Author | Yun Mengze
Edit | Zhou Ye
The road to live broadcasting of Station B has not been hot for a long time, and the layoff storm has been raging.
According to Sina Technology news, recently, an anonymous person close to Station B said 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, layoffs will be interviewed, and the layoffs will affect the entire live broadcast department.
As for the reason, the report said that it may be caused by the ecological imbalance between the live broadcast area of Station B and the guild.
In response to the news of layoffs, Station B responded to the live broadcast department or will lay off the overall layoffs: the live broadcast business is very good, gross profit has been improving for three consecutive years, and the future is one of the most important businesses of Station B. It is currently actively recruiting externally, with more than 40 positions in the recruitment.
Behind the drama staged by the layoff storm, it also revealed that the live broadcast of station B is walking in the depths of the water.
Live guild brush volume, has been a common phenomenon in the live broadcast industry, whether it is the old tiger tooth, fighting fish, or latecomers vibrato, kuaishou, have tasted the sweetness of the "guild system" play, B station live broadcast naturally also wants to take advantage of this qingyun.
Can be the two-dimensional attribute of the B station live broadcast room, in the reproduction of the "guild system" and "small yellow car" and other ways of play, brush list rampant, reduced to the show, especially in the "guild system" play, with interests to pull, the union continues to rebate brush water, directly destroying the entire live broadcast ecology of station B, but also damage the user experience.
Young users do not buy it, and there is no soil for the brush list play, but the commercialization goal carried by the B station live broadcast business is very important.
Station B CEO Chen Rui once said that the live broadcast business is a necessary ability of Station B and an important part of the entire ecological environment, and CFO Fan Xin also clearly gave the profit schedule of Station B not long ago.
Station B CEO Chen Rui, photo/Bilibili Danmaku Weibo
According to the 2021 financial report of Station B, the revenue brought by value-added services such as live broadcasting and large members of Station B has risen rapidly, and the revenue of value-added services in 2021 exceeded the revenue of mobile games for the first time, accounting for about 30% of the overall revenue.
The live broadcast business of Station B has been placed high hopes, and the burden of commercialization has also fallen on the shoulders.
But even so, the B station live broadcast business is still criticized by the outside world, the rumors of this layoff incident, but also exposed the B station live broadcast in the mode of play, user attributes of multiple hidden dangers, B station live broadcast business seems to have come to the crossroads of fate, want to hand over the breakeven report card within the profit schedule period, the task is long.
1, B station live broadcast, still using the old method
Under the storm of layoffs, the ancient live broadcast play of Station B, "guild system", has become the target of public criticism.
According to Sina Technology, the opening of the live broadcast business is due to the imbalance in the ecology of the live broadcast area, and the live broadcast department "allows" the live broadcast department to enter the guild to brush the flow of water with unlimited rebates higher than the industry standard, resulting in an inflated amount of flow, but the platform has not received corresponding profits.
According to Xin entropy, the guild will brush 100 yuan at the B station, and the normal B station will extract 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 will even return 10809 yuan, just to attract the guild to continue to brush the water.
Guild system gameplay in the live broadcast platform trend, in fact, the B station of this game, is not exclusive and original, Huya, Kuaishou, Douyu and other live broadcast platforms have long introduced the guild system.
Station B Guild Entry Page, Picture / Bilibili official website
The so-called "guild system" gameplay, in short, is an organization that gathers various anchors. With the support of capital and resources, the high-quality Internet celebrity anchors are gathered into the guild, the guild can provide packaging, publicity, signing negotiations, and pulling fans, and the successful anchors will accumulate a large number of fans on the platform, through getting tips, while generating income for the guild and the platform, and the guild and the platform will then share these revenues according to the agreement agreed by both parties.
For the rumor of "live guild brushing water", the B station official has not given a relevant response at present, but from the latest guild sharing policy of the B station this year, the B station live broadcast is also a blood cost.
