Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Yu Thorn, author | Yiqing Naozo, editor| Tim |
On April 8, Tencent Video held an "early spring business sharing meeting" that "swiped the screen" in the social network of film and television practitioners.
Because although it is said to be a business sharing meeting, one of the core demands is to save money.
At the meeting, Tencent Video put forward the main concepts of "cost reduction and efficiency increase", "cost optimization" and "creative incentive", and proposed the introduction of "market price + member a posterio incentive" to curb unreasonable inflated prices in the production chain and limit the cost.
Source: Sina Weibo @ Sina TV
Many industry practitioners have expressed their agreement on "cost reduction and efficiency increase". After the producer Zhao Ke saw the news, he immediately discussed with the surrounding film and television industry practitioners. Everyone's general attitude is not surprising, because the industry problems are prominent, and indeed it has reached a moment of urgent need to be solved; producer Wang Zhigang is looking forward to seeing the specific implementation of the industry, after all, the film and television industry chain is complex, and I hope that specific problems can be analyzed specifically.
iQIYI said that the film and television industry is indeed facing many difficulties, supply-side reform and cost reduction and efficiency increase will help change this situation, so that content production is more rational, the industry ecology is healthier, and all participants in all links can achieve more sustainable development. A rationalized price system helps to squeeze out the bubble at the production end, making the cost allocation more reasonable, and the cost savings can be invested in more creations.
Surviving is more important than anything else
Ten years of "burning money" and losses have made long-term video platforms such as Aiyouteng miserable.
In June 2021, Youku President Fan Luyuan appealed at the 9th China Online Audiovisual Conference: "This industry is a profitable enterprise, but when will the three of us (Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent) be profitable?" According to the current living environment, profit is just around the corner. ”
"Reducing costs and increasing efficiency" is already a must.
At the end of 2021, iQiyi had a round of large-scale layoffs; according to 36Kr, starting from the end of 2021, the online video BU department of the PCG (platform and content business group) where Tencent Video is located is also undergoing a certain proportion of personnel layoffs.
This stems from the fact that content costs have been rising step by step over the past 10 years, but membership growth and advertising revenues for long-form video platforms have slowed.
Guotai Junan research shows that in the three years from 2017Q3 to 2020Q3, the number of paid members of the long video platform with "Aiyouteng" as the head has slowed down after more than 100 million people; Questmobile shows that in the distribution of the advertising market share of typical media types of China's Internet from 2019 to 2023, the share of online video advertising has gradually begun to be squeezed by e-commerce and short video, from 5.8% in 2019 to 4.3% in 2022.
On October 4, 2021, Aiyouteng announced on the same day that it would cancel the advanced on-demand mode. This new exploration of business models, which began in June 2019, also came to an end two years later.
Under the situation that market share is gradually squeezed and content costs remain high, "cost reduction and efficiency increase" has become the consensus of the long video industry, and it is also a collective self-help of the industry.
In order to curb the sky-high royalties of hundreds of millions of dollars during the "copyright war" period, Aiyouteng has increased the proportion of self-made and customized content, starting from the planning stage to control costs; secondly, introducing and optimizing the content accounting model, from the self-made or purchase logic of 2B to the revenue accounting logic of 2C, thereby reducing the risk caused by subjective ratings. In early 2022, the sub-account drama "One Flash and One Shining Star" broadcast effectively exceeded 400 million yuan, and the box office of the sub-account of the broadcast period exceeded 77 million, which refreshed the record of iQiyi's station and also verified the possibility of high-quality sub-account dramas.
Source: Sina Weibo @ a flash of a shining star official micro
At the beginning of March 2022, Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, mentioned on the earnings call that China's long video industry has entered a new stage, characterized by the pursuit of efficiency, the pursuit of loss reduction, and the ultimate pursuit of profitability, rather than the previous pursuit of market share and rapid growth.
