Text | Stars
In recent years, the cruel facts faced by the variety show market are:
The audience has been suffering from variety shows for a long time, tired of watching games + killing with rotten feelings, for a while, "boring" has become the tone of the variety show market. And, the end of variety shows is full of love, all kinds of marriage variety shows like weeds are not enough, even amateur workplace and actor acting variety shows, but also have to eat a bite of love dividends.
These audience feedback also exposed the problems on the creative side, when there is not much to carry out external models, and domestic entertainment variety shows urgently lack innovation. Coupled with the role of the internal and external environment, the variety show market has fallen silent in the past two years, and many mainland variety show producers have also chosen to precipitate observation in these years and began to re-sort out: what kind of content this market needs.
A relatively clear situation is that even if the volume of sound is limited, the micro-comprehensive is slowly growing up, and it is online one gear after another; Mid-waist variety shows need to be further subdivided, partial head a little or angle special content, there will be certain advantages, as for the rest, it is very difficult to survive; The head content in the long comprehensive will not decay, even if the N generation of the comprehensive is repeatedly complained that one generation is inferior to the next, but the more severe the market environment, the more stable its position.
However, at this moment, the comprehensive N generation, which holds the top resources in the market, also bears greater responsibility, and it must find more profit models and work commercial development, so that it can be worthy of the resources it mobilizes and live safely.
The lifesaver of the N generation of Taiwan
When it comes to the longest-lived variety show in the mainland, "The Voice" must be on the list. Last year, it turned 11 years old.
In the most brilliant moment of variety shows, a head variety show is enough to make a platform and production company unique, and major brand customers chase behind them, just to fight for a naming right. One record is that the golden 60s before the broadcast of the fourth season of The Voice Peak Night reached a value of 30 million, and it also single-handedly led the fire of Zhejiang Satellite TV and Canxing Production. Today, Zhejiang Satellite TV is still a good player in variety show production, and Canxing was successfully listed last year after many years of IPO.
However, the good times did not last long, and as the comprehensive N generation declined, its commercial value also declined. According to the prospectus submitted earlier by Canxing, the revenue contributed by "The Voice of China" to Starry Sky Chinese has been decreasing year by year, 490.5 million yuan in 2019, 324.5 million yuan in 2020, and 252 million yuan in 2021, and the gross profit margin has also decreased, 46.6% in 2019, 16.8% in 2020 and 2.2% in 2021.
Over the years, "The Voice" has figured out many ways to make money, in addition to the title, there are advertising shares, audition licensing fees, artist management, concert organization and production, art education and many other content.
Zhou Shen, Wu Mochou, Xilinnayi Gao and others who came out of The Voice were all written on the prospectus, and the song licensing fee alone was a lot of income. In addition, according to relevant information, the audition authorization fee of "The Voice" in 2018-2021 is an average of 60 million, and the gross profit margin is also very good, which is also the majority of its derivative business income. But in 2021, due to the external environment, the variety show audition was forced to stop.
The Voice also extends its hand to art education, such as the music and dance course with the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, which was attended by 54, 113 and 168 students from 2018 to 2020.
It can be seen that although the scenery of "The Voice" is no longer beautiful, and the revenue of all parts of the business is declining year by year, it has long exceeded the value of a variety show. Lu Wei, vice president of Canxing, revealed in an interview with the media that in mid-2022, they have been trying to extend the IP value chain of variety shows, such as forming IP matrices on major social media platforms to enhance the account influence of programs and artists.
At the same time, in training, cultural tourism, brand co-branding, brand licensing, derivative development, etc., they have also made efforts, such as launching the "The Voice of China" singing skills course, and recently cooperating with Shanghai Great World to authorize it to hold song parties, galas and other activities, and Canxing can obtain income through licensing fees and participation revenue sharing.
Canxing will not give up "The Voice", even a skinny camel is bigger than a horse.
Zhejiang Satellite TV's other ace variety show "Running Man" also involves movies, mobile games, theme parks and other genres, as well as Beijing Satellite TV's "Shangxin Forbidden City" has developed cultural and creative products and physical pop-up stores. Hunan Satellite TV is no exception, last year, "Less Flowers" was restarted, the platform's hopes for this show are not low, in addition to derivative programs, membership PIus version and other conventional models, "Less Flowers" also deeply linked with Xiaomang e-commerce to launch the same camping equipment. Xiaomang e-commerce has also carried out in-depth cooperation with the well-known camping brands "Maketu" and "KINGCAMP", which not only won the lowest price of the two brands on the whole network, but also co-branded its own outdoor brand "Yuye".
For the N generation of Taiwan, commercial development has to go.
