I believe that many friends still remember that some time ago iQIYI announced the price increase of monthly card members, that time the price increase storm directly caused a heated discussion on the whole network, in the face of netizens' questions, iQIYI gave a response: "The subscription price of the video platform has been low, and this phenomenon has affected the healthy development of the industry." In order to establish a more benign industrial ecology, let excellent content producers have a return, and ultimately provide members with more and better content, we decided to adjust the price of members. ”
Not long after the price increase storm subsided, Gong Yu, CEO of iQiyi, mentioned in the roundtable dialogue of the opening forum of the China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival: "The online ticket price has to rise, 6 yuan, too low!" This remark once again caused netizens to complain: "After the monthly card rises the single point fare, do you want to charge another traffic fee?" ”
Although Xiao Lei does not agree with the ridicule of seeing the price increase, but the frequent price increase will indeed make netizens have greater resistance, this truth iQiyi should also understand, so what is the reason for them to make the idea of continuous price increase? Is it reasonable to increase the price of a single-point movie?
Internet movie on demand price is too low? Reasonable price increase?
For the on-demand price of online movies, judging from Xiao Lei's online movie-watching experience, most of them are 3 yuan-6 yuan, and some additional discounts will be given to member users, such as half-price on-demand, free on-demand coupons, etc. Compared with the price of the movie theater, it is indeed quite cheap, which translates into the price of our daily necessities, that is, a bottle of Coke or even a bottle of mineral water, and even a cup of ordinary bubble tea can not be bought in the main cost-effective chain milk tea shop.
For comparison, we can look at online video sites overseas, how much it costs to play a movie on demand, taking Disney's streaming platform Disney+ as an example, where the on-demand price of a movie can reach tens of dollars. For example, "Mulan", as an offline and online simultaneous release of the film on the platform on the platform price of 29.9 US dollars, about three times the average offline ticket price.
Xiao Lei pinched his fingers, converted into RMB, the price of on-demand "Mulan" is almost 200, so it seems that the domestic on-demand price is indeed too cheap? And slowly, let Xiao Lei continue to analyze it for everyone, first of all, the release time, unlike the domestic delay of one month or even two months of release, "Mulan" is released simultaneously, considering the cost of piracy and other issues, "Mulan" needs to face a greater risk.
Secondly, unlike platforms such as iQiyi, "Mulan", which is on demand on Disney's streaming media platform, can enjoy a variety of cinema effects such as 4K HD film source + Dolby sound, and the bitrate and audio effects of video sources are better than platforms such as iQiyi.
Whether limited by the film source or limited by bandwidth and technology, the movies provided by platforms such as iQiyi are much inferior to the mainstream on-demand platforms in foreign countries in terms of screen and audio, and even many film sources only have 1080P options, and cannot provide 4K film sources.
Therefore, if iQIYI can provide the same audio-visual experience of overseas on-demand platforms, then spending a little money is actually acceptable to Xiao Lei, and even Xiao Lei believes that many movie lovers will gladly praise it. However, if you think of significantly increasing the on-demand costs without improving the quality of service, then don't blame netizens for thinking that the website is cutting leeks.
Moreover, Disney's Disney+ platform itself has a subscription system, and users can spend $7.99 per month on a subscription fee to watch all movies except the latest movies for free, and they don't have to endure the harassment of open-screen ads, in-play ads, and even membership ads. Even converted into RMB, the price is actually not much more expensive than members such as iQiyi, and considering the average income of foreign countries, in essence, the domestic video platform fee is not cheap.
On the other hand, even Netflix, which is known for its self-produced dramas, has a standard membership price of only $13.99 a month, while the premium membership is $17.99, and there are $7.99 entry-level members for users to choose from. Although it does not seem cheap, the quality of Netflix's self-made dramas is also obvious to all, plus there are a large number of commercial blockbuster resources, so this money users are also willing to pay.
