This article is from the WeChat public account: One Entertainment Observation (ID: yiyuguancha), text/big entertainer.
For domestic Internet companies, growing into an all-encompassing super platform is always the ultimate goal on each track, social chat software must also be able to pay and loan, and the real payment platform hopes that everyone can still talk about work and life on it. Even if it is a business form that is completely out of line, there are always brave people who hope that they can break the boundaries and force a platform transformation.
This pursuit of large and comprehensive business strategy has also been inherited in the field of video, and long video has tried to become a short video platform for a long time.
After the short video became more and more powerful, both Douyin and Kuaishou also played the idea of long videos, and both sides hoped that they could conquer each other's hinterland. At the same time, PUGC video platforms such as B station and watermelon video have also tried their own attempts, and expanding the coverage as much as possible has become the core proposition.
After the concept of so-called "medium video" was added, there was a "comprehensive video platform" that wanted to set three types of long, medium and short for a while.
However, after 2021 has passed, not to mention the difficulties encountered by long videos, short videos and PUGC platforms, it is almost difficult to find any positive cases in the matter of gathering long, medium and short. After the reorganization and integration of Tencent Video and Weishi, Tencent's short video business was remembered by the public to rely on WeChat video number to live broadcast the West Side Boys' Concert, and the OGV content of Jibby B was getting longer and longer, but it was rare to see the content out of the circle.
This attempt to forcibly expand the type of platform through a large number of users, YouTube has suffered a complete failure, and for now, neither Tencent nor ByteDance has been able to make itself the most special existence.
Netflix + YouTube + TikTok, this "dream" is bigger
Whether it is Netflix, YouTube and Disney, these three American entertainment companies have become a knot that the domestic entertainment industry cannot get around. Companies or platforms aspire to be their "Chinese version," and of course the more ambitious ones want to create some kind of combination.
The concept of "Netflix + YouTube" is actually not new, at the annual meeting of Youku Tudou in 2016, gu Yongjun, then chairman and CEO of Youtu, said in a high profile that he wanted to "surpass New York". "New York" here refers to "Netflix + YouTube (NY is the English abbreviation of New York)".
Today, these video platforms want to do even more, and Netflix + YouTube has to add another TikTok.
Foreign media reported that TikTok is the most visited Internet site in the world in 2021
Of course, the attitude of some people in charge of long video streaming media to short videos can be seen: "Now the personality recommendation of short video platforms is too strong, and what you like to see is all 'pig food'." ”
The June 2021 remarks then set off a vicious battle, and the "golden sentence" concoctors even forgot that tencent video they managed had just merged with its sister division Weishi, which is also an algorithm recommended short video. This statement of fierceness that even their own people scolded did express the accumulated resentment of the long video platform to a certain extent, but it failed to slow down the pace of the short video attack.
A report by QuestMobile in the second half of last year pointed out that as of September 2021, the monthly active user scale of the short video industry was 926 million, an increase of 7.7% year-on-year, and the industry's active penetration rate steadily increased to 79.3%, and the three indexes were higher than those of the long video industry; Douyin, which led the short video, had 140 million monthly active users in the first place in long video, with a year-on-year growth rate of more than 27.6%, while Tencent Video, which was in second place, did not have an advantage even compared with Kuaishou.
What is even more embarrassing is that Tencent is actually the largest company in the entire industry that is most obsessed with making achievements in the short video business. Its investment is also difficult to find similar in the industry, and it has launched more than a dozen apps such as MicroVision, Flash Cafe, QIM, DOV, MOKA Magic, Cat Cake, MO Sound, Tencent Cloud Small Video, Next Meal Video, Speed Video, Time Small Video, Yoo Video, And Sound Rabbit. But even yoo videos and micro-vision, which has been entrusted with heavy responsibilities twice, have not brought good results.
Yoo Video is now renamed Hotpot Video
At the end of 2020, Tencent Video proposed the so-called "tropical rainforest" ecosystem, trying to create a comprehensive content ecology that can be independent in addition to long videos, through short videos and PUGC content, and all kinds of content can learn from each other. However, this ideal state of affairs has not emerged in the past year.
