2021 is destined to be a turning point in the network industry. From Taiwan comprehensive to network comprehensive, the power of capital drives the wheel of industry change slowly forward.
From a one-time sale of the right to play to obtain a lot of fees, to cooperate with video platforms to record program sharing shares, to accept video platforms commissioned to produce content to earn commissions, the profit margin of Netzong independent production company has been pressed again and again...
Coupled with the industry reshuffle brought about by the epidemic, small and medium-sized production companies have gradually disappeared from the industry due to the break of the capital chain, and even if they have survived, most of them are not so good-looking.
On November 12, Star Chinese, a production company, submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the prospectus, from 2018 to 2020, The revenue of Star Chinese fell from 1.739 billion yuan to 1.560 billion yuan, of which the revenue of the IP operation and licensing business of the variety show that contributed the most revenue shrank from 1.269 billion yuan to 1.090 billion yuan.
The contraction of the main business has turned Star Chinese from profit to loss, from a profit of 476 million yuan in 2018 to a loss of 28 million yuan in 2020, and a loss of 0.25 billion yuan in the first half of 2021.
It is difficult to break through the main business, and the transformation of the starry sky Chinese of movies and dramas is also difficult to hide its embarrassment under the encirclement and suppression of content production companies and online platforms. At this time, starry sky Chinese, which is listed, is not faced with the choice of upper and lower, but the survival problem of life or death.
Variety shows are hard to hold on to
"The Voice of China", "The Masked Singer Will Guess", "This! It is the street dance" and other explosive variety shows that really make the starry sky Chinese fire, but the inflated price brought about by the heat speculation is in the front, the program market is cold after, the company's accounts receivable cycle becomes longer, the gross profit margin is gradually lower, and other problems such as profit to loss are followed, and the former housekeeping skills are difficult to support a piece of the sky.
According to the prospectus, Star China's revenue from 2018 to 2020 was 1.739 billion yuan, 1.807 billion yuan and 1.560 billion yuan respectively, while the revenue in the first half of 2021 was only 155 million yuan, down 72.4% from 412 million yuan in the same period last year. Correspondingly, in 2018 and 2019, the profit was 476 million yuan and 380 million yuan respectively, and in 2020, it turned from profit to loss, with a loss of 0.28 billion yuan.
In addition to the decline in revenue and profit, gross margin and accounts receivable are not optimistic. According to the prospectus, the gross profit margin of Star Chinese decreased from 47.5% in 2018 to 37.7% in 2020; while the amount of receivables remained high at the level of more than 1 billion yuan, the receivables turnover cycle was extended from 197 days in 2018 to 272 days in 2020, and the corresponding receivables impairment provision increased from 145 million yuan in 2018 to 157 million yuan, reaching 154 million yuan in the first half of 2021.
Some investors studied the prospectus of Starry Sky Chinese, horizontal and vertical can not sleep: revenue narrowed, the company from profit to loss, gross profit margin reduction and accounts receivable turnover cycle became longer, these indicators in the brain spared and circled, and finally came to a conclusion, Starry Sky Chinese is about to live.
"Starry Sky Chinese out of the circle of variety shows, including "The Voice of China", the exclusive broadcast rights sold to iQiyi, the amount of up to more than one billion, in the industry a ride in the dust. However, the subsequent changes in the industry environment, the company's IP copyright into disputes and other reasons, resulting in member conversion and advertising and other reasons can not be recovered. Liu Cheng (pseudonym), an executive of the online drama company, revealed to "A Little Finance".
The growth of Starry Sky Chinese has fallen into a bottleneck, and the reasons can be found from the variety-related business.
The main business of Star Chinese is IP operation pre-licensing, specifically divided into variety show IP operation and licensing, music IP operation and licensing, film and drama IP operation and licensing to other IP-related businesses, of which variety show IP operation and licensing business contributed 69.9% of revenue in 2020.
According to the prospectus, from 2018 to 2020, the revenue contributed by ip operation and licensing business of variety shows to Star Chinese was 1.269 billion yuan, 1.341 billion yuan and 1.090 billion yuan respectively, and the gross profit margin was 39.2%, 27.6% and 18.7% respectively in the same period. All kinds of indications show that the variety show business can no longer support the growth of Starry Sky Chinese.
And all this is related to the earth-shaking changes in the industry environment.
The industry has changed the day
From the Taiwan comprehensive to the network comprehensive, from the satellite TV, the platform itself to cultivate production capabilities, the industry has long changed the day, there is a sentence to summarize the current production company: do variety shows, difficult!
"As long as you come to my team, I will definitely let you sing on stage, I have 32 concerts this year." Yang Kun on the red chair kept repeating this sentence, hoping that the contestants would join his team.
In the summer of 2012, the most popular variety show was "The Voice of China", the novel presentation form, the fierce but not losing the laughter of the mentor robbery war made the audience watch with relish, the program was broadcast on Zhejiang Satellite TV, quickly dominated the screen and jumped to the first place in the same period, and at the same time set off a wave of mainland variety shows to buy copyrights.
Subsequently, advertisers lowered the budget of Taiwan Comprehensive, increased the size of the Network Synthesis, and the flow of funds to the Network transferred the Network to the Network, which drove the creative enthusiasm of the Network Synthesis and opened a new chapter in the barbaric growth of the Network Synthesis.
