fireline Rescue", "The Second Time of Life", "Leye China", "Li Xiangjia", etc. launched by the second chapter "Human World" inherit and carry forward the characteristics of Haipai documentaries, pay attention to the stories of ordinary people in the big era, and vividly tell their struggle stories of finding dreams, chasing dreams and realizing their dreams.
In addition, Oriental Satellite TV will also launch red documentaries such as "Ideals Shine on China (Season 3)" and "Red Academy", as well as documentaries on the journey of national rejuvenation such as "China in The Journey (Season 2)", "Home Between Mountains and Rivers", "Ideal City", "Shanghai Report from the New Era" and many other documentaries reflecting the Chinese people's journey toward national rejuvenation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Station B - 21 new documentaries of different types are coming.
As of September this year, Station B has launched more than 3,000 documentaries and produced 106 documentaries. In the past year, the cumulative number of viewers of the documentary of Station B has reached 130 million.
In November, at the press conference with the theme of "Record is Light", Station B released 21 new documentaries of different types. These documentaries are divided into three chapters according to the theme: "Human World", "Vientiane" and "Fireworks".
Among them, the "human world" chapter mainly focuses on the humanities, with history and art as the main themes. "But There Are Books 2" expands and upgrades on the basis of continuing the content and style of the first season, and is still committed to recording those lovely and respectable book editors, creators, and book lovers who are passionate about books, showing their rich and interesting spiritual world. "The Second Time of Life" is the second part of the "Life" trilogy, focusing on the relationship between people and destiny, telling how Chinese face and overcome the accidents in fate, showing how people learn to cherish in the case of contradictions, losses, regrets and so on.
The "Vientiane" chapter mainly focuses on nature, science fiction, the universe and other themes. "Future Odyssey" is led by Liu Cixin as the clue character and narrator, and together with the representatives of the world's most cutting-edge scientific research field, we explore how the plot, technology and hypotheses mentioned in Liu Cixin's science fiction works are happening all around us. "Decisive Wilderness 3" shows the survival skills of survival experts in the face of danger, and also reflects their explorer spirit of not fearing difficulties, fearing nature, and having the courage to deal with challenges.
Youku - "Wonderful Exploration", "Youth Essence" and "Oriental Beauty" three themes, shaping a new cultural label.
In 2022, in terms of humanistic programs, Youku will launch "Wonderful City Season 2" and "Shine! Chinese Civilization", "Don't Answer", "Want to Ask If You Dare" and other key works. Youku will focus on the three themes of "Wonderful Exploration", "Youth Essence" and "Oriental Beauty", shape a new cultural label, pay more attention to "new creators", and create a new generation of pan-documentary program IP. In addition, Youku will also launch a new hard-core documentary IP "Speed Rescue", as well as new documentary content such as "Chivalrous Journey" jointly launched with Zhen Zidan to convey oriental culture.
iQiyi - the five major sections of the three major theaters work together.
iQIYI divides the platform documentary works into three major theaters: human, love and ideal, involving five major sections of society, trend, nature, history and food, to meet the reading needs of users of all ages. Among them, iQIYI takes works such as "Chinese Doctor 2", "Foothold City", "Small Town Police", "My Study and Me" as head resources, and focuses on creating explosive content.
Tencent Video – Food documentaries continue one after another.
On December 19th, the food exploration documentary "Flavor of the World 3: Small Fresh Sea" will bring delicious food to the audience. Previously, the first two seasons of "Flavor of the World" have been well received, and the third season will continue to explore the journey and explore the taste hidden in the sea. In the list of documentaries released by Tencent Video in 2022, food documentaries such as "Flavor of the World 4" and "Supper 2" are listed. In addition, in the fields of history, nature, and occupational status, works such as "Phoenix", "Potala Palace" and "Children's Hospital" will be launched, and the "social watch" side of the documentary will be further highlighted.
postscript
Documentaries have felt the favor of more and more users with their unique cultural dissemination and authenticity, and have become a new blue ocean in the vertical content field. Major platforms have increased their investment and layout in the documentary market, which will also help promote the enrichment and quality of documentary content and inject new vitality into the market.
The rise of the documentary market in the past year is not only reflected in the quality of the content, but also reflected in the rich development of communication channels, creating a benign environment for the documentary content to be continuously optimized and more in line with the needs of the audience, and the development of new media has also brought greater communication opportunities and IP cultivation opportunities to documentaries.
At present, the comprehensive management of the cultural and entertainment field has put forward specific requirements for the content creation and production of major platforms, obviously, documentaries, as the main form of non-entertainment programs, are based on real materials, contain knowledge, have a large amount of information, and are more intuitive, vivid and interesting than ordinary textbooks and popular science articles.
In the context of a cultural power, works that reflect the stories of Chinese struggles, show the spiritual outlook of Chinese, and show the development and progress of the country with the appearance of Chinese will continue to occupy the mainstream position. In addition, in terms of cultural output, documentaries are an important medium for real-dimensional to show China to the world, and in terms of influence output, domestic documentaries still have a long way to go.