A drama is not explosive, no matter how many data are blown out, passers-by and viewers have their own scales in their hearts.
At the end of 2022, in the year-end summary of the TV chapter, Entertainment Studio released the Weibo topic #Is there a real blockbuster drama in 2022#.
Unexpectedly, under this topic, completely different answers appeared.
Some people nominated "The Beginning" that was hot on Weibo at the beginning of the year, some nominated "Canglan Decision" that made Wang Hedi popular, and netizens nominated Youku New Year Crown "Meet Jun Chu, Just Like the Return of the Old Man", Kuyun Quan Satellite TV's peak annual crown "The Rest of Your Life, Please Advise" and so on.
Screenshot from #2022Is there a real blockbuster drama #Topic Words Discussion Page
In the past, the ratings of star dramas and the number of online drama platforms were the most important criteria for measuring popular dramas.
However, in order to curb the chaos of "only playback quantity theory" and brush volume, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video have successively announced the closure of the display of the front-end playback volume of the whole site and launched the popularity of the site. However, there is no unified standard for the popularity value of each platform, just like there is no unified weights and measures, which brings difficulties to horizontal comparison.
Nowadays, the various data lists make the audience, and even the film side, vague about whether the project is a blockbuster. The so-called blockbuster drama has become a public saying that is justified, and the mother-in-law says that the mother-in-law is reasonable.
CCTV Six and movie channels have also become one of the certification standards for popular dramas
Regarding the standards of popular dramas, Entertainment Studio specially talked to long-form video platforms, brands and fans, and found that long-form video platforms pay more attention to the comprehensive performance of the site; The brand side looks at the lineup in the early stage and the eye edge in the later stage; Fans value individual data on episodes and actors.
The platform looks comprehensive
The popularity value on the site is the most intuitive factor for long-form video platforms to measure whether a series is a hit, but the formula for calculating the popularity value of the three major platforms has always been non-public.
The first is to prevent unfair practices such as external brushing. Second, as the core assets of the Internet platform, data and algorithms are trade secrets. According to changes in the environment, the platform will also dynamically adjust the calculation formula.
The popularity value of these perennial hot searches often breaks 10,000, but not many people know what breaking 10,000 means. To this end, Entertainment Studio specially conducted a survey comparison.
In iQiyi, a popularity value of more than 7,000 is usually the starting point for a series to send good news, which means that the drama has become a popular drama; If the popularity breaks through 9,000, it basically means entering the quasi-explosive club. He Rundong once broke the flag of one-handed push-ups when the popularity of "Futuyuan" broke 9,000 in the live broadcast; The works with a popularity value of more than 10,000 are all relatively national explosive dramas.
According to the annual inventory of TV dramas announced on iQiyi's website, iQiyi has five dramas in 2022, "Canglan Tips", "Qing Qing's Daily", "Wind Blowing Half Summer", "The World" and "Punishment Crime", of which the highest popularity value is 10572 of "Canglan Tips". Among the top 10 heat values, the tenth place of "Tang Dynasty Mystery Record" has the highest popularity of 8953, close to the "quasi-explosion" standard of 9000.
Youku mentioned in the announcement that Youku's popularity index will calculate users' multi-dimensional behaviors such as watching, dragging, collecting, and abandoning dramas, and comprehensively consider the influence and social value of the work.
In 2022, Youku has "Acquaintance with Jun Chu, Just Like the Return of the Old", "The Gate of Rebirth", "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes", "Agarwood Like Crumbs, Agarwood Reconstruction", "Ice Rain and Fire", "Ignite Me, Warm You", "Little Forest for Two", and the peak popularity in the station exceeded 10,000. "Lighthouse Professional Edition 2022 Drama Market Observation" shows that "Agarwood Crumbs Agarwood Heavy Flowers" is the work with the most cumulative days of breaking 10,000, with a cumulative total of 51 days exceeding 10,000. According to Youku insiders, the seven works with more than 10,000 popularity on Youku must be projects highly recognized by Youku users in 2022.
Tencent Video once proposed in the announcement of the closure of playback that its popularity value standard mainly refers to users' playback behavior, search behavior and interaction behavior. The solo drama "Star Han Splendid, Moon Rising into the Sea" once mentioned in the war report that "the popularity value of the drama exceeded 30,000 for ten consecutive days and entered the Tencent Video Explosive Club". From this, it can be speculated that the 30,000 popularity value is about the explosive standard in Tencent Video Station. (Due to the popularity value of Tencent Video's launch in June 2022, the popularity value of some dramas will be lost)
In the public data, the dramas with more than 30,000 popularity on Tencent's website in 2022 include "Menghualu" and "Star Han Splendid, Moon Rising into the Sea", which were also selected as the TOP 10 annual member favorites and bullet screen interaction announced by Tencent Video.
