Once again, the video site is mired in controversy.
On April 20, Tencent Video raised the price again: the continuous package year rose from the original 218 yuan to 238 yuan, and the continuous monthly subscription, annual pass, and super film and television VIP consecutive monthly subscription price increased by 5 yuan respectively; a few days ago, Youku was accused by users of learning "slash a knife" from Pinduoduo because "My name is Zhao Jiadi" opened the function of "inviting five friends and unlocking the plot in advance" for members.
Over the past few years, video sites have been one of the regions that have endured the most user fire. "Take the members' money to make bad movies and fan-exclusive films." One user complained that the quality of the website's content had not improved, but the price of membership had to rise every year.
The long video platform, which has been accused of price increases for many years, has not embarked on a smooth road to profitability, but has fallen into the quagmire of stagnant revenue and user scale growth.
The advertising market continues to shrink, and the video platform that once relied on advertising and membership to walk on two legs put more hope on membership payment, and constantly tried to open up ways to increase revenue, such as advanced on-demand.
However, with the rising voice of consumer complaints, the China Consumer Association criticized advanced on-demand by name, and in October last year, Aiyouteng successively rolled off the advanced on-demand function, leaving less and less room for everyone to move.
The dilemma that long video platforms are encountering today is related to their early use of losses for user scale and long-term implementation of free and low-price strategies. In e-commerce, in the field of online car-hailing, and in the field of local life, this strategy has been tried and tested, but in the field of long video that is difficult to monopolize, the simple pursuit of user scale has failed.
Now, when the scale of Aiyouteng's users encounters a growth bottleneck, tries to return to common sense, and tries to increase prices and layer on membership services, it is inevitable that users will have a gap from luxury to frugality.
In fact, as early as the beginning of 2019, iQIYI's solo web series "Exclusive Memory" had launched the activity of inviting friends to help unlock episodes, that is, non-members can watch two episodes every Monday to Wednesday, VIP members can watch a week in advance, and invite 5 friends to unlock the full episode. At that time, this practice did not cause too much public backlash like the recent Youku's "My Name is Zhao Jiadi".
However, after the advanced voD was stopped, the user's right to speak was strengthened again, and the video website became more and more caught up in the situation of being blamed; the new and revitalization means that the Internet industry had long relied on were gradually annoyed by users, and Youku was besieged as a concentrated outbreak of user dissatisfaction with the "slash a knife" model.
At the end of the day, a new balance needs to be formed between platforms, users, and regulation based on common sense. The public opinion environment needs to give more room to the long video platform in the business model, and the platform also needs to set up more clear member rights and provide better content.
Otherwise, this triangle game will be completely shut down, the platform will exhaust many years of funds to withdraw from the market, and users who want to watch "Zhen Huan" and "Wulin Wai Biography" and other rice dramas can only rely on Baidu network disk.
A
The dilemma of the long video platform is not a patent of Aiyouteng, and the "originator" of the video membership system, Netflix, has not had a good time recently.
In the first quarter of this year, Netflix paid subscribers decreased by 200,000, and Netflix explained that the decrease in paid subscribers was mainly related to the suspension of Russian services and the rise in membership fees.
The price increase was used by Netflix as early as 2011. As a result, 800,000 users in the U.S. unsubscribed in the third quarter of the price increase, and more are expected in the fourth quarter. Dramatically, Netflix's revenue increased by 63% in the third quarter, which also made Netflix firm in its price increase route, and it raised prices several times in the following years.
Every price increase on the video platform will encounter a public opinion backlash, but it is fair to say that the platform price increase has its helplessness. Taking iQiyi as an example, its revenue in the fourth quarter of last year was 7.4 billion yuan, and its content cost was 4.9 billion yuan, accounting for 66.2% of revenue. Despite all efforts to control expenses, iQiyi still lost 1 billion yuan (not in accordance with US GAAP) in the quarter.
Although the price increase can continue to live, after all, there is a risk of user loss and word-of-mouth decline, and it can be used once a year. In order to increase ARPU (average revenue per user), video sites have found a new way to charge for it - advanced on demand.
In December 2019, iQIYI and Tencent Video jointly announced that the then hit drama "Qingyu Nian" opened for advanced on-demand, that is, VIP members can unlock more episodes after paying again.
This increase in volume but price increase has caused many members to be dissatisfied. In October last year, due to the damage to the rights and interests of members due to the on-demand by many departments, IYouteng successively rolled off the line.
"Most people outside the industry think that you two (Tencent and iQiyi) must have made a lot of money, and also changed the law to exploit ordinary users, but most users don't know that you lose tens of billions of dollars every year, don't make money at all, push this (advanced on demand) is also afraid of piracy to lose more before you want to remedy it." An iQiyi person once told Burning Finance.
iQiyi has publicly stated that the subscription price of the video platform has been low, so that it "affects the healthy development of the industry", which naturally caused a lot of scolding.
A video industry practitioner calculated an account: when the video platform customizes the project with the production company, or self-made project, the platform has paid 70%-80% or even 90% of the cost in advance, and the credits, screenwriter remuneration, director production fees, and crew expenses are not small expenses, "The pressure is on the platform side, and the platform has been losing money for ten years." ”
Chinese Min University Business School Associate Professor Video Niu Haipeng and others pointed out in their article "The Road to Price and Value Growth of Platforms" that compared with direct and indirect similar services, the pricing level of Chinese video websites is actually low.