In April 2021, Tencent announced the integration of Tencent Video, Weishi and App Treasure to form an online video BU, and four months later, Tencent integrated Tencent Video and Weishi into the online video product department, forming an organizational model of "two front-end products + the same set of middle and back office". Tencent's intention is clear - trying to finally use a handful of Tencent Video's content to save Weishi once. But it is clear that Tencent Video has been in a dilemma in its own battlefield, and it has no ability to bring foreign aid to Weishi.
According to QuestMobile data, in September 2021, the monthly active users of Weishi were less than a fraction of that of Douyin, and there was also a user gap of nearly 100 million or so with Douyin Express Edition and Kuaishou Express Edition, not only that, its monthly active users fell by 53.8% year-on-year. On the other hand, WeChat's video account is constantly narrowing the gap between itself and Kuaiji by making steady and steady, making full use of its own user base, circle of friends link relationship and Tencent music and other Tencent advantages.
In fact, although iQiyi attracted all the gunfire at the end of last year, the problems that iQIYI needs to face, Tencent Video can not hide, and the short videos that are pressing step by step not only eat away at the attention of users, but also after the intermittent growth of users, Tencent Video also needs to face the pain of shrinking advertising revenue.
According to the QuestMobile report, in the first half of the media industry advertising revenue in the first half of 2021, short videos contributed nearly half of the country, reaching the top of the industry with a high proportion of 42.6% of revenue, while long videos in third place contributed only 13.3%.
Echoing this, the financial report shows that Tencent's media advertising revenue in Q3 of 2021 fell by 4%, although Tencent explained that it was caused by the decrease in advertising revenue of Tencent news applications, but relatively speaking, the entire Q3 actually belonged to tencent video playing quite well in the quarter, just "Sweeping The Black Storm" and "You are my glory" brought 4 million new members to Tencent Video, obviously the problem of declining advertising revenue is not just the exclusive problem of iQiyi.
Of course, if you can't do a good job of short videos, Tencent Video is not the only one, and the past attempts of iQiyi and Youku have also failed.
In essence, the so-called "short belt long, short and long integration of the way to meet the user's differentiated content needs" is actually just the wishful thinking of the platform side, and the displayed scene is often a specialty in the art industry, and more importantly, the scene problem and the user's mentality.
When turning on long-form video streaming, as an audience member, you are often clear about what you want to watch or at least what you want to see - movies, dramas, variety shows, etc., and the viewing scenes of these contents are also prepared for those who have a certain amount of patience.
However, the current short video with algorithmic recommendation as the main stream is obviously not such logic, and only when the user does not know what he wants, the algorithm can dominate and continuously provide FMCG content that exploits human weaknesses.
Those film and television secondary creations may be able to bring topics and heat to the work itself to a certain extent, but the two are actually natural opposites in terms of content information, and most users who like to watch the second creation are themselves dissuaded by the lengthiness of those film and television content, so how to achieve mutual integration and promotion of both sides in this case.
The same problem still exists when the short video platform tries to create its own OGV content, in the final analysis, the difference in platform attributes makes the user's expectations for the content completely different, in this case, any behavior that wants to rely solely on the number of platform users to forcibly expand the boundary is difficult to achieve results in the end.
Getting shorter isn't easy, getting longer is harder, and PUGC is not a panacea
Whether it is a user competition or a public opinion melee, for a long time it is almost a dispute between the length of Aiyoutengmang and Jitter, and the B station and watermelon video that mainly feature PUGC content can often watch the fire from across the shore.
Long video for THE COVETING OF PUGC content is actually not a secret, Tencent Video wants to include a variety of types of long, medium and short, those medium video is nothing more than a variety of PUGC content, especially want to base on their own various original film and television works, the user two creation of this important supplement to today's film and television content personally covered. It's just that Tencent Video is actually following the trend in business, because iQiyi is actually more extreme than what they do, and even launched an independent application in 2020 - at any time, trying to do the interest community and the official second creation from scratch.
However, long videos in today's market to redo a YouTube-like PUGC product is almost doomed to failure. Timing is one of the problems, another problem is actually that the current domestic video market does not have enough content creators can continue to supply multiple platforms, just B station and watermelon video two have to fight for some well-known creators, and latecomers in the absence of user accumulation and stable commercial returns, in fact, it is difficult to attract first-line creators.