"Cost reduction and efficiency increase" is also written in the financial reports of major platforms in fiscal year 2022.
iQIYI's full-year operating loss ratio in 2021 narrowed from 15% in the same period last year to 10%, and the fourth quarter operating loss ratio narrowed from 13% in the same period last year to 7%; Tencent mentioned in its 2021 annual report that in view of the recent market environment, measures are being taken to optimize costs, reduce Tencent Video's financial losses, while maintaining its leadership position; Alibaba's fiscal 2022 Q3 financial report shows that Youku's average daily paying user scale increased by 14% year-on-year. Continue to improve operational efficiency and narrow losses through efficient investment and production of high-quality content.
Tencent Video's "early spring sharing meeting" further moved the "cost reduction and efficiency increase" from the concept to the practice.
Perhaps long-distance video platforms have realized that "cost reduction and efficiency increase" is not just to return costs and prices to a rational state, but platforms should abandon the traditional Internet thinking of "burning money" to obtain customers, and instead seek the stability of high-quality content and cash flow.
After all, in the entire period of volatility in the Internet industry, it is the most important thing to "survive" first.
"Consensus" and "Doubt" of Cost Reduction
Sky-high film remuneration is always a heavy "mountain" in the hearts of film and television people.
In 2016, CCTV News reported that the total remuneration of the two male and female protagonists of "Ruyi Chuan" was as high as 150 million, and the remuneration of many traffic artists for a play also reached 80 million to 120 million; Zheng Shuang's remuneration for "Qiannu Ghost" (later renamed "Only Ask about Love in This Life") through the Yin-Yang contract was as high as 160 million, which was nearly ten times the profit of Hengdian Pictures in 2021.
At the same time, not every high investment will lead to a corresponding high return. After Zheng Shuang was classified as a bad artist, the "Only Ask About the Vicissitudes of Love in This Life" project also had no chance to meet with the audience, and the capital behind it, Beijing Culture, was also suspended for a day on April 30, shortly after the incident, and its stock name was changed from "Beijing Culture" to "ST Beiwen".
Therefore, for Tencent Video's concept of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency", producer Chen Yitao is very supportive. After seeing the pricing of various types of jobs from the corresponding reports, he also felt that it was relatively reasonable.
Film and television monologue has previously reported that the information exposed in the early spring sharing meeting has a director and screenwriter's maximum price of about 300,000 yuan, a maximum remuneration of first-line actors is about 25 million yuan, and the top drama publicity cost is about 3 million, and the quotation must not exceed this upper limit.
"The writer and director have a maximum of 300,000 per episode, if a drama is 24 episodes, in fact, the salary is 7.2 million, and the production team that generally receives this kind of remuneration must be the head, doing S+ level projects." If a project only has 100 million, how to bear more than 7 million salaries, so the pricing in the report is not low at all, compared to a project with a purchase price of 8 million yuan per episode, this is actually just a return to a reasonable range. ”
In June 2018, the relevant departments issued the "Notice", emphasizing that the total film remuneration of all actors and guests of each film, TV series and online audio-visual program shall not exceed 40% of the total production cost, and the remuneration of the main actors shall not exceed 70% of the total film remuneration; in February 2019, at iQIYI's 2018 financial report meeting, Gong Yu, founder and CEO of iQIYI, revealed that since August 2018, the content procurement and production costs have begun to decline significantly. The procurement cost of the head copyright drama fell from more than 15 million per episode to less than 8 million.
Three years later, today's pricing is more rational than the high-cost procurement of a single episode. For pricing, only long video platforms such as Aiyouteng reach a consensus and strictly abide by the bottom line, which may be effective.
Chen Yitao revealed that the actor salary cut has been called for a long time by the industry, but has not been able to hammer out, "I simply give an example, some newcomer actors, I know very well in my heart, he is worth 200,000, 300,000, but he can report three million when he opens his mouth, because I don't give, there are others to give, the industry is involved in a lot." ”
Once the entire industry reaches a consensus, eliminates disorderly competition, and uniformly implements according to pricing, the chaos of high film remuneration can be curbed to a certain extent. In essence, "cost reduction and efficiency increase" is actually just urging long-term video platforms to pull content production back to the normal water level from the irrationality of film and television capital fever and high film remuneration.
