Attracted by the super high income of some head anchors, "net red" has become one of the most envied occupations for young people nowadays.
So you know, what exactly is the net red salary for most millions of fans?
Ah Wei (pseudonym), a game internet celebrity with two million fans in Douyin, told the first financial reporter that in today's era of "Internet celebrities everywhere", the vast majority of Internet celebrities cannot actually take advantage of the "wrestling" with platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin, as well as MCN institutions, and play the "last role" of the industrial chain.
"Many millions (fans) may earn a few thousand yuan a month, and at the same time, they have to endure the intensity of work beyond 996 for a long time." Ah Wei said helplessly.
However, many of these "Internet celebrities" have to receive at least three ads per month, and the unit price of each advertisement is "starting at least 20,000".
Ah Wei said that even in his most popular period, he created 150,000 yuan of revenue for the company in a single month, but the real arrival was only more than 10,000 yuan, which was in stark contrast to the income of Wei Ya who often had hundreds of millions of yuan.
A number of interviewed industry insiders revealed to reporters that the most fundamental reason for the "drought death of drought and waterlogging death" is the "imbalance between supply and demand" in the Internet red industry.
The proceeds are deducted layer by layer, and the termination of the contract faces sky-high liquidated damages
As a graduate of the class of 2021, Ah Wei engaged in the profession of editor before entering the "Internet celebrity circle". Because of his "good sense of network", he was invited by a small MCN agency to become a Douyin game anchor.
The so-called MCN institution, the general definition given by the industry is "an institution that cultivates internet celebrities and obtains profits through commercial monetization". McN's advantages are: on the one hand, it helps content producers focus on content creation, on the other hand, it connects with platforms and fans, packages, strengthens promotion and promotes monetization.
But there are big differences between institutions.
According to Ah Wei, the market is currently filled with a large number of small MCN institutions with less than 10 people, and it is difficult to provide any effective help for their Internet celebrities to "create content".
Taking Ah Wei as an example, when he entered the industry, MCN agency docked a "master" Ah Bin (pseudonym), Who has 5 years of experience as a Douyin game anchor and has nearly 5 million fans.
"In the early days, the number diversion given to me by Ah Bin accumulated millions of fans in just 3 months, but in addition, the institution did not help itself much." Ah Wei said.
According to him, a series of work in the later stage, including copywriting dubbing to find materials, was done independently, and even the props needed in the video had to be paid for out of their own pockets, and the company did not provide any help.
However, some of the larger high-quality MCN institutions are really able to create more revenue for their "internet celebrities".
For example, a large MCN agency Miracle Mountain and its tens of millions of Internet celebrities "Poor Cuisine" opened a restaurant offline together, diverting online traffic to offline and opening up a new revenue growth curve.
"However, 80% of MCNs on the market are sucking the blood of the UP lord, Dracula vampires", up lord "Drunken Dreams" described the existence of MCN institutions in the video.
Ah Wei said that under the premise that mcn agencies can't provide too much help to themselves, they have to take 80% of the proceeds, which makes him feel particularly unfair.
Another point that Ah Wei can't understand is that the rebates given to business also need to be extracted from their own earnings. For example, the business rebate for Pinduoduo is 2,000 yuan, and this 2,000 yuan needs to be extracted from Ah Wei's earnings.
Under all kinds of deductions, a business order of 150,000 yuan a month was finally implemented into the hands of "net reds" and the income was only more than 10,000 yuan.
This is not unique.
Li Shuai (pseudonym), who has 20 years of experience in the industry, told reporters that after the institution generally promises the basic salary to the Internet celebrities, it will take the two or eight or three seven according to the organization, and its division is the "unspoken rule in the industry".
Ma Sen (pseudonym) and Ah Wei have a similar experience, holding 3 million fans but need to endure the "squeeze" of MCN agencies for a long time, he told the first financial reporter that it is not an easy task to terminate the contract and fly out alone.
"At that time, I signed a 5-year contract, and if I defaulted, I needed to pay 2 million yuan to the agency." Masson said.
Li Shuai introduced that some so-called MCN companies, the source of revenue is unimaginable, they recruit young people who are not deeply involved in the world but have internet celebrity dreams to try broadcast, after signing a 3-5 year contract, but found that the support that was said at that time was in the mirror, disguised to force Internet celebrities to terminate the contract and earn the termination fee.
After searching for "internet celebrity" and "liquidated damages" as keywords, you will find that similar cases have abounded in recent years.
One of the most representative is Lin Chen, the owner of the B station UP, when Wuhan was just "locked down" in the early stage of the epidemic, one of his videos was played more than eight million times on the whole network, almost the earliest anchor to pay attention to the "lockdown" situation.