According to the "Bilibili Live 2022 Guild Settlement Introduction", new anchors who settle in after January 1, 2022 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.
Although the guild gameplay of Station B is tempting, it is actually a comprehensive reproduction of the experience of other live broadcast platforms, and even higher than the "crazy" decision of the industry sharing standard, which is somewhat of a drinking and thirst quenching thirst.
As early as 2019, the Kuaishou Live Broadcast Guild was opened to the public, when Kuaishou gave the guild a rebate of up to 10% on the basis of five or five points with the guild anchor, and the guild could get up to 10% rebate, and the originator of the guild system - YY Live Broadcasting, has divided the guild and anchor into nearly 30 billion in the past decade, and the cooperative guild has exceeded 15,000.
Pulling new rewards, starting rewards, and self-brushing water rebates can be described as heavy gold, and there will be brave men.
Under the generous guild incentive policy, the major guilds in Station B have planned and pulled their anchors' live broadcast rooms to frantically brush the list, creating a "lively" live broadcast event.
However, such a replica of the rebate pomp and circumstance has also added a heavy financial burden to Station B, according to the financial report, Station B's revenue sharing cost in Q4 of 2021 is 2.43 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 91% year-on-year. Gross margin decreased to 19%, mainly due to an increase in revenue-sharing costs.
In the B station monthly guild quality list, the little elephant goose ranks first, but for the big guild that has settled on many live broadcast platforms, the small elephant goose does not attach great importance to the live broadcast of the B station.
Station B Live Guild Leaderboard, Photo/ Bilibili Live Guild Center
In the 2-3 month war report of the little elephant goose, its anchor 73,000 people reached 1.42 billion fans on the whole network, and the daily spread of Meunier and Eggplant Maoming reached 100 million, reaching the top of the Douyin hot list, and the continuous victory of Huya Red Lotus also brought good traffic to Huya.
On the other hand, the B station, this year's more out of the circle is only the "magical old skin VFX" to create a special effects creative blockbuster, it is obvious that the direct reproduction of the "guild system" gameplay can not become the moat of the B station, the result has been counterproductive.
In addition to the guild system, Station B has also launched a small yellow car function since the end of last year, opening the road of live streaming with goods.
But the content platform to increase the live e-commerce play, B station is also along the vibrato, Kuaishou and other live broadcast platforms have long been through the road in the crawling, can be placed in front of the B station live broadcast, but also is not only the two-dimensional commodity self-operated category narrow, e-commerce SKU less dilemma, B station 65 million daily active volume and daily active more than 600 million vibrato, daily active 300 million kuaishou narrow road can only look at its back.
On the winding trail of live broadcasting, the latecomer B station is still using the old game of competitors to catch up, and wants to achieve overtaking in the corner, in reality, this road is not only difficult to walk, but also causes a reaction to the B station.
2. Why don't B station users love B station live broadcasting?
The small broken station, which is dominated by heavy two-dimensional communities and ACG content, seems to be incompatible with the live broadcast attribute.
According to the data of Huoyao Cloud, the average age of new users of Station B is about 20 years old, mainly young two-dimensional user groups, of which more than 50% of users are from third-tier and third-tier cities. According to Chen Rui mentioned in the public speech on the 12th anniversary of Station B last year, the proportion of monthly active users aged 35 and below in Station B exceeded 86%, and the average age of new users was 20.2 years old.
Judging from the user portraits of Station B, the secondary attributes and consumption capabilities of its mainstream users in their age groups are incompatible with the road of live broadcasting.
Portrait of creator, photo / 2021 B station creator ecology report
However, under the blessing of the guild system sharing policy, the anchors of Station B are desperately brushing the list in the live broadcast room, guiding fans to buy "ferry tickets", and the small broken station that was once full of two-dimensional atmosphere is now filled with the heat wave atmosphere of the show live broadcast.