Xiaohui, the drama operator of the long video platform, told Entertainment Studio that these popularity also need to be viewed dialectically. "For example, S-class big projects must at least go to the explosive line, but A-level projects are almost explosive. Some VIP pure enjoyment dramas are also popular if they are as popular as non-VIP pure enjoyment dramas. For example, some dramas end in a week, and if the effect is the same as that of a drama that broadcasts for a month, it is also very good. ”
Secondly, the commercial value of the series, such as the platform DAU during the broadcast, membership revenue, completion rate, and member recruitment, are also important factors for the platform to measure the popular drama.
If a drama can significantly raise the DAU water level, it will be regarded as explosive content by the platform. Tencent once mentioned in its quarterly earnings report that "Menghualu" is the first drama on the whole network in June 2022. According to Questmobile, Tencent Video's mobile DAU in June was more than 20% ahead of its closest peers.
Whether member income can be returned or even made money within the settlement cycle (usually T+30 (days), T is the member broadcast cycle), whether the completion rate exceeds two-thirds, and whether the member recruitment is prominent, are also the data that long video platforms focus on. iQiyi also mentioned in the 2022 Q3 financial report that the third-quarter dramas "Canglan Tips", "Punishment" and "Genius Basic Law" ranked among the top 3 in the quarter's membership revenue contributions.
In addition, social media performance such as Weibo and Douban, user reputation, social value, and industry value will become factors for platforms to consider popular dramas, and the specific weight will be measured according to the timing of the series and the target group.
Brand: look at the lineup in the early stage, look at the "eye edge" in the later stage
Compared with the data logic of the platform, the criteria for brand customers to judge explosive models are more casual.
The drama promotion will be divided into two stages: before the broadcast and after the broadcast, of which the pre-broadcast is the most important investment promotion stage of the series. iYoutengmang will hold a regular investment promotion conference in the middle or end of the year, and announce the proposed IP and cast to attract advertisers to settle in. Some projects that have been officially announced but have not yet been established may be unsatisfactory in terms of investment promotion.
Producer and actor Zhang Meng once introduced on social networks that before the series was broadcast, actors were the primary factor to attract the gold lord's father to place orders. If the actor is hot, has a good reputation, and has a blockbuster work in the past, it is easier to be recognized by the gold lord's father. Yien data shows that "Please Advise the Rest of Your Life" starring Xiao Zhan and Yang Zi has more than 40 brand cooperations, while the number of drama cooperation brands in the top 20 broadcast index in the same period is mainly concentrated below 20.
Production companies are also an important consideration for brands, many production companies have formed a good reputation and image in the industry, and have fixed partners, and even have brand implantation from the script writing stage.
In addition, first-line top big IPs are easy to attract investment because they have a fixed audience base; Modern dramas are usually better at attracting investment than ancient dramas because they can provide rich consumption scenes and implantation space; The sequel to the blockbuster drama is also easier to attract investment, because you can eat the dividends of the previous one. After the episode is broadcast, some dramas that were not optimistic in the early stage but exploded after the broadcast will also attract many brands to follow the investment. The implant form is mainly based on patches and interpolations, and the price will be higher than before the broadcast.
Regarding "explosion", different brand parties have their own subjective judgment dimensions.
Relevant people on the brand side revealed to Entertainment Studio that sometimes the reason why brands choose to implant a drama is very simple, that is, the leader loves to watch. Some filmmakers also revealed that when he found that the customers around him began to chase dramas, the demand for chasing investment in dramas would increase.
Secondly, when brands report upward, they can intuitively prove that the dimension of "explosive dramas" is the number of hot searches on Weibo, because the cost of explanation is relatively lowest. Various industry lists such as Lighthouse, Maoyan, Yunhe, Vlinkage, and Detaven can also provide some data support for explosive models.
"Menghualu" due to its costume theme restrictions, there are fewer brand implants in the early stage of broadcasting, but after the broadcast of the series, the popularity skyrocketed, Weibo certified "Menghualu" as the first S+ explosive drama in 2022 in the closing battle report, and refreshed many data records such as the number of hot searches on the list and the opening score of costume dramas, indicating that the show attracted many customers to join after the broadcast. In the end, "Menghualu" cooperated with 40+ brands and became the leader in drama marketing in 2022.
In addition, the fit between the core users of the brand and the core users of the series is also an important factor for the brand to consider. When the brand is accepted, it will look at whether the final presented clip shows the product characteristics, whether there is a brand oral broadcast, etc.
According to the statistics of Yien data, among the sponsored brands of "Menghualu", beverage, food and beauty and skin care brands account for the top three, and the brand with the most exposure time is a mother and baby product. Bone data shows that the main audience of "Menghualu" is women aged 20-39, which is coinciding with the user groups of these brands.
The number of episodes released will also be affected by complex factors such as product promotion cycle, brand strategy and market environment. Under comprehensive measurement, the number of launches will not become a direct factor in the industry's certified blockbuster dramas.
Fans watch individual items
If the platform looks at "general science" and the brand looks at "fit", then fans pay attention to "single items".
In the logic of most fans, they don't need to rationally judge whether a drama is "explosive or not", but how to find more evidence to prove that their own artists' dramas "exploded".