There are two main reasons for users' dissatisfaction with the price increase of video platforms: first, different users have different feelings about the value provided by long video platforms, and their reactions to price adjustments are also different; second, the long-term low-price or even free strategy of long-term video platforms has raised user expectations to a certain extent, resulting in a low level of pricing upwards, which will cause users to have a psychological gap.
With the door to advanced on-demand being slammed shut, there is one less way to increase revenue on video platforms.
B
What is visible to the public is that in recent years, the explosive dramas have become increasingly scarce, which is related to the quality of platform content and the scale of platform users. Wang Juan, vice president of Tencent Video, once lamented that "it is becoming more and more difficult to make a blockbuster that all users are satisfied with."
At the same time, many dramas are still welcomed by another part of the user, and vigorously urge the platform to add more, the recent broadcast on Youku "Acquaintance with Junchu" and "Just like the return of the deceased" is so, and even some users call on the platform to re-enable the advanced on-demand mode, "We are willing to spend money."
The "advanced on-demand" of sudden death may be difficult to resurrect in a short period of time, but adjusting the schedule plus means that the platform will have to pay more costs.
"If the platform wants to accelerate the release of a drama, it needs to take into account a lot of needs", a film and television industry practitioner said, just at the user level, it includes users who chase dramas in depth, users who have limited time to watch episodes every day, non-member users, and users who chase other dramas and variety shows.
At the same time, scheduling is a complex process - the producer must prepare the media, the partners must prepare the print and video materials, and the advertising mainly prepares the advertising materials. If a drama is to be released quickly, all processes need to be accelerated and more manpower is needed. "After all, video platforms are commercial playback platforms, they have agreements with users, and producers and advertisers have also signed legal agreements, if the playback cycle changes, affecting the producers or advertisers, the platform also faces the risk of breach of contract and compensation."
Compared with traditional TV stations, the content scheduling of video websites is relatively flexible, but the platform should also consider the scheduling of subsequent dramas to be broadcast and carry out unified scheduling.
In short, the addition means that the platform has to pay more costs, and after the charging channel is closed, the platform can only retreat to the second place and try to pull a new way to promote vitality. After youku broadcast "My name is Zhao Jiadi", some users called on the platform to add more, and the platform opened friends to help unlock the plot mode.
However, this attempt also attracted scolding.
From different positions, the grievances of the platform and the complaints of users are understandable. According to the official "chasing calendar" of "My name is Zhao Jiadi", the time for VIP to watch episodes 23 and 24 has not changed, but friends can watch in advance after unlocking, which is equivalent to sending benefits to member users for free; from the user's standpoint, inviting friends to help the process is cumbersome, and it is worried that once they give in, the platform will increase the frequency of such operations.
This is very different from the views of people in the industry when iQiyi tried to unlock it with the help of friends on "Exclusive Memory" in 2019. Spicy Entertainment Investment once quoted industry insiders as saying that this practice can not only attract ordinary users to promote membership conversion, but also effectively improve the retention rate of existing paid users.
Another view is that ""Exclusive Memory" invites friends to unlock, you can have the opportunity to preemptively watch the full episode, which is based on the rights and interests of members, giving users an additional reward stimulus." ”
C
After the premature death of advanced on-demand and the uncertain future of friends, the long video platform seems to have entered a dead end.
Long videos are trapped in the membership system, and in the end, they can only be solved by upgrading the membership system. In fact, there are many tiered membership products on the market, such as Universal Studios, which can also be listed as entertainment products.
In Universal Studios' payment system, in addition to purchasing tickets, you can also voluntarily purchase fast-track USPE, which is divided into different categories such as full field, partial project, and single item.
Aiyouteng's master Netflix has also been implementing a membership tiering system, dividing members into three levels: basic, standard and advanced, and the pricing of senior members is 19.99 US dollars / month, which is about twice the pricing of basic members.
After the advanced VOD is forced to go offline, the hierarchical operation for members may be the only way to drag long videos out of the predicament.
"User needs are diverse, and a unified VIP can be difficult to satisfy everyone." The above-mentioned video industry practitioners pointed out that there are users with higher requirements for the quality of movie viewing screens, and there are users who are more interested in chasing the progress of the drama and the content related to the plot, "It is necessary to set up a set of tools to serve different users, and in the case that advanced on-demand is not allowed, the platform can only meet the requirements of 90% of the members first." ”
Of course, compared with the past in the middle of the episode broadcast, the temporary launch of advanced on-demand or friend assistance functions, and the operation method that attracts user disgust, the platform should set the rights and interests of members at all levels in advance.
Wang Juan later reflected that the controversy caused by the advanced on-demand mode of "Qing Yu Nian" was not unrelated to the platform's "lack of considerate grasp of members' notification and consumer psychology", "to adopt a more scientific, orderly and more respectful way of users".
Price adjustment is necessary to solve the current problems of video websites, but at the same time, the industry should pay attention to both pricing methods and pricing structures.
"The first is to be transparent", the above-mentioned video industry practitioners said, the platform's pricing rules, the services provided must be transparent, fulfill the obligation to inform in advance, "the platform and users must abide by this spirit of the contract." ”
On the other hand, users should give the platform model room for innovation and trial and error, can not say "no" to all fresh models, and judge whether the platform has crossed the thunder pool according to the low-cost services enjoyed in the past decade.
At the end of the day, a user's willingness to pay depends on the content of the platform. However, if the video platform does not have enough room for innovation and investment, it is impossible to produce explosive dramas.
Only when the platform and users fully respect common sense, the payment model can operate healthily, the long video industry can form a positive cycle, and the high-quality content needed by users can be released.