Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Fangzheng Editor|Park Fang
It's time to rethink the "resurrection" of the old man.
Last week, Mango restarted "I Want to Sing with You" that had been on the air for 5 years, and in the first issue, it sent the "childhood female (male) god" Wang Xinling and Su Youpeng to take the lead, and the host group pulled in the "pillar" Wang Han, which shows how much the platform attaches importance to it. However, after the broadcast, the program encountered word-of-mouth Waterloo, and the Douban short evaluation area was covered by 1 star and 2 stars, and the program has not dared to score so far.
This is not the first time that the restart variety show has faced this kind of market feedback. In fact, looking back on the restart variety shows in the past two years, whether it is the mango series "Variety Big Coffee Show 2022", "Flowers and Teenagers Camping Season", or Station B's innovative satellite TV evergreen IP's "Bilibili Rush Forward", in turn, only got 6.0, 5.8, 5.6 Douban scores, it is difficult to continue their former glory.
However, since the beginning of this year, various platforms have not stopped the experiment of "resurrecting" the old complex. From the perspective of combing, this year's mango will restart the "All Staff Acceleration" 8 years ago, and "Flowers and Boys" will be upgraded from "camping season" to "overseas season". According to online rumors, Youku is also planning to restart the classic games of the satellite TV era "High-energy Youth Group" and "Extraordinary Partner".
It stands to reason that the restart of variety show projects is a follow-up to the platform to listen to the voice of the masses. For example, "Less Flowers" and "All Staff Accelerating" are popular projects that the masses have been discussing for many years and hope to restart. And the ancient CP sugar of "Feynman called Belle Big Singer" before rushed to the hot one, which also caused netizens to shout to restart "Where Did Daddy Go".
But the problem is that a classic variety show is often promoted by timing, location, people and multiple factors, and it is not easy for old variety shows to "return to the light" after several changes in the market environment. More and more cases also seem to remind the platform that instead of forcibly reviving old variety shows, it is better to "forget about the rivers and lakes" like "Kangxi is Coming".
Very good program
"Boring" to watch in 2023?
There are risks in the old complex, and restart needs to be cautious.
I have to say that although many restart variety shows in the past two years are not lacking in innovation, a very cruel truth is that these restart variety shows have jointly handed over a very embarrassing report card: 0 out of the circle.
According to the preliminary statistics of Rhino Jun, there are currently about 11 variety show projects that have been restarted or are to be restarted on various platforms. As far as the projects that have been broadcast are concerned, their popularity and reputation are far from that year, and the peak of the topic is often when the official announcement restarts, and it is almost impossible to escape the situation of "high opening and low going" after the broadcast of the main film.
"Boring" is the word that appears most frequently in related comments.
Take "I Want to Sing with You 4" broadcast last week as an example, netizen comments almost all revolve around the boring look. Some people accused the show of declining quality of the live sound and not performing a good hot song cover version; Some people emphasize that the script traces of the show are obvious, and I don't want to watch "Amateur Talk Dreams" again in 2023; Some people think that the show gives too many sensational bridges to amateurs, so that there are not many shots of Wang Xinling singing.
Reflected in the ratings, according to Kuyun real-time data, the average rating of the first episode of the program is only about 0.31%. It is worth noting that the part where Su Youpeng and Wang Xinling appeared at the beginning of the show once raised the rating to 0.4, but then a large number of amateur positive energy stories pulled the ratings back to freezing.
To sum up, there are two reasons for the temporary loss of the show, one is that the overall star interaction mode of the show is too old, which is the main reason why the audience generally feels "bored"; Second, the program has not yet found a balance between the sound elements and the positive energy content orientation, resulting in a sense of fracture in the program's perception. Fortunately, as a weekly program that "changes guests every week", it still has the possibility of turning the tide through timely adjustments.
Coincidentally, "boring" is also a word that appeared frequently when "Flowers and Teenagers Camping Season" was broadcast last year, and it was also on the hot search. I have to say that from attracting 9 gold owners such as Libai and Yogurt, to inviting guests on topics such as Yang Mi and Liu Mintao, this project was placed on high hopes by the platform last year.