Open social platforms such as Weibo and Zhihu, and complain about the live broadcast section of Station B can be seen everywhere.
Under the topic of Sina Weibo's "B station live broadcast", there have only been 7 user discussions so far this year, which is unpopular to the extreme.
Similarly, in the question section of "how to evaluate the live broadcast of station B", Gao Zan's answer to the answers such as "different attributes of the user group" and "the live broadcast atmosphere has deteriorated" can be glimpsed that today's live broadcast of station B is not favored by old users, and even many users say bluntly, "Station B live broadcast is now taking the old road of fighting fish and YY".
When the user portrait does not match the live broadcast gameplay at all, it directly leads to the discouragement of the two-dimensional main user group from the live broadcast.
Secondly, for the live broadcast room with goods, most of the secondary users of station B are not interested. Because most of the fans of the UP master pay attention to it because of its video works, and the live broadcast with goods that deviates from the two-dimensional attribute also makes many fans question "the commercial atmosphere is too heavy" and "the monetization frequency is too high".
At the same time, the divergence of the atmosphere and content output in the live broadcast room has also made the in-depth participants of the B station live broadcast such as anchors and trade unions more and more utilitarian, and the reward soil created by the B station the day after tomorrow has not changed the growth environment of other types of anchors other than the second dimension.
Spend thousands of dollars to sign a well-known game anchor Feng Timo, spend a lot of money to introduce the external entertainment guild, and on the basis of the original virtual gifts, add the "big voyage" tip channel, fans can buy "ferry tickets" and become captains (198 yuan / month), admirals (1998 yuan / month), governors (19998 yuan / month).
Great Navigation Tipping Interface, Picture/Bilibili Live Room
The lack of two-dimensional high-quality content filling, and full of commercial atmosphere of the B station live broadcast room, so that the original B user group is not willing to pay.
In addition, the "little yellow car" e-commerce game of chasing horses on other live broadcast platforms has not stirred up much splash under the "no buying" attitude of B station users, and nearly half a year has passed, and the "little yellow car" of B station has still not popularized the live broadcast room.
Judging from the performance of the B station live broadcast, whether it is the atmosphere of the live broadcast room or the commercial experience, they are ignoring the user attributes of their own platform, which is contrary to the will of the B station users, and naturally cannot be loved and sought after by users.
How to find a balance between protecting content and taking into account user preferences and platform tonality is the most important problem that B station live broadcasting should think about at the moment.
3. Live streaming with goods is shallow, where is the commercialization of live broadcasting business?
Recruiting UP main internal tests, acquiring payment licenses, and launching the "little yellow car" function, Station B can go all out for the commercialization of live broadcasting services.
Not long ago, Station B announced unaudited financial reports for the whole year of 2021 and the fourth quarter. According to the financial report, thanks to the good development momentum of live broadcasting and large member business, the revenue of the value-added service business of Station B reached 1.89 billion yuan, a high-speed increase of 52% year-on-year. The revenue of value-added service business for the whole year reached 6.93 billion yuan, an increase of 80% year-on-year.
For the contribution brought by the live broadcasting business, the specific amount is not announced in the annual report, and it has been mentioned in a lump sum.
From the existing several B station-led live broadcasts, UP owners have not clearly announced their sales results, and even in the entire B station live broadcast platform, there has not been a similar myth of other platforms with goods, which also makes the commercialization of B station live streaming with goods a mysterious veil.
But it is certain that the B station live broadcast business is late, the base is small, the contribution to revenue is not large, the current B station has not promoted live broadcast with goods on a large scale, "live streaming with goods" is more like "private domain with goods", B station live broadcast commercialization is shallow taste.
The thunder and rain are small, but why should the B station live broadcast business continue to promote commercialization under the influence of strong enemies?
The competition of live track has been white-hot, Huya, Douyu, Yingke, Momo, etc. are already old players, and the latecomers have a larger user base of vibrato, fast hands are rising, at this time, it is tantamount to hard to hit the money.
