Text/Grand Entertainer
Another big IP tepid is over.
Known as the "hardest" film in Chinese IP, the "Three-Body Problem" live-action drama entered the final finale week, in addition to the outstanding word-of-mouth performance, Douban 8 points rose to 8.3 points, but the popularity was still completely crushed by "Crazy" that has been broadcast for a week.
"The Three-Body Problem", which started almost at the same time as "Crazy", is undoubtedly far ahead in terms of early discussion and attention, but as the plot of "Crazy" deepens, one by one three-dimensional characters successfully grabbed the attention of the whole network, "Crazy" began to soar all the way, and "Three-Body Problem" became more and more lonely. At the end of "Crazy", the effective broadcast market share of its feature films exceeded 65%, and the single-day playback volume has also exceeded the 300 million mark, and the playback volume has reached more than ten times that of "The Three-Body Problem".
Even now, "Crazy", which has been broadcast for a week, accounts for 55%-65% of the market, while "The Three-Body Problem" hovers at 5.5%.
According to QuestMobile's 2023 Spring Festival Market Insight Report, iQiyi's daily active users in January ranged from 80 million to 100 million, while Tencent Video's daily activity, which was originally comparable to it, was basically around 60 million, and it fell into a situation of entanglement with data from station B.
Source: QuestMobile
The drama version of "The Three-Body Problem" failed to revive the prestige of Tencent Video, which has completely lost hot dramas since last summer's file, but fully exposed its "symptoms" in terms of slow scheduling and disconnection of quality content.
The inability to consistently produce high-quality content is actually a problem that Tencent Video has not solved. After the Q3 2022 subscription membership fell by more than 9 million year-on-year, Tencent Video did not give much positive response on the content side in the fourth quarter, although according to the "LatePost" report, Tencent Video also achieved profitability for the first time last October, but this is obviously more of a "cost reduction" contribution than an "efficiency increase" contribution.
At the beginning of 2023, iQiyi is more ferocious, in addition to "crazy" all the way, high-quality content is also constantly supplied to users, for Tencent Video, which was once ranked with it, whether it can make good use of its IP resources, and when to find the content characteristics of the platform under the normal of content diversification, will determine whether it can keep up with the strength of competitors this year.
Under pathway dependence, hematopoietic capacity is insufficient
For the domestic long-form video industry, the past two years can be said to be a "roller coaster" stimulus, with tightening regulations and a weakening economic environment superimposed, making it rumored at the end of 2021 that some platforms may not survive the year.
In this context, iQiyi took the lead in the industry to put forward the slogan of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency", and the sharp layoffs and redundant projects also became the focus for a while, and people felt that this situation may be the end of its "two super" situation with Tencent Video, which obviously has more possibilities to survive the difficulties with the advantages of the group's blood transfusion.
However, what happened next was more like a "Theater of the Mist" episode, full of reversals.
Source: Network
After driving not only the entertainment industry but even the entire Internet industry to the tide of "cost reduction and efficiency increase", iQiyi took the lead in achieving operational profitability in the first quarter of last year, and then maintained this status for three consecutive quarters, and achieved a "miracle" of a net increase of tens of millions of subscribers in the third quarter.
In contrast, even with the biggest hit of the year "Menghualu" last year, Tencent Video is still quite weak in some core indicators.
According to Tencent's financial report, as of the end of the third quarter, the total number of Tencent Video paid members was 120 million, a year-on-year decrease of 9 million and a month-on-month decrease of 2 million, a decline for three consecutive quarters. Not only that, Tencent Video's advertising revenue has also plunged sharply. Tencent Video's media advertising revenue fell 26% year-on-year. Tencent said the decline in advertising revenue was partly due to "fewer popular TV dramas."
Although not all industries are as strong as iQiyi, Tencent Video's decline rate still exceeds the industry average in the context of overall pressure.
The core reason for the continuous decline in both advertising revenue and membership is ultimately due to the lack of content. Tencent Video has also quickly followed the strategy of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" since 2022, making drastic adjustments to its organizational structure and participation in projects, but it still appears to be significantly slower than other competitors in the shift in content strategy.
Tencent earnings report
For example, in terms of dramas, even if it has been mired in ancient puppet dramas for a long time, Tencent Video will still contribute the vast majority of such theme content throughout 2022. The key solo dramas launched in the first three quarters accounted for a very high proportion of ancient puppets, and the "big IP + traffic stars" combination that had been falsified in the previous year or two still occupied the mainstream, but in the case of the audience's gradual aesthetic fatigue and pursuit of novelty, most of the ancient puppet dramas with a slow pace and divorce from reality have been difficult to guarantee even the basic plate, let alone become a hit.
