Under the layoffs, it is a rewrite of the underlying logic.
In the recruitment season of gold, silver and silver, the large factories favored by graduates in previous years have cast a shadow.
On social media such as Weibo and Pulse, Tencent and Ali layoffs are frequently circulated, and the Weibo topic #How long will the Internet layoff wave last#1.38 million+ reads, it is the worried Internet people eating their own melons.
It is reported that Ali and Tencent are expected to lay off 10% to 30% of employees, and ali's multiple business lines have confirmed the layoff list. Prior to this, ByteDance, iQiyi, Kuaishou and other Internet manufacturers also reported layoffs.
News of layoffs was frequent, superimposed on the background of the plunge in Chinese stocks, and for a time the Internet industry sent itself to the headlines.
The wave of layoffs is just a microcosm of a time when the industry is facing dramatic changes. Turning to the three head platforms, when the Internet tide recedes, will the online audio-visual industry usher in an inflection point? After the layoffs, can the profitable moment come? How can the current content production support the long-awaited turnaround?
The flip side of layoffs
Survival has become a problem that platforms need to face together.
Layoffs, which appear in the financial report, are "organizational structure optimization". This wave of layoffs in the Internet industry began to appear last year. For example, iQIYI, which has been hotly searched for several times due to layoffs, according to its 2021 Q4 financial data, iQIYI's sales, general affairs and administrative expenses were 1.1 billion yuan, down 17% year-on-year. Behind the decline is the throttling effect brought about by the optimization of the organizational structure.
In addition to layoffs, open source and throttling means such as narrowing content costs, membership fee increases, and advanced on-demand screenings (cancelled) have given the platform a chance to breathe. Take iQiyi, which recently announced its earnings report, as an example:
In fiscal 2021, iQIYI's total revenue was RMB30.6 billion, up 3% year-on-year, with Q4 quarter revenue of RMB7.4 billion. Based on non-GAAP financial indicators (non-GAAP), the company's full-year non-GAAP operating loss of 3 billion yuan, the operating loss ratio narrowed from 15% in the same period of the previous year to 10%, reaching the lowest point in the past three years; in the Q4 quarter, non-GAAP operating loss was 520 million yuan, and the operating loss ratio narrowed sharply to 7% from 13% in the same period last year.
Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, said that from the fourth quarter of 2021, iQIYI launched a series of measures to optimize the organizational structure and focus on core business, significantly improving operational efficiency and striving to further achieve operational breakeven in 2022.
In that night's earnings conference call, Gong Yu explained in detail the company's measures to open source and reduce expenditure. Including more refined selection and operation in content production, content procurement and content operation.
China's long video industry may be ushering in a new stage. "Market competition has changed from simply pursuing quantity to focusing on quality, and the focus of operation has changed from seizing market share to improving operational efficiency, which has become the consensus of industry leaders including iQIYI," Gong Yu said, adding that iQIYI's goal is to achieve breakeven at the non-GAAP operational level for the whole of 2022 and achieve quarterly non-GAAP operational breakeven as soon as possible.
This consensus includes not only the diversified means of open source and cost reduction of the platform side in recent years, but also a series of initiatives jointly called for rational development by the industry, such as proposals for content copyright, sky-high film remuneration and other issues.
A few days ago, Mango Super Media, the only profitable in the long video platform, also released its 2021 financial report, and its core main business, Mango TV Internet video business, maintained steady growth.
According to the financial report, in 2021, the revenue of Mango Super Media was 15.35 billion yuan, an increase of 9.62% year-on-year, and the net profit was 2.114 billion yuan, an increase of 6.63% year-on-year. Among them, Mango TV's Internet video business (advertising + membership + operator business) achieved revenue of 11.261 billion yuan, an increase of 24.28% year-on-year.
Advertising and membership revenue grew significantly. In 2021, Mango Super Media developed 118 new advertisers, and the advertising business revenue exceeded the mark of 5 billion yuan, reaching 5.453 billion yuan, an increase of 31.75% year-on-year; as of the end of 2021, the number of effective members of Mango TV reached 50.4 million, an increase of 39.5% year-on-year; and the membership income was 3.688 billion yuan, an increase of 13.3% year-on-year.
"Small and beautiful" Mango TV, with popular self-made variety shows (such as "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves"), a series of ace IP, innovative monsoon theater and other platform recognition content to attract a large number of members, after the Aiyouteng, although the current number of its members and other three large gap, but its profit model is of concern.
Winter "Sentient Beings"
From the individual to the times, under the layoffs is the rise and fall of the Internet tide.
When the demand for the head platform plummeted, the supply side of film and television content also changed, and a large number of waist film and television companies and "eighteen-line" artists were first affected.
A picture of the sentient beings of film and television people spending the winter also reflects the changes in the industry:
On Weibo, Brilliance Meichuang CEO and producer Chen Yitao posted that due to the withdrawal of the platform, the new drama "Wind Posture" was stranded, "2 days before the start, the project was stopped, and I could only admit that I lost 20 million yuan."
The company has produced sweet pet dramas such as "Why the Boss Wants to Marry Me" and "One Night Bride", most of which are custom dramas on A-level or B-level platforms. On Douyin, some actors revealed in an interview that there are now more people who grab less big projects, and less than 10% of small projects can start, "Stars who can still have dramas should steal music."
"Go to short dramas", this is a recent hot topic in the film and television circle. Micro-short dramas with low production costs and large demand have become an emergency winter food for many filmmakers and TV dramas, but the current color of most micro-short dramas is far from the fine products imagined by video platforms.
Eyes turn to the platform, investment tends to be conservative and cautious. It was revealed that at the last project establishment meeting of Youku years ago, 53 drama projects passed the Green Lantern Meeting, and finally only locked one IP; at tencent Video's project decision-making meeting in early 2022, more than 70 projects only passed 2.
The requirements for content are getting higher and higher, the requirements for production standards are becoming more and more stringent, the idea of concentrating on doing big things runs through it, and the living space of waist film and television works is squeezed... From the barbaric growth of the racetrack to the improvement and reduction of quality and quantity that returns to rationality, the online audiovisual field is experiencing the pain of the underlying logic change.
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Editor-in-Chief: Yi Wu
Author: Siberia
Edit: Curry
(Some of the pictures come from the Internet)