The author | lemon
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Recently, an anonymous person close to Station B told "New Entropy" that the live broadcasting business department of Station B plans to lay off employees, the list has been preliminarily prepared, and after the Shanghai area returns to normal, layoff interviews will be conducted, and this layoff will affect the entire live broadcasting department.
The reason for the layoffs may be the imbalance between the live broadcast area of Station B and the settled guild, and the live broadcast department "allows" the settled guild to brush the water with unlimited rebates higher than the industry standard, resulting in an imbalance in the ecology of the live broadcast area. For example, the anonymous person said that the guild will brush 100 yuan at the B station, and the normal B station will draw 40 yuan from it, but now the B station will give the guild anti-20-40 yuan, and last year, under extreme circumstances, the platform would even return 108-109 yuan, just to attract the guild to continue to brush the water. In this regard, "New Entropy" has asked Station B for verification, but has not received a response as of press time.
Judging from the latest guild sharing policy of Station B in 2022, it is indeed very "atmospheric". New anchors who settle in after January 1, 2022 will enjoy 70% of the no-responsibility reward share for 3 months, and after 3 months, they can also get 20% of the reward share by completing the task on the 50% basic share. Even if the new anchor under the guild performs well, Station B will also give corresponding basic salary support and traffic resource support.
However, at the 2021 financial report meeting, CEO Chen Rui made it clear that Station B should enter the stage of cost reduction and efficiency increase. "Control all the money that should not be spent, and at the same time increase the efficiency of the money that should be spent."
Live broadcast layoffs may be the first step in reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the live broadcast department of Station B.
01 Brush list guild invasion B station live broadcast?
"Atmospheric owner!"
Starting from the free virtual gift "spicy strips" to the virtual gifts that need real gold and silver, the gentle voice of the anchor draws the hands of the fans, and each virtual gift can be exchanged for a real interaction, and the "audience" in the live broadcast room also "spontaneously" thanked each "boss" who gave gifts for the anchor.
"Now the live broadcast area of Station B is becoming more and more like the YY of the past." Senior B station user Li Fu sighed that the current live broadcast area has become a section with the most lack of B station atmosphere, once focused on the game, and now the various partitions have been occupied by a large number of so-called "face value" anchors, and the live broadcast content is constantly asking for gifts to help them play the guild PK game. "What's the difference between that and the previous show live?"
In 2015, Station B launched the live broadcast section, but the response has been flat, until the end of 2019, Station B seems to have decided to take the initiative. High-priced signing of well-known game anchor Feng Timo, and the introduction of external entertainment guilds, on the basis of the original virtual gifts, increase the "great navigation" tip channel, fans can buy "ferry tickets", become captains (198 yuan / month), admirals (1998 yuan / month), governors (19998 yuan / month).
At the end of 2019, on the eve of the League of Legends S10 season, Station B also threw 800 million yuan to win the exclusive broadcast rights of the League of Legends S10-S12 season for 3 years, which proved to be a successful adventure, Station B not only made a profit in the distribution of broadcast rights, but also pulled the activity of its own live broadcast area, and the live viewing of Station B reached a record peak during the S10 season, which was twice the peak of the S9 season.
At the beginning of 2020, Station B continued to exert efforts, the former CEO of Big Goose Culture Wang Yuyang and COO Wang Zhikai "jumped ship" to the live broadcast department of Station B, Wang Yuyang was directly "parachuted" into the head of the department, and Big Goose Culture also merged with Little Elephant Mutual Entertainment to form Little Elephant Big Goose Culture Co., Ltd.
It is worth noting that before the creation of the Big Goose Culture, Wang Yuyang was responsible for the star brokerage and PGC content of Dota 2 and league of legends in Huya Live, and after the establishment of the Big Goose Culture, he also focused on the live broadcast brokerage business, and was familiar with the gameplay of the guild brush list.
Engaged in the anchor brokerage business for many years, Wang Zhikai believes that "anchor brokerage is actually to do traffic. ”
Open the B station, the second live broadcast room of the popular list of the whole station, the number of fans of the anchor is only 2111, and the number of viewers is only more than 200 people, which does not seem to be enough to support the ranking of the second hot list, but if you carefully study the rules of the popular list of the B station, it is not difficult to understand this phenomenon.
The B station hot list is sorted according to the contribution value obtained by the anchor in a certain period of time, and the whole station and the partition are sorted, and the top ten live broadcast rooms can get a number of traffic recommendations with varying amounts. In other words, which live broadcast room has more gifts in a short period of time, which live broadcast room can get more traffic recommendations.