Super battery life of the N generation of the network
Variety shows have always been a trump card of Mango TV, and in 2021, Xiao Mang appeared as a content e-commerce platform under Mango TV, which is considered to be the key to the commercial development of variety shows, and is the second growth line under the Hunan radio and television ecology, opening up people, goods, and content, and is the last outlet of Mango ecology.
This also has the same idea as Youku, which is backed by Ali, which turns content into goods. However, Youku, which has e-commerce genes, is obviously relatively easier in the commercial development of variety shows.
"Street Dance", Youku's ace comprehensive N generation, is exploring the path of commercial development every season.
One of the strongest proofs is that superX has favored "Street Dance" for four consecutive years, and both are the total title merchants, such strong support for Youku and "Street Dance" gives a sense of security. According to data released by Youku, 5 seasons of street dance have been loved by more than 150 brands, and the income from commercial development is also rising. Compared with the third season, the commercialization revenue of "Street Dance" in the fourth season increased by 40%. In the fifth season, "Koi Nafun" cooperated with tide play, and on the day of its launch, it was listed on the top 4 of Tmall tide play industry category.
Throughout the "Street Dance" series, more than 1,000 SKUs (models) of derivatives have been launched, covering more than 100 categories, and Aliyu's self-operated and authorized "Street Dance" derivatives have a total transaction volume of more than 800 million yuan in the third, fourth and fifth seasons. In addition, "Street Dance" also opened online live broadcast and online courses to teach everyone dance skills. This linkage not only increases a revenue for the producer, but also plays a role in feeding back the popularity of the program and attracting more street dance fans.
"Street Dance" is the IP left by Youku to open the era of super network variety series, so it has been held high from the beginning, carrying the platform's ambition for this IP, and the final program has achieved good results, successfully realizing the use of a variety show to revitalize an industry.
Tencent Video's "Talk Show Conference" also achieved such an effect, but the amateur show "Talk Show Conference" rose from the mid-waist to the head. Now that it has gone through five seasons and is still out of the circle, talk shows have not only become the favorite of young people, but also attracted the love of middle-aged and elderly audiences.
This also successfully allowed Tencent Video and Xiaoguo to eat dividends. The investment of "Talk Show Conference" is getting better and better year by year, and Xiaoguo continues to bring out new talents from the show and send them to other programs. According to the "2022 Talk Show Marketing White Paper", the talk show cultural industry chain has been established, and various processes such as customized programs, artist management, offline performances, and actor training have been opened up and carried out in an orderly manner. This also allowed talk shows to achieve the lead in the commercial development of variety shows.
The audience can feel the heat of the talk show from all sides at this moment. Tencent Video has carried out an in-depth layout of the talk show track, and in addition to the "Talk Show Conference", it also launched "What to do!" Talk Show Special" and other programs, the influence of Xiaoguo, a "broken" company, is getting stronger and stronger, Wang Jianguo, Wang Mian, Xu Zhisheng and other artists have been transported to major programs, and the offline performance of Xiaoguo's talk show is even more difficult to find.
In contrast, "Ming Detective", which has the richest development form, mainly revolves around the content, and does not do much vertical extension, involving online concerts, interactive micro-dramas, audio dramas, derivative image digital collections and other content, and at the same time, offline real scene stores of "Ming Detective" have also been launched in Changsha, Shanghai and other places. And "Riding the Wind and Waves", in addition to advertising revenue, will also sell the same sister on mango goodies.
It can be seen that the video platform has made great efforts in commercialization in the past two years, and it uses the Internet era thinking mode and platform ecology to link, and it is necessary to change the method to tap the maximum value of IP.
brief summary
Nowadays, the commercial development of the N generation covers music, dance, travel, language, suspense, culture and other major types, both the basic peripheral derivation, and the industrial chain development around the upstream and downstream layout, and the program popularity, production companies and platforms can mobilize resources, all have a lot to do with it, but even in the same development form, the profit and loss of different programs are not certain, which shows that at present, the commercial development of the comprehensive N generation is still in a relatively early stage.
But everyone is very clear that the long-term reliance on the single business model of advertising can no longer support the long-term development of domestic variety shows, and an industry insider directly said that from the beginning of the program, they will think about commercial development.
And Han Zong, which has always been at the forefront, its secret to maintaining the longevity of the program, in addition to the screenwriter center system, cost-effective variety show guests, loose scale, is also related to a moderate and perfect business model, such as domestic dolls, T-shirts, albums, etc. are common peripherals of Han Zong, broadcast rights and copyright output in overseas markets, which is also a lot of income. It was reported that the promotion and export of "Running Man" in the mainland earned SBS TV nearly 30 billion won (180 million yuan).
In the face of commercial development, the comprehensive N generation has to be.