Among the Shangxing dramas, China's audiovisual big data (CVB) released by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is the core dimension for fans to judge popular dramas. In the field of online dramas without a unified standard, fans' proof standards for blockbuster dramas are more complicated.
When comparing platforms vertically, fans will refer to the popularity value and record-breaking days on the site. When comparing the dramas horizontally, fans will refer to industry lists such as Yunhe, Vlinkage, Detaven, Baidu Index, and Maoyan. In a certain list, consecutive Top1-Top5, will be collected by fans as evidence of the explosion.
The "Wind Blows Half Summer" war report produced by Zhao Liying's fans
Some netizens also questioned the authority of third-party platform data. First of all, after each company closed the foreground playback volume, these lists did not have clear data sources and crawling algorithms. Secondly, the dehydration ratio of each platform varies greatly, and the performance of dramas on different platforms in different data lists is far from the same.
Some netizens counted the ranking of the five top lists of 18 popular domestic dramas in 2022 (Baidu Index, Vlinkage, Detaven, Yunhe, Maoyan), among which many dramas ranked first on one platform did not even enter the top ten on other platforms. Among the top ten dramas in the five major lists, only "Menghualu" and "Canglan Tips".
In addition to the popularity value and industry list, fans will also pay attention to the performance of social platforms, such as the number of Weibo hot searches, Weibo popularity value, the number of super words and posts, Douban score, Douban score and so on.
The "2020-2022 Weibo Drama Industry Report" announced the Weibo popularity of domestic dramas in the past three years. Among the dramas broadcast in 2022, the drama with the highest number of reading and hot search popularity values for the main topic is "Menghualu", the most mentioned is "Acquaintance with Jun Chu, Just Like the Return of the Dead", and the highest number of super talk posts and official micro-popularity values is "The rest of your life, please advise more".
Screenshot from Weibo
However, proving that a drama is a blockbuster drama is not the end. The ultimate goal of fans is to prove the artist's "ability to carry dramas" in a blockbuster drama.
The so-called "ability to carry dramas" is first reflected in the artist's increase in the platform base. "For example, "The Wind Blows Half Summer" starring Zhao Liying is a dual-channel simulcast of Zhejiang Satellite TV and Jiangsu Satellite TV, these two satellite TV chassis are not the highest, and the average rating of Jiangsu Satellite TV's dramas on the air is not even 0.22, but this drama brings Jiangsu's ratings to 0.381, and it has been broadcast for an annual year, which is the increase in ratings." A certain line actor data station member sugar sugar said.
If the series has a dual-traffic starring role, then fans will see which character is more discussed and has more fans during the broadcast. The number of Weibo fans, the popularity value of characters in the Weibo actor Qingyun list, Detaven, Vlinkage and other lists are all important reference factors.
Character war report made by Xiao Zhan's fans
Secondly, if a drama broadcasts a higher effect than expected, this is also the "ability to carry the drama" certified by fans. For example, "Futuyuan", rated A, exceeded 9,000 in the popularity of iQiyi's station in the first week of broadcasting, which also proved the "ability to carry dramas" of starring Wang Hedi.
If none of the above data can be hit, fans can only add some filter conditions and qualifiers when promoting it, such as "xx platform hits" and "xx type drama hits".
When "attacking" the opposite home, fans usually use their own individual strengths to hit the weaknesses of others, such as ratings are not comparable to platform popularity, platform popularity is not comparable to hot search, hot search is not comparable to word of mouth, and data with qualifiers cannot be beaten. Among them, there are often low-level mistakes of taking CCTV ratings to step on satellite TV ratings and comparing the popularity of different platforms in one direction.
After countless chaotic battles in the powder circle, Sugar Candy is getting more and more tired. She feels that whether a drama explodes or not, no matter how many data are blown out, passers-by and audiences have their own scales in their hearts. A good drama will not be buried because of a weak data, and a bad drama will not become a popular drama in the audience's hearts because of marketing.
"The track of the TV series is long and obstructive, and it is a game against time. A blockbuster drama may not be able to make an actor's star path long, even if a drama wants to explode, it needs the right time and place, but only actors who have been repeatedly verified by long-term testing can truly be called 'carrying dramas'. ”
postscript
What exactly is a blockbuster drama? In the above survey of Entertainment Studio, there is still no unified definition in the minds of platforms, brands and fans.
This is also the most typical feature of the Internet era, that is, the decentralization of content. A drama is empty, the legend of an actor becoming famous overnight is no more, and everyone has their own benchmark for defining blockbusters.
"Longing" in the 90s, "The Legend of Wulin Gaiden" during the millennium, and "The Legend of Zhen Huan" in the 10s became an almost uncontroversial hit. These works are not supported by a variety of data, but remain in the hearts of the audience in the form of a generation of national memory.
The significance of the numbers is more for comparison and review in the short term, and the real blockbuster drama does not need to be proved by examples, because what it leaves behind must be a spiritual force buried in the blood of the people.
In turn, the stills of "Longing", "The Legend of Wulin" and "The Legend of Zhen Huan" are followed
(Xiaohui, sugar candy are pseudonyms)