Deep Sound Original · The author | Shen Shang
For a long time, when the word "long video" was mentioned, both investors and analysts seemed to sigh and shake their heads. Long videos are synonymous with losing money, making it difficult to make a profit, and wronging a big head.
Now, times have changed. Tencent's earnings report wrote in black and white that it was "taking measures to optimize costs and reduce Tencent Video's financial losses"; iQiyi's losses in the Q4 quarter of 2021 narrowed sharply, and put forward the goal of achieving non-GAAP breakeven by 2022; Youku continued to improve operational efficiency, while maintaining the continuous growth of members, achieving a year-on-year narrowing of losses.
Long videos have entered the "age of awakening", and the days of flooding and crazy burning money are over, replaced by the consensus of the whole industry - returning to content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and developing healthily.
But Rome wasn't built in a day, and long videos can't suddenly turn a profit overnight. This long road to awakening is inseparable from two key words - "open source" and "throttling".
"Open source" increases revenue, and "throttling" reduces costs. Anyone with business knowledge can understand the importance of these two things to a business model. But the special thing about long video is that it is not a fast-selling product, its open source is not a matter of adding a few more production lines, and its throttling is not a simple and rough reduction in speed reduction and budget cutting.
The origin of long videos is content, whether it is the content itself, or the user on the opposite side of the content, it is full of countless variables and involves the whole body. Under the change, what is the solution to the problem of balancing health and growth? Can the "awakening moment" of the long video be maintained and gradually improved?
Accurate layout of content, steady growth of members, financial loss reduction and income increase, digital intelligence to promote the development of the industry... Youku insists on breaking new ground in its own way, and this model is inspiring the industry.
Content-driven "open source"
Let's start with "open source." The main revenue of long videos comes from membership revenue and advertising revenue, and these two controversial models will eventually return to one point - content.
An important factor in membership revenue is the number of members and membership fees, both of which are the result of members "voting with their feet" – paying for good content. Although advertising revenue comes from advertisers, the core reason why advertisers are willing to spend money is that there is good content here, and good content can attract more users, that is, potential consumers.
Good content is the true lifeblood of long videos, and this is already a verified truth in the industry. For example, in the first half of last year, Netflix's lackluster content made many investors suspicious, but the global explosion of "Squid Games" directly helped Netflix's revenue in the third quarter to increase by 16% year-on-year at a high level, and the number of global paid users increased by 4.38 million.
Youku's strategy is also to deepen the content, and its clearer direction is to add the value of high-quality content, not only look at traffic.
At the end of 2018, Fan Luyuan became the president of Youku, and since then, he has clarified the adjustment and development strategy of "abandoning traffic thinking and firmly believing that content is king". In the view of Xie Ying, general manager of Youku Drama Center, the industry has entered the second half, the ceiling of market capacity has appeared, and the platform has realized that it must be deeply cultivated and intensively cultivated in the stock field.
"No traffic, no value." This can be said to be a lesson that long videos burn with real money and silver. Everyone may remember the irrational expansion of this industry a few years ago, under the hot money, many content producers are holding a gambler mentality, betting on traffic and gambling on blockbusters. But the truth is that the mega hit is a plus rather than a basic set. If all the content goes to the explosive formula and imitates the explosive model, there will be no innovation, no increment, and no explosion in the industry.
From the perspective of the platform, the blockbuster is a kind of "project stickiness", where the blockbuster is, where the audience goes. What can really continue to retain core users is "platform stickiness", that is, the high water level of the overall content on the platform.
Specific to Youku, what we see is a state of "high total score" and "no partial subject":
In terms of dramas, in fiscal 2021, Youku launched a variety of types of high-quality content such as "LiuLi", "Country Love 13", "The Age of Awakening", "Mountain and River Order", "Si Teng", "Touring Inspection Team", etc., achieving the first growth rate of daily active users on the whole network in the first quarter of 2021; the popular "Acquaintance with Junchu" maintained more than 9,000 in Youku Station, and won the cat's eye heat day crown for 13 consecutive days; suspense theater, pet theater, family theater, Hong Kong theater, Five major theaters, such as the Urban Life Theater, enhance the stickiness of users through vertical operation.
In terms of variety, "This! It is that the station user viewing scale of "Street Dance 4" has reached the highest in the four seasons, and the overall revenue of the program has increased by nearly 40% compared with the third season; the effective playback volume of the recent hit "I Have Not Talked about Love" has ranked in the top 1 of the online love roundup in the past year; the comedy variety show "Twist Flower Special Happy" has repeatedly topped the industry list such as the effective playback rate of Yunhe positive film, the cat's eye variety network broadcast ratings, and the effective market share of lighthouse positive films.
The methodology behind these good content is also a reliable path for Youku to explore and precipitate - "innovative topic selection, personnel adaptation, production management and quality control, and emphasis on user-side experience".
Xie Ying pointed out that in terms of topic selection, Youku pays attention to the core of the story, whether it can cause resonance and empathy; the actors are more encouraged to use actors who are suitable for the role instead of "large traffic"; Youku's production stage is equipped with financial and production systems, which can check the content, quality and quantity; in addition, Youku also pays attention to two-way communication and timely feedback with users while respecting the creators to form a virtuous circle.
Under this series of content combination strategies, Youku has naturally gained user recognition - in fiscal 2021, Youku's average daily paid users increased by 35% year-on-year. In Q3 of fiscal 2022, Youku's average daily paying users increased by 14% year-on-year.