In the second hot list of the whole site of the live room contribution list, it can be clearly seen that only two people really brush gifts, in the other live broadcast room on the whole site hot list, the contribution list data differentiation is more obvious, in addition to the list brushed a large number of gifts, the rest of the audience's tip is minimal. In the contribution list of most anchors, there are few cases where the data differentiation is so obvious.
Hu Ke, a practitioner in the live broadcasting industry, told "New Entropy" that today Station B is still using the ancient guild system to play, "pulling new rewards, starting rewards, self-brushing water rebates, the surface is prosperous, in fact, the inside has been hollowed out." For the authenticity of the layoffs, Hu Ke said, "If it is true, it is a good thing for Station B." ”
02 Why don't young people love station B live broadcasting
Doing live broadcasting, Station B used to be serious.
Lu Xin, the head of a guild, told "New Entropy" that a series of actions at the end of 2019 of station B made many small and medium-sized publics see its determination to develop live broadcast business, when the head live broadcast platforms such as Huya and Douyu were occupied by the big guild, and the small and medium-sized guilds did not have much to say, and the B station live broadcast gave many preferential conditions, such as high shares, official signing, etc., and even gave a promise that if you go to other platforms to dig big anchors, the cost of digging people will be reimbursed by 120%.
Relying on a large number of preferential policies, the rapid rise of the "guild" ecology of Station B should have attracted more and more guilds, but many guilds "stopped". Lu Xin said that the guilds that can "eat meat" are still those big guilds, and they are inextricably linked to the live broadcast department of station B.
In the monthly quality guild ranking of Station B, Little Goose Elephant ranked first, and the founder of Lingxi Interactive Entertainment, who ranked second, was also a former employee of Big Goose. According to Lu Xin, there are many former big goose employees in the live broadcast department of station B as the person in charge, and some people have done half of the revenue of the area they are responsible for, "but he is the big goose system." ”
Since the launch of the live broadcast section of station B in 2015, station B has not eaten too many dividends, and in the financial report data, the revenue brought by mobile games has always occupied the majority. Until the vigorous development of live broadcasting business in 2019, the revenue brought by value-added services such as B station live broadcasting and large members has risen rapidly, and in 2021, value-added service revenue will exceed mobile game revenue for the first time, accounting for about 30% of the overall revenue.
From the cost point of view, affected by the rapid rise in the cost of anchor and UP main sharing, the revenue sharing cost of station B increased by 91% over the same period last year, exceeding 2.4 billion yuan, accounting for 42% of the overall revenue, and the overall gross profit margin of station B was also pulled down to 20%, down about 3% from the same period last year.
Chen Rui, CEO of Station B, once said that the live broadcast business of Station B is not only a revenue business, but also a necessary ability of Station B, "Because we are a complete content ecology, live broadcasting is an important part of the entire ecological environment." In Chen Rui's vision, the B station live broadcast section should be a basic tool of the UP master, in the blank period of video creation, up main can interact with fans through live broadcasting, enhance stickiness, so that live broadcast and video creation form a two-way cycle, and promote the overall content growth.
Nowadays, looking at the live broadcast area of the B station that is rampant in the list, perhaps Chen Rui has felt that the B station live broadcast is getting farther and farther away from his own imagination.
Commercialization is difficult to B station is a common problem, UP main monetization channels are very limited, recently even up owners said that their video creation incentive income fell by 80% compared with usual.
The live broadcast plate should have become another monetization channel for up the main, at the end of 2021, B station even spent 100 million to get a payment license, and then carried out grayscale testing on the "little yellow car" function, intending to join the large army of live streaming with goods, but nearly half a year later, the "small yellow car" of B station is still low-key hidden in the individual live broadcast room.
Station B CFO Fan Xin more clearly gave the B station profit schedule, non-GAAP operating loss ratio will be narrowed year by year from 2022, by improving commercial efficiency, increasing single MAU revenue, controlling operating expenses, it is expected to achieve breakeven under non-GAAP by 2024.
The profit node has been set, the desire to make money in Station B is getting higher and higher, and the rectification of the live broadcast department with high costs seems to have become inevitable.
However, the veteran players of Huya Douyu have an absolute user advantage, the new players of Douyin Kuaishou hold huge traffic support, in the live broadcast track, B station is still a "cute new", if you want to make money from live broadcast business, it is still obstructive and long.