Just after Lin Chen's series of videos went viral, he signed an exclusive business agreement with an MCN agency. But according to Lin Chen himself, this is a very unequal agreement, no basic salary, no social security, not allowed to sign or cooperate with other companies, the agreement for him "only obligations, no rights", if he defaults to pay 3 million yuan in liquidated damages.
Extreme imbalance between supply and demand, leading to "stigmatization" of the industry
When the "small Internet celebrities" are stuck in being squeezed by MCN institutions and have no way to complain and it is difficult to terminate the contract, on the other side of the coin, more and more "big Internet celebrities" are abandoning MCN institutions.
On October 4, 2021, the first video was released on Douyin, and in just two months, the number of fans reached 16.62 million, and the average daily fan increase was nearly 400,000, and "Classmate Zhang" publicly said that he did not have any team support and that the shooting and editing were all on his own.
He said that some institutions were willing to pay 5 million yuan a year to buy out his account operation rights, but he refused.
"These big Internet celebrities, one is not short of resources, the other is not lack of fan traffic, why do they want MCN agencies to come in and share a piece of the pie?" Li Shuai told reporters.
Not only is the new generation of super popular Internet celebrities gradually abandoning MCN institutions, but the head anchors cultivated by those institutions are also drawing a clear line with MCNs due to the entanglement of interests, and the distribution of benefits is still the most essential problem.
"Net red ceiling" Li Ziqi is the most typical representative of them.
At the end of October 2021, according to the information of Tianyancha, Sichuan Ziqi Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sichuan Ziqi") and Liu Tongming and Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Weinian") added new case filing information, and Sichuan Ziqi was the plaintiff in the first instance. This also means that Li Ziqi officially sued the MCN institution Wei Nian, which belongs to him, in court.
Prior to this, on October 14, 2021, some media published a report on "Micro-nian Investors: Li Ziqi does have a contradiction with his brokerage company".
According to the report, Li Ziqi and Wei Nian had a disagreement on the distribution of benefits.
Li Shuai pointed out: "Some of the big Internet celebrities with strong ability and fan base may sign an MCN agency at the beginning of their careers because of factors such as seeking stability, such as the need for someone to pay him a salary, or someone to help him take care of some things. When the wings are full, these head Internet celebrities think that their contribution to the company is gradually increasing, they think, I can sell 1 billion sales a year, why do I have to play with you, so the appetite has become bigger, to equity, to raise salary. ”
Talk closely, the institution gives in, the Internet celebrity shares into the company's co-founder, grasp the greater right to speak; not close, had to be like Wei Nian and Li Ziqi, because of the interest dispute between the two sides of the lose.
"This imbalance between supply and demand is the most essential reason for the stigmatization of Internet celebrities and MCN institutions at present." Li Shuai told reporters.
He also introduced that many of the big IPs that can earn money and pull customers have already drawn a line with MCN companies; and those who can't earn money, lack experience and want to step up to the sky "small Internet celebrities" will choose to accept the incubation of MCN institutions.
However, large and formal MCN institutions will not sign contracts with some "small whites" who have no experience and only want to join the Internet celebrity industry with only one blood, because from the perspective of input-output ratio, this is a very uneconomical business.
Therefore, only small MCN institutions will sign up with many fresh graduates with "Internet celebrity dreams", and many of them will make money through gray means.
This is the most fundamental reason why the industry has repeatedly reported that "small Internet celebrities have been deducted wages by MCN agencies, Internet celebrities have been squeezed, and sky-high liquidated damages".
Interviewed industry insiders revealed to reporters that one of the solutions to this problem is that some MCN institutions choose to sign contracts with some second- and third-tier or past stars, who themselves have a certain fan base, but do not understand the Internet play, and can complement mcN institutions.
For example, former Winter Olympic champion Wang Meng revealed in an interview that after he left as the coach of the national team, he made a sports MCN, only for athletes to recruit, if they are athletes with a certain reputation, they will help them play their commercial value, if they are some athletes who have not been able to gain popularity, they will be recruited to do some behind-the-scenes camera, central control and other work to solve the re-employment problems they face after retirement.
Influencers with shorter and shorter life cycles
Of course, the MCN agency, which is backed by the "stigmatization" of the industry, also has its own grievances.
The head of a small MCN agency told the first financial reporter that in today's era of internet celebrity competition is more and more "internal volume", if you do not sign a long contract with Internet celebrities, once Internet celebrities choose to leave, who will pay for the money and energy invested in the early stage of Internet celebrities?