UP Master Wizard Finance and B Station Dispute
The final result was also seen by the market, in the wave of layoff turmoil in iQiyi at the end of last year, according to Sina Finance, "at any moment of merger with other products, only 40% of people can stay." ”
A similar situation is almost the same in Tencent Video, no matter how to promote pan-knowledge or medium video, in the absence of enough base creators willing to invest in this platform, even if they hold a lot of IP, the official itself dominates a variety of secondary content is still not attractive enough.
In essence, these two creative content needs to play with memes, ridicule or even offend the original work, so as to resonate with the viewer, and then further achieve interaction through bullet screens and other forms. Obviously, in the face of the series or movies that they have paid a lot of costs to make, these long video platforms can not be ruthless in any case, after all, every work is a "boutique" that should be popular in their eyes.
That's why, whether it's short videos or PUGC content, today's long video platforms are almost impossible to do well.
For the problem of long videos losing money for many years, in addition to the clichéd production cost problem, it has always been unable to maintain restraint like overseas streaming media, often blindly expanding business boundaries, and somewhat making a lot of negative contributions to the high cost.
The few PUGC platforms in China have more or less embarked on the wrong path and even want to go black. Watermelon Video has long been marked with the idea of film and television long videos, and the slogan of 2018 that claims to spend 4 billion self-made variety shows has only passed less than four years, and the final series of content presented is completely waterless.
Watermelon Video produced the variety show "Uncle Xiaoguan"
ByteDance's large-scale purchase of Spring Festival popular movies in 2020 is exclusively available to its platforms, which is also regarded as a signal for its comprehensive entry into long video. But in the past year or two, Watermelon Video has exclusively bought the copyright to Netflix content, which may be the most of all domestic video platforms, but almost none of the content has received much attention.
Throughout 2021, Byte has basically given up the production and distribution of watermelon video as OGV content, and after the focus shifted to micro-variety shows and micro-dramas, Douyin has become the only battlefield.
On the other hand, although paid memberships and ads on Site B continue to grow, it is difficult to attribute it to variety shows or dramas.
According to Station B at the end of last year, their investment in OGV content will increase and the category will be more diverse.
This situation can't help but remind people of the PUGC giant YouTube, which has always been regarded as a template for the development of B stations, which once hoped that it could attract paying users by making a large number of original OGV content, and after the poor performance, YouTube tried to make these contents free to earn part of the advertising fee. However, on January 18, Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief commercial officer, suddenly issued a statement, indirectly announcing that YouTube Originals, YouTube's original video content production division, would be dissolved, and susanne Daniels, the division's global director, would also leave in March.
YouTube interface
YouTube's attempts at OGV content are not without effort, although they have not announced the input cost, but obviously the cost of finding big stars such as Will Smith will never be low, and 6 years have basically failed to bring any effective output, even if tens of millions of paid subscribers sound like a lot, but it is completely worthless for such a super platform with more than 2 billion active users a month.
With YouTube's energy now shifting to the short video project against TikTok, it's only natural to abandon OGV.
For Station B, its attempt to make a breakthrough in OGV is actually closely related to the circle-breaking strategy of the past two years. However, in addition to the old problem of how to find a new balance between the circle and the community of the content itself, the B station that started late in the field of OGV content still needs to continue to expand production capacity - the continuous output of the blockbuster requires the support of the internal talent system, and it also needs a long-term process from capital investment to the establishment of industrial chain capabilities.
On the whole, although the boundaries of the video content itself are not monolithic, the tonal differences and business models are clear.
At this stage, all parties seem to be using video to compete with each other for users' limited entertainment time, but this competition itself has a distinct differentiation, and these differences rely on the different content characteristics of different platforms, just like Netflix and Disney+ will never see TikTok as a rival, because the content experience they can provide is self-characteristic enough.
With more and more users and regulators increasingly vigilant about the monopoly of the platform, rather than fantasizing about creating a "super video battleship" that can sweep all users away, it is better to return to the original intention to polish their main business better, and perhaps at that time they can really stand and earn money.