In fact, even if we talk about the category of ancient puppet dramas alone, throughout 2022, iQiyi and Youku have provided few and better choices. Dramas such as "Canglan Tips" and "Qing Qing's Daily" have taken the lead in realizing the iterative evolution of ancient puppet themes by relying on novel characters and modern values.
According to Yunhe data, iQiyi's online drama feature films will be effectively broadcast 119 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 4%; Tencent Video feature films were played 97.2 billion times, down 15% year-on-year; Youku feature films were effectively played 66.4 billion, up 5% year-on-year.
In the field of variety shows, Mango TV occupies an absolute "brother" position, "Riding the Wind and Waves 3", "Detective 7", "Escape Room 4", "Through Thorns 2" and other comprehensive N generations have become the leaders of the online comprehensive broadcast screen, while iQiyi has given up excessive investment in variety shows under the policy of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency", with the completion of ROI as the bottom line, reducing the development of new and new IP of self-made variety shows, and placing more investment in dramas with better effect on pulling members, and Tencent Video on the other side obviously did not react, The new S+ variety show is still debuting, but whether it is "New Travels" benchmarked against "Extreme Challenge", or "Start Reasoning" and "Landing on Yuanyuzhou", which "dug" the mango team and advanced to the maze track, they have not received positive feedback from the market, and the only big money-absorber "Talk Show Conference 5" also ushered in the Waterloo of word-of-mouth and popularity, but fortunately, "Love Show" supported the façade.
A still from "New Travels"
According to the December 2022 comprehensive video field user activity provided by Analysys, the number of active users on iQiyi reached 562 million, up 11.61% year-on-year, while the number of active users on Tencent Video was 428 million, down 11.71% year-on-year.
In strong contrast, it is easy to see that Tencent Video has stagnated on the content supply side, especially not keeping up with the general trend of the entire industry based on "cost reduction and efficiency increase", and more relying on the existing path formed in the past period.
In fact, from Tencent Video's content list in 2023, it can also be seen that Tencent Video is seeking to transform to content diversification and genre theater.
Tencent's 2023 film list
The harsh reality is that a similar shift to other platforms has been underway for a year or two, and there has been a clear acceleration trend in the past year, and even high-quality content on a single platform has gradually begun to achieve full annual coverage, which has not been seen in the past many years of competition.
In this situation, Tencent Video does appear quite passive.
Fortunately, as a super platform with nearly 120 million subscribers, it will undoubtedly not sit still, and with its content strategy beginning to shift and still backed by Tencent's massive resources, Tencent Video needs faster speed and more flexibility to keep up with the pace of the army in 2023.
Reorganizing resources is a priority
It is not difficult to see from the publicity offensive of "The Three-Body Problem" that the disconnection of popular content last year caused great pressure on Tencent Video.
Even if "The Three-Body Problem" is not broadcast exclusively by Tencent Video, as the main producer, before the official launch, Tencent Video first re-moved Liu Cixin's opening speech, and launched the countdown live broadcast on the day of the broadcast, in order to invite young Ye Wenjie's actor Wang Ziwen to conduct cross-screen interaction, the first blockbuster materials, mysterious guest surprise letters and other content to attract audiences to make reservations.
In addition, Tencent Video launched a pre-order "Three-Body Problem" lottery and directly began to sell official peripherals. For the "Three-Body Problem" series, Tencent Video can be said to have done all the content warm-up activities that can be planned, and when "Crazy" ends, "Three-Body Problem" opens a live broadcast screening ceremony, and the publicity offensive is further increased. There is no doubt that Tencent Video will rely on "The Three-Body Problem" to make a big effort to kick off in 2023.
"The Three-Body Problem" stills
At present, Douban has risen to 8.3 points, and the evaluation among the original fans is generally positive, and the large-scale adaptation without overconfidence and more pragmatic creations that rely on acting skills have undoubtedly become a plus for "The Three-Body Problem". From the long adaptation cycle of "The Three-Body Problem" and the realistic style that can finally be faithful to the original work, it also proves from the side that Tencent Video is also seeking changes in content creation, but this change needs to come faster and more fiercely in the face of industry trends.
At the end of 2022, Tencent Video announced at the V Vision Conference that it would officially start joining the "theatricalization" competition, planning to open two online theaters, "comedy theater" and "suspense theater".
Among them, "Comedy Theater" focuses on customized cooperation with first-line comedy labels, and Happy Twist, Zhao Benshan Team, Deyun Society, etc. are all on the list of preferred cooperation;" Suspense theater focuses on "suspense +", among which "Long Season" directed by "Hidden Corner", the drama "Black Earth Without Words" starring Chen Jianbin and the original ancient style suspense drama "Under the Bustling City" also sell out to a certain extent.