But Station B cannot hesitate, after all, as an important part of the community ecology, the live broadcast section has formed a good two-way feedback with the community's creative ecology.
Station B's investment in live broadcasting business is also slowly exerting its effectiveness. According to the financial report, in Q4 2021, the revenue sharing cost of station B increased by 91% year-on-year, more than 2.4 billion yuan, mainly due to the increase in revenue share paid to live broadcasters and content creators, as of 2021, more than 70% of the million fan UP owners of station B are also live anchors, and more than 600,000 content creators throughout the year receive revenue through live broadcasting.
In the financial report data, value-added services have also become the largest source of income for Station B, accounting for 32.8%, surpassing the mobile game business, and the revenue of live broadcast services and value-added services is more closely related.
According to the financial report, since last year, Station B has strengthened the commercialization capacity building of value-added services, including large members, live broadcast services and other value-added services, the number of paid users has increased, resulting in a 80% year-on-year increase in the revenue of value-added services of Station B compared with the same period in 2020.
Station B CEO Chen Rui also said that the live broadcast business of Station B is not only a revenue business, but also a necessary ability of Station B. On the March earnings call, CFO Fan Xin gave a profit schedule for Station B, which is expected to achieve break-even under non-GAAP (non-general accounting principles) by 2024.
The profit target to be borne by the commercialization of live streaming with goods is self-evident, since the strategic position of the live broadcast business in the B station is extraordinary, can there be a way out for the B station live broadcast without splash?
Station B has a rich category of UP masters, and revitalizes UP masters as anchors, which not only caters to the tastes of user groups, but also allows the content ecology of Station B to be expanded, which is an advantage that live broadcast platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou cannot match.
In addition, the virtual anchor is also the unique advantage of the B station, according to the darkflame data, in January 2022, the total income obtained by the virtual anchor of the B station from the audience through live broadcast tipping was 59.59 million yuan, an increase of 146% year-on-year, and the average number of daily paid users and the average number of daily interactions were 34,000 and 272,000, respectively, an increase of 153% and 113% year-on-year.
Virtual anchor live broadcast interface, picture / Lingzi Kanmu _Suzuk virtual anchor live broadcast room
However, Station B does not seem to take advantage of its own unique attributes, and is convinced of the commercial monetization routines of other live broadcast platforms.
"Shouting wheat, brushing the list, tipping", the sudden change in the style of painting in the live broadcast room, which makes more and more secondary young user groups of station B unacceptable, after all, in the live broadcast tip, the current consumption capacity of post-95 and post-00s is low, which is not enough to "add bricks and tiles" to the live broadcast business of station B.
After the B station live broadcast deviated from the user group, it has played the gameplay of other live broadcast platforms over and over again, the "guild system" gameplay has led to ecological imbalance, and the "small yellow car" with goods has stagnated in the embarrassing situation that users do not buy it.
In the "complaints" of B station users, the live broadcast gameplay can be said to be a failure.
The leak in the house coincided with overnight rain, and regulatory policies also released a tightening signal for the live broadcast field. On April 15, the Department of Online Audio-visual Program Management of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Publication Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department jointly issued a notice to strengthen the management of game live broadcasting on online audio-visual program platforms. The circular requires that online audio-visual platforms be strictly prohibited from disseminating illegal games, and it is strictly forbidden for illegal and immoral personnel to use live broadcasts to make their voices appear on camera.
Heavy money tips, e-commerce with goods, live commercial monetization of the path is nothing more than a few categories, but the time left for B station trial and error is not much.
The goal of limited-time profitability hangs high above the head, but the live broadcast business that bears heavy responsibilities is still bleeding. In the environment of stricter policies, the pace of catching up with the opponent's B station is getting bigger and bigger, but the difficulty of breaking through is getting bigger and bigger.
(The header image of this article comes from Bilibili's official Weibo.) ）