Producer Zhao Ke also saw the relevant report of Tencent's early spring sharing meeting in the circle of friends, and he joked: "After all, the landlord's family has no surplus grain." ”
For cost reduction and efficiency increase, Zhao Ke is very supportive, after all, film and television dramas with hundreds of millions of costs, once they are not broadcast well, will inevitably bring losses. The concept put forward by Tencent Video can not only serve as a warning to some practitioners who are asking for prices, but also help the industry to restore rationality as soon as possible.
The contraction of platform costs has led to a reduction in the pass rate of zhao Ke's film and television company platform projects. He told Yu Thorn that a long video platform only has one project a month on average, "Now the standard of the meeting is cost performance, not quality." ”
The two projects that the company is preparing now have not even passed the first meeting, and are preparing for the second meeting. In the new round of meeting materials, they are also ready to reduce the project budget.
However, he still has doubts about the specific implementation of pricing for various types of work.
Unlike assembly line factory production, long video is an industry that produces content and creates ideas.
Zhao Ke believes that a creator's remuneration should be composed of a variety of comprehensive factors, including but not limited to: personal ability and experience, the quality of past works, the time and energy spent on the project, communication skills and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, the formulation of film remuneration may be more suitable for the market to dynamically adjust.
Wang Zhigang, a producer who has just done a head project on a long video platform, also has the same considerations. As a creative industry, many places that do not spend money are spending money, and many worthless places are actually very valuable.
The cyclical nature of the film and television industry has led to the existence of hidden costs of a drama, and these are all immeasurable costs. Wang Zhigang's projects, some cycles can be as long as 3-4 years, "some production companies may do ten, only one, then the cost of other failed projects should also be converted to successful projects?" These are not easy to clearly mark the price. ”
"Cost reduction" is already the consensus of the industry. However, how to promote scientifically and accurately in practice is a greater test for the platform and film and television practitioners.
The cost is reduced, and the efficiency is also increased
In addition to "cost reduction", there are also many discussions on how to "increase efficiency".
The sharing meeting mentioned the introduction of "market price + member a posteriometric incentive", which is also a move from "B2B" to "B2C" in the view of producer Chen Yitao. He used the example of the film industry to explain this behavior of long video platforms, "just like part of the film director's salary, it is a share of the income, if the box office is good, the director's income will be higher." ”
In the drama industry, it is not uncommon to invest in projects with large splashes and small effects. For example, in 2018, starring Yang Yang and directed by the well-known director Zhang Li, adapted from the "Wudong Qiankun" of Tianfa Potato, the Douban score was as low as 4.4; the same is true of "The Great Lord of the Northern Spirit Youth", even if Wang Yuan, Ouyang Nana and others drove traffic, but in the end, the Douban reputation was only 5 points.
Image source @ Douban screenshot
The measures of the member's apocalyptic incentive will be determined according to the broadcast effect, "If my drama makes more money, the more I share, the less money is charged at the front end, and more money is taken in the later stage, which is actually an incentive for good content." Chen Yitao told Yu Jie'er.
For long-form video platforms, this initiative not only saves costs, but also avoids "getting over the ground" on content that doesn't play well. For downstream film and television companies, cost reduction and efficiency increase also play a certain role in supervising the quality of content.
Wang Zhigang's last project was broadcast well, and there were many hot searches, but there is no project at present. The signal revealed by Tencent Video's early spring sharing meeting also made him more cautious during the meeting and production process.
Before the project meeting, in order to obtain the recognition of the platform, Wang Zhigang needs to prepare the script in advance, finalize the actors, and be fully prepared, so that the platform can understand what it really wants to express, so as to improve the winning side.