During the period, video platforms and professional production teams have joined hands to go down, high-quality network comprehensive blowout, Youku launched "Where Daddy Goes", "Mars Intelligence Bureau", Tencent Video launched "Please Ask the Refrigerator" and "About the Big Star", iQiyi launched "Strange Story" and "Ace to Ace", and the program types are becoming more and more diverse.
Until 2017, a surprise "Do you have freestyle?" "Making the long-dormant big gold chain become a trend accessory, iQiyi's self-made variety show "China Has Hip Hop" opens a new chapter of "Online Generation", and the video website begins to independently produce variety shows, changing the tactics of purchasing copyright or co-production in the past, and holding the income in their own hands steadily.
After the platform side strengthens its own production capabilities, the production company's revenue model, from taking a small copyright fee at one time to sharing the share with the platform, and then accepting the commission of the platform, relying on the support of meager commissions, the overall profit margin of the industry is pressed down again and again, and the day of "income downgrade" is sad enough, and the result is that the epidemic is directly "ashes" for small and medium-sized production enterprises.
To make matters worse, in the 2020 network comprehensive "Youth with You 3" program, the video of fans dismantling the bottle cap and pouring milk for the love bean list circulated online and continued to ferment (milk pouring incident), ordered by the Radio, Film and Television Bureau, the program was stopped, and the enterprises involved apologized.
"Net Variety, which is already at the bottom of the film and television industry's despised chain, has become a hot potato that film and television people don't want to touch after experiencing the "milk pouring incident" that continues to ferment in 2021 and was named by the Beijing Radio, Film and Television Bureau. A senior film and television practitioner revealed to "A Little Finance".
In this ever-changing network industry, all production companies are facing the problem of survival, either dead or changed.
The main business is difficult to do, and the transformation is uncertain
Striking iron also needs to be hard, the industry is cold is one thing, and the lack of its own resources and strength is another.
Clearly and plainly in front of the Starry Sky Chinese, the network can not continue to do, can only seek transformation, but the transformation of movies and dramas of the Starry Sky Chinese, facing more fierce competition.
Although the network industry is cold, Mango Super Media (300413. SZ) is still against the trend to create a number of hits of "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", and the money is full of pots. No matter how difficult the industry, there are always good companies, as to why this enterprise is not Starry Sky Chinese, perhaps you can see a glimpse of the market response of its representative work "The Voice of China".
"The Voice of China" not only created a precedent for the purchase of variety show copyrights, but also brought textbook-like rights protection cases.
Since the beginning of the first year of the network synthesis in 2012, to the outbreak of the network synthesis in 2016, during the period of a hundred flowers, the mainland network synthesis is somewhat of the meaning of "mastering the long skill", and "The Voice of China" is a representative.
The "Voice of China" program model was introduced from "The Voice of Holland", and in early 2016, the Dutch copyright owner Talpa Company terminated its cooperation with Star Chinese and sold the copyright to others.
The fourth season of Good Voice, which will be broadcast in 2016, has not made any changes, and has not yet been sung before it was sued in court, a year-long copyright dispute, ending with the defeat of Starry Sky Chinese and the public apology of CEO Tian Ming.
However, at this time, the network comprehensive industry has become like a shuluo field, and there are countless programs of the same nature, and "China's New Song" was defeated by the "I Am a Singer" in the same period and fell into a bottleneck of development. At the same time, the development bottleneck is also starry Sky Chinese, and the subsequent launch of "This! It is that variety shows such as "Street Dance" are no longer difficult to create the good results of "The Voice of China".
As the eldest son of Hunan Radio and Television, Mango Super Media (300413. SZ), with the super hard production team and artist resources behind the big tree strong output, the development in the industry can be described as a ride, and although the CEO of Starry Sky Huawen is from Oriental Satellite TV, he has not seen much shade in resources.
In addition, artists such as Zhang Bichen and Zhou Shen who came out of the circle from "The Voice of China" also parted ways with Starry Sky Chinese after the expiration of their contracts, and the voice derivative value chain that was once planned is gradually collapsing.
The untenable Starry Sky Chinese on the Internet has turned to movies and dramas, but this mature market segment may not have a foothold for Starry Sky Chinese.
At present, there are three types of competitors in the market: the first is the traditional film and drama production company, and the 300251. SZ), noonday sun (000608. SZ), Huanrui Century (000892. SZ) and so on; the second type is the production upstart of online dramas and netda as the main output content in recent years, taking Linghe Culture, Bear Child Media, Wudao Nanlai, etc. as examples; the third type is a video platform, taking iQiyi (IQ.NASDAQ) and Youku (YOKU. NASDAQ), Tencent Video (00700. HK) and other examples.
The above market participants are very mature in terms of production strength and resource accumulation, and the head effect will continue to be prominent, obviously Starry Sky Chinese wants to accommodate it, it is difficult!
epilogue
It is worth noting that, as with the original content that once claimed "The Voice of China", now Starry Sky Chinese seeks to go public, and the label itself in the prospectus is a super explosive IP operator.
After the loss of the voice, the market has commented that Starry Sky Chinese has some misunderstanding of the "original", and how many of the 8002 IPs owned by the publicity are such "originals" and whether the good voice will be staged in the future is not yet known.
The once-popular network comprehensive explosive manufacturing machine Starry Sky Chinese, in the face of repeated changes in the industry, the original life is difficult to support the family. Whether it is to continue to explore the variety business, or to try the film and drama business, in the increasingly fierce market competition environment, it is difficult for the owners of "explosive IP" to compose good songs.