Stills from "Under the City"
On the one hand, Tencent Video is indeed advancing with the times in promoting innovation in content strategy and diversification, and the theatrical landing is naturally a good start; But on the other hand, whether it is a comedy or a suspenseful theatrical setting, in fact, in the end, it is still a copycat step by step, the problem is that whether it is suspense or comedy or sweet pet genre, there is more than one imitator who started earlier than Tencent Video.
Qi Baishi said that "those who learn from me live, and those who are like me die", which has been in its third year and gave birth to the theater model of the brand "Misty Theater" is certainly worth learning, but it is highly doubtful that it is still a way to survive in the two overcrowded tracks of suspense and comedy.
Fortunately, after Ma Huateng's words, Tencent Video's awakening time seems to come early, just as at the recent Tencent Video TV series business sharing meeting, its "five to five nots" and "four major tracks" core, although compared with other platforms have been shouting nearly a year of content determination, it seems belated, but Tencent Video has finally taken an important step to face the problem.
Source: Network
The solution to the problem is not just a slogan.
First, how to give full play to the advantages of "blood thickness", scheduling operations, content disconnection, and user experience need to be paid attention to. I have to admit that Tencent Video's ability to gather "excellent works in the early stage" is still first-class, "Sauvignon Blanc", "With Phoenix Xing", "Blossoms", "Jade Bone Yao" and so on are all awaited works by the whole network audience, but how to keep good content on file is a pain point that Tencent Video needs to face head-on.
Driven by continuous "cost reduction", since last year's summer file, Tencent Video's content has been interrupted several times, "Three-Body Problem" was originally one of the summer film list, but it has only been broadcast now, and head works such as "Jade Bone Yao" and "Love Only" often shine on the list of films to be broadcast, but they have never been seen. Finally, "The Three-Body Problem" came, but its slow scheduling method was complained about by the whole network, and the matter of lengthening the schedule, since Tencent Video's popular content was not good, this "stubborn disease" began to sting the audience. The next key test for Tencent Video is how to ensure that popular content is not out of gear, constantly filed, so as to achieve continuous and stable online launch, and give users a more popular way to schedule.
Second, the differentiation advantage should be highlighted. Under the situation of continuous disconnection of popular content, Tencent Video's popularity is undoubtedly stable in terms of overcoming. Without popular dramas, "Douluo Continent" directly occupied a high position, and some netizens jokingly said that Tencent Video has become a "national comic app".
"Douluo Continent" stills
In addition, last year and this year's dramas that sounded the horn for Tencent Video in the opening year actually belong to the high-concept sci-fi genre, after having "The Beginning" and "The Three-Body Problem", Tencent Video should actually have more deep cultivation in the sci-fi genre, Tencent Video has also done, the release of seven reserve sci-fi film lists, if it can really be implemented, and with the sci-fi IP on the reading platform, take advantage of the momentum to launch more short and capable high-concept sci-fi short dramas, in fact, it can better reflect the platform's differentiation in the direction of theater content.
Third, in terms of leveraging advantageous resources, Tencent Video still needs more internal collaboration. In addition to the old problem of reducing internal consumption in resource sharing with Huawen, how to use the rapidly rising video account to make it the main channel for attracting traffic to Tencent Video's exclusive content "second creation" is also an urgent problem to be solved, after all, after the settlement between iQiyi and Douyin, it has obtained additional copyright income while also achieving a wider expansion of content influence with the channel advantages of Douyin.
Even if the brother unit talks about money and hurts feelings, then giving some traffic tilt in the second creation of exclusive film and television content is at least the simplest and most direct thing that can be done for the video account. After Weishi was completely marginalized and the video account under Zhang Xiaolong was called "the hope of the whole company" by Ma Huateng , how to further coordinate the company's content resources to support Tencent Video will undoubtedly test the wisdom of PCG boss Ren Yuxin.
Source: Network
Tencent Video's loss in the past year or two actually reflects Ma Huateng's words at the internal staff meeting: "In the past, due to the leadership of many friendly businessmen, Tencent blindly did simple follow, but was led by friendly businessmen, and the results were not satisfactory."
After several rounds of simplification, what Tencent Video needs next is to find its own platform features, whether it is content creation or business strategy, rather than just relying on quickly stacking platform resources to join a battle with no end in sight.
Just as Netflix will no longer consider becoming the next HBO, Tencent Video ultimately can't be someone else, only itself, and when a platform has truly exclusive features and can be truly accepted by users, ranking is actually less important.