To put it bluntly, for film and television drama lovers, it is not impossible to accept price increases, if members and on-demand price increases can bring users better film and television drama resources and works, then most users are not rejected by price increases. However, from the current level of self-made movies on online video platforms, it is really unsatisfactory, and if the price of a blockbuster with an investment of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars is the same as that of a rough self-made online movie with a cost of three or five million, I think everyone will not agree.
Moreover, the domestic movie ticket price is not high, many movies only need 19.9 yuan to watch, if the price is increased to more than 10 yuan, why not go to the cinema to enjoy a better audiovisual experience? Forcing the push in exchange may only be the departure of users and the demand for pirated resources becoming more exuberant, and the online video platform needs to understand that it is not the platform that users are willing to pay to support, but the good content on the platform.
iQiyi, where variety shows are folded, urgently need new needs
Why does iQiyi frequently raise prices? The reason is that everyone knows that it is nothing more than to improve profitability, why should we increase profitability? In addition to the "capital for profit" such a reason, the main reason is that the video industry has been losing money, and it is a huge loss, even if the price increase can not turn the loss into a profit, at least can reduce some of the book losses, the year-end financial report can also be better.
However, Xiao Lei believes that it is basically impossible to achieve profitability by relying solely on monthly card members and on-demand price increases, considering today's film and television drama production costs, monthly cards and on-demand revenue are basically a drop in the bucket, not to mention that there are a large number of joint members, which essentially reduces the purchase cost of members.
After all, if it is really true, the vast majority of iQIYI members are annual card users or joint member users, and not many iQIYI users are still buying monthly cards. Therefore, iQiyi's monthly card price increase seems to me more like a signal to the market, rather than really intending to squeeze out how much money from users.
Well, the topic back to the Internet movie on demand costs, the current Internet movie playback fee is mainly divided into two types, one is the membership system, the purchase of members of the user can watch this part of the movie for free. The other is on-demand system, users need to pay a certain fee to watch the movie, in terms of the current online video website charging conventions, generally 3-6 yuan, the specific price is negotiated by the copyright owner and the video website.
Taking iQiyi's 2020 financial report as an example, its annual content distribution revenue is only 2.7 billion yuan, and in 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, a large number of cinemas have suspended business, which has already benefited online content, and even so, the final profit is not optimistic. Therefore, even for popular movies such as "Avengers 4", the amount of on-demand broadcasts on the Internet is a drop in the bucket compared to iQiyi's total losses.
In this regard, Gong Yu mentioned that the online ticket price increase also mentioned that the business model of Internet movies must be innovative, which may essentially refer to online movies produced by video platforms such as iQiyi, rather than movies that are broadcast online after being released in theaters.
Since a few years ago, iQiyi and other video websites have begun to explore the road of self-made film and television dramas, and in recent years, they have also tossed out a lot of good works, but more are few and short-lived works on the home page, in a simple sentence: most of them are money-losing goods.
For websites such as iQiyi, in addition to the purchase of relevant copyrights and website operation and promotion costs, the biggest loss point in the annual operating costs is in the self-made programs. Previously, the self-made variety shows promoted by iQiyi and other websites can be said to be the "hope of the whole village", but this year it has been hit by the relevant departments, and under the constraints of multiple restriction orders, it is basically difficult for today's variety shows to have the previous grand situation.
After losing the profit point of variety shows, the blow to iQIYI is obvious, in the just-concluded list of internet companies at the end of the year, iQIYI is on the list, and even netizens who claim to be former iQIYI employees have reported that their entire department has been abolished.
The end of the variety show, so that iQIYI can only eventually return to the self-made programs and the traditional film market, as for how to innovate the film business model, how to improve profitability, that is the new path that iQIYI is considering. To put it bluntly, in today's market environment, websites such as iQiyi cannot make changes, but if you want to improve profits, the most effective way is to improve the quality of content and services, rather than directly increasing prices, otherwise it will only allow users to vote with their feet and switch to other platforms.