According to zhiyan information data, in 2015, there were about 160 MCN institutions in China, and in 2020, it has reached 28,000, an increase of more than 100 times; the MCN market size has also increased from about 800 million yuan in 2015 to 24.5 billion yuan in 2020. However, at the same time as the number of industry players soared, a large number of institutions began to close, and their stay on the stage for less and less time.
"If we don't take the opportunity to fish for gold in a short period of time, how can we live ourselves?" The above-mentioned person in charge laughed.
What's more, at the end of 2018, Douyin also launched the "star map function", which replaced the function of some MCN institutions and squeezed the living space of the latter.
Advertisers can directly select satisfactory Internet celebrities through the star chart to place orders, money is paid directly to the star map, the talent receives the demand after the script, the booking period, the implementation of the shooting demand, direct withdrawal from the star map, so that MCN "no middleman to earn the difference".
The survival cycle of Internet celebrities is getting shorter and shorter, which is also one of the reasons why MCN agencies will "grasp them tighter and tighter".
As the earliest MCN practitioner, Ah Hua (pseudonym) has incubated well-known big IPs such as Feng Jie and Furong Sister.
She told reporters that there is no such thing as a hundred days of red, and any Internet celebrity has a corresponding life cycle, and the Internet celebrities of more than a decade ago have "more vitality" than today's meteor-style Internet celebrities.
For example, many people are still impressed by the Internet celebrities who have been more than ten years ago, such as Sister Feng and Sister Furong, and can blurt out their names.
"But now the popular Internet celebrities, maybe in two or three months you will forget who other people's surnames are." Ah Hua said.
She analyzes that there may be two main reasons for this:
First, the number of platforms and influencers has soared.
In the PC era, everyone has less room for choice, Internet celebrities are concentrated in Cat Poker and Tianya, everyone's attention is focused, and it will not be easy to "empathize with others".
In addition, the Internet celebrities of more than ten years ago may be the boutique Internet celebrities created by the whole company and even the whole network.
"We were really doing content wholeheartedly at that time, but now it is completely capital play, such as 1 short video is not enough, then investing in 2, 3, or even 100 short videos will always be on fire." Therefore, the simple and rough way of playing leads to the threshold for creating Internet celebrities is not high, resulting in the emergence of Internet celebrities in an endless stream. Ah Hua explained.
Regulation intervenes to regulate the industry
The industry has expanded too quickly in a short period of time, and the corresponding policies of the platform have not been introduced in time, which has also led to repeated scandals in the Internet celebrity industry.
Lu Shan (pseudonym) is a network "old cannon" with nearly 15 years of experience, he told the first financial reporter, because the industry capacity in a short period of rapid growth, the market supervision department hired some experts who know the doorway and know how deep the water is, to formulate some standards and policies to regulate the Internet celebrity, MCN, live e-commerce industry.
On June 5, 2020, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the National Office for "Eliminating Pornography and Cracking Down on Illegal Activities", together with eight departments, including the Supreme People's Court, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Market Regulation, and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, launched a six-month special rectification action against the online live broadcasting industry, mainly involving bad behaviors such as vulgar live broadcast content and inducing rewards.
After the regulatory measures are introduced, the platform also needs to strengthen its own audit capabilities to avoid the MCN institution's own risks.
Lu Shan revealed to reporters that the MCN agency he was responsible for, when registering on a large platform in the period from 2017 to 2018, the platform would also send someone from Beijing to Shanghai to examine whether the shooting site, scene, and equipment were professional, and then rated MCN, how much content must be produced in January, reaching a certain number of likes and playback.
If the corresponding level is not reached, it may be demoted by the platform, the weight is reduced, and even kicked out of the MCN channel.
"But in the case of the rapid expansion of the number of MCNs, the platform simply does not have the energy to assess the MCN institutions." For example, the audit team of more than 10,000 people under a large platform can only distinguish whether the terminal content involves pornography, violence and other violations, but there is no energy to assess whether the MCN institution itself is legal and compliant, and whether the corresponding license is complete. Lu Shan said.
On October 22, 2021, Li Ziqi spoke out in CCTV's "Lu Jian Interview" program: "I don't want teenagers to want to be Internet celebrities in the future." ”
A group of industry "old cannons" led by Li Shuai and Lu Shan also told the first financial reporter more than once in the interview, "This industry has been solidified, and it is difficult for big anchors to appear again." ”
So, where will the players who are already in it go under the tide of the times? Perhaps, young people who are attracted by the high salaries of head anchors such as Wei Ya and other ordinary people should really take a comprehensive look at the industry and make a decision.
(Intern Li Xiang also contributed to this article)
![The live broadcast room waits for Li Ziqi[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)