Compressing the cost and quantity of the project will also reduce the loss of platform resources and improve the exposure of good content.
Yunhe data "2021 serial network broadcast performance and user analysis report" shows that in 2021, there were 456 new domestic serials, which has been reduced by 19 compared with 2020. Such a number also means that in 365 days a year, new content emerges every day, and there is no shortage of scenes of competition in the same file.
However, the audience's attention is limited.
Taking the scheduling in February 2022 as an example, Yunhe data shows that many key dramas on the platform such as "The World of People", "Holiday Warm Yangyang 2", "Rural Love 14", "Mirror Twin Cities", "Yan Yu Fu", "City of Streamers" and so on were broadcast in groups.
As the first place in the list of the main film of the whole network series, "The World of Man" was effectively played 1.759 billion in February, and the second place "Holiday Warm Yangyang 2" was effectively played only 537 million, which obviously opened the gap. The large-scale costume fantasy drama "Mirror twin cities" starring Li Yifeng and Chen Yuqi has only 472 million effective broadcasts.
Image source @ cloud data
Raising the standards of the program will make the episode schedule more even and healthy, rather than blindly "inner volume" in the same schedule.
In an interview with Yu Jing'er, Wang Zhigang affirmed the contribution that long video platforms have made to the industry in the past decade. In his view, Aiyouteng is equivalent to using huge funds to subsidize film and television creation, making great contributions and bearing a lot of pressure. As a company that is still more confident in content, Wang Zhigang believes that cost reduction and efficiency increase are a good thing, but it is worth noting that now that cost reduction and efficiency reduction are advocated, "cost reduction" should be a means to serve "efficiency increase".
"The film and television industry is a creative industry, not a cheap industry, and it is not appropriate to measure the market value of creativity at a hard cost. On the contrary, by reducing the unnecessary costs of all aspects of film and television production to improve efficiency, reduce the situation of bad money expelling good money, and let the really excellent content producers and creatives get the market returns they deserve, it is the long-term solution for the development of the industry. ”
Regarding "efficiency", long-term video platforms such as Aiyouteng have also made various attempts long ago.
At Tencent Video's 2020 annual press conference, Sun Zhonghuai, vice president of Tencent and CEO of Penguin Film and Television, summarized three criteria for judging high-quality content, namely re-innovation based on mature models or classic narratives, with outstanding highlights or slots that can trigger word-of-mouth, and respect for the audience, love for works and full of craftsmanship.
When he was a guest of the People's Daily's "Big Coffee Has Words" column, Sun Zhonghuai also mentioned that Tencent Video's most important thing is the overall average success rate, and on this basis, it focuses on the possibility of blockbusters.
Xie Ying, general manager of Youku Drama Center, has introduced in interviews many times that Youku's customized dramas and self-made dramas have a production stage, and at the same time, with financial and production systems, through a series of management evaluations before, during and after the film and television projects, to ensure the quality of content. The KPI of the custom drama station is to ensure that the project cannot be dropped from the project to the broadcast evaluation, and the level not only includes the quality standard, but also represents the matching reference of the platform broadcast and commercialization expectations and resources.
At iQIYI 2021 World Congress, iQIYI CTO Liu Wenfeng also demonstrated iQIYI's production business intelligence system, intelligent integrated production system, and intelligent production toolset, which can assist the quality control and efficiency management of film and television content production from project evaluation to project production process management and front-line shooting.
The price limit and pricing at all ends of the film and television industry is the beginning of the industry's return to rationality, and it is also a necessary premise for "efficiency". In the limited market space and capital pool, it is necessary to tilt more resources to high-quality content, rather than being "speculated" to inflated traffic; it is necessary to leave more content that can retain the audience in the market, rather than in the blind vicious "inner volume", so that the market and the audience lose confidence in the industry.
"If the upstream platform doesn't have money, it's hard for downstream companies to make money." Producer Chen Yitao sighed.
(Zhao Ke and Wang Zhigang are pseudonyms.) ）