Efficiency and Digital Intelligence "Throttling"
At the same time as "open source", "throttling" is also imperative. But there is a big controversy here, and even many production companies in the industry think that long-form video platforms have to cut off budgets, cut projects, and do not invest.
Is that right? The answer, of course, is no. Youku's proposition is "don't be extravagant and efficient, don't idols want actors, don't want traffic to value". In other words, "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" is reducing unnecessary extravagance and waste, and increasing quality and value. The meaning of "throttling" lies in removing the false and preserving the truth, rather than "cutting" everything one-size-fits-all.
This has to mention the "digital intelligence of the film and television industry" that Ali has been laying out for a long time.
Many film and television industry practitioners have complained to the "deep sound" of the "backwardness" of the domestic film and television industry: "Many shooting lack of overall thinking, single scene shooting is finished but can not be connected with the before and after content, which leads to rework." This poses a huge challenge to cost control and shooting cycle control. ”
"We are often crowded and often reworked. There was a large scene shooting a group performance of 500 people, and after filming, it was found that the narrative logic of these shots could not be connected, and there was no dynamic preview in advance. In fact, according to the industrial standards, you must get out the script of tomorrow's sub-shots, do a dynamic preview, see how to connect the logic of the narrative, make the story hold, and let the emotions rendered in place. But they didn't, they came up to shoot, and after filming, the editor found that it couldn't be connected, so they spent 300,000 yuan to find 500 people and do it again. ”
A variety of pain points accumulate into a multitude, gradually eroding the of content production. Youku's platform role and global perspective give it the responsibility and ability to maintain the solidity of the content, help all aspects of the film and television industry to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and drive the healthy development of the industry.
In terms of adaptation, through big data, it matches suitable directors, producers, and production companies for IP, and predicts the project prospects, avoiding the subjectivity of film and television production relying entirely on experience, so as to enhance the certainty of content and business. "Si Teng" chose Jing Tian and Zhang Binbin as the protagonists, fully excavating the fit between the two and the role, and a user commented that "this is simply a fairy casting". Not relying on people to lead the drama, to achieve the drama to bring people, it is more attractive to the artist.
In terms of production, Yunshang Production and Film and Television Asset Management Operation can visualize the production progress and asset management of the crew online and visualized to achieve more effective cost control. According to a person familiar with the matter, the management of Youku custom dramas basically realizes the dynamic management of the whole process and adjusts in a timely manner. Shooting footage can be viewed remotely, and once a problem is found, you can immediately propose changes.
For example, Yunshang Production includes a variety of functions such as production co-ordination, payroll and taxation, financial management, and material management, which can support producers to manage dozens or even hundreds of crews in the middle or late stages at the same time, avoid running back and forth, and improve control efficiency.
The film and television asset management operation platform was developed and established three years ago. After the platform is launched, the crew can select costume props on the mini program, which greatly saves travel time and costs. Movies "Send You a Little Red Flower", "Chosin Lake", TV series "Trident", "Long Song Line", variety show "Actors Please Take Place 2", "Chase the Light!" Nearly 300 crews, including "Brother", have adopted the online functions of the platform, saving at least 40 million yuan.
In addition, Youku is also using more digital technologies to support content production.
For example, the LED digital background shooting scheme makes film and television production online and digital, so as to achieve the purpose of saving costs and avoiding the interference of uncertainties. The drama "Emergency PR" used this program for internal shooting, resumed work safely during the epidemic, and took only 119 days to shoot, saving nearly 40% of the time year-on-year. Based on past experience, the cost of the new solution is only half that of green screen shooting.
"Frame Sharing Digital Studio" gives full play to the advantages of virtual shooting, with universal scenery, to improve the efficiency of studio shooting by more than 1 times; no post-synthesis cost, saving more than 50% of the cost of green screen; the digital assets obtained from shooting can also be modified and reused many times.
The capabilities and tools precipitated by these technologies not only benefit Youku itself, but also serve the entire industry, helping film and television producers reduce costs and increase efficiency, and become the emulation objects of other platforms.
On the whole, the core of the digital intelligence of the film and television industry is nothing more than two major aspects of commercial progress, either organizational improvement, or technological innovation - the standardization and coordination of production management are the former, optimizing the stock; the progress of shooting methods and technology is the latter, bringing increments.
The digital intelligence of the film and television industry continues to help the "non-standard" content industry to grasp the certainty, coupled with the return of the industry to rationality, the prices of various production factors tend to be reasonable and stable, and the profit dawn of long videos is close at hand.
We have seen that The quarterly loss of Alibaba's digital media and entertainment sector, where Youku is located, narrowed from nearly 3 billion to 1 billion, and quarterly revenue has gradually increased from 5.6 billion in Q3 of 2019 to 8.1 billion in Q3 of fiscal 2022.
An interesting finding is that whether it is technology, business models, or human growth, it seems that they will mature according to the steps of "the peak of madness - the valley of despair - the slope of enlightenment", and long videos are no exception. After paying too much tuition, the long video has "awakened", both "open source" and "throttling", both "increasing income" and "increasing efficiency".
Youku from the earliest bet on the explosive model, compete for shares, to today's pragmatic, truth-seeking "Youku model", is also the face of the industry.
Although the external environment is still in a Ucca state, various uncertainties challenge the nerves of practitioners, and even other content forms have a protracted and repeated impact on this field, but all kinds of signs, progress, and achievements show that long videos have indeed reached a mature node.