However, firstly, the current celebrity speech environment is no longer the same as it used to be, resulting in stars finding it difficult to reproduce the famous scenes of the Asura field in the new "Flowers", and secondly, due to the impact of the epidemic, they can only "camp" in domestic cities to record, and the show is more "boring" due to the lack of sense of playing scenes of foreign travel in previous seasons.
As with these two shows, most of the old variety show projects restarted on various platforms have suffered from the "disease of the times" with different forms of expression.
At the moment when fans are crazy to protect the lord, it is difficult to see the scene of the Variety Five Heroes wantonly spoofing stars, and everyone imitates it quite "carefully"; "Like! After "Redefined" by short video talents, it also lost the sense of amazement brought by grassroots heroes in those years; "Bilibili Rush Forward" almost copied the ancient program process, the joining of the popular UP master did not bring much freshness, and "boring" once again became the most mentioned word in the comment area.
Why does the platform always love "old things transformation"?
But the complaining of the masses did not shake the "retro heart" of the platform.
It can be seen that although the restart variety shows developed by various platforms last year were not satisfactory, this year the platforms are still carrying out their "old thing transformation" experiments, and the development momentum is even stronger than last year.
In fact, compared with "I Want to Sing with You 2023", "All Staff Acceleration 2023" is Mango's more strategic restart project this year. In the market, the mass call for restarting "All Staff Acceleration" has been rising for a long time, which is a project that Mango has launched to collect public opinions.
You know, I think back then, "All Staff Acceleration" was an outdoor game developed by Mango to benchmark "Running Man" (copyright quoted from the explosive Japanese comprehensive "All Staff Escaping"), the show not only found "Singer" chief director Hong Tao as the chief producer, invited Yu Zheng to cross-border variety show scripts, the program guests also invited TFBOYS "Three Little Ones" who are now in the domestic entertainment sky.
Looking back, the show was a very mature game variety show model in the domestic entertainment market that year (Douban 8.6 points), and the "hunter in black" with explosive running ability in the show was once a classic memory of many people's internal entertainment variety shows. It can be seen from the hot discussion on social media caused by the recruitment of "hunters" in this restart program that the basic audience of the show is guaranteed.
For some reason, this year, the platforms have even hit the idea of restarting old variety shows. In addition to "All Staff Accelerating", according to online news, Youku is also preparing to revive two game fast mixes - "High Energy Youth Group" and "Extraordinary Partner".
Back then, these two shows were outdoor star variety shows developed by Zhejiang Satellite TV and Jiangsu Satellite TV with the wind of "Running Man". "High-Energy Youth Group" focuses on "idol confrontation and challenge reality show", Zhang Yishan, Yang Zi, Wang Junkai, etc. are the source of traffic of the program; "Extraordinary Partner" may be the earliest reality show in domestic entertainment to play "CP swap", and "strange CPs" such as Chen Chuhe x Zhu Zhu, Liming x Wang Meng have been talked about by scholars so far.
It's easy to see why "Outdoor Star Game Express" has become the fat meat that various platforms are eyeing this year. First, after the liberalization of the epidemic policy, going abroad to record has become a new increment of this year's national comprehensive game, making it possible for the game to "revive"; Second, following the model that has been verified by the market in the past, the platform can use lower risk to operate this variety show category with low production costs.
However, the reason for the success of these programs that year was precisely because the national comprehensive audience had not seen the theme dividend of such variety shows that year, and tired of watching such models was the reason for the rapid decline of these programs. (The result is that the market only has two heads left in "Running Man" and "Extreme Pick" to divide attention)
Admittedly, the platform has too many reasons to restart an old variety show, after all, the old variety show project has emotional blessings, has accumulated a certain audience base, low development costs, and easier investment (can tell a lot of IP stories to the brand side).
However, in 2023, restarting some "old programs" that are popular in the TV era, Rhino Jun always feels that the platform has not predicted enough about the current market research and judgment and the difficulties faced by restarting old IPs.
"Feelings" really can't be eaten
The IP value of restarting variety shows is overestimated.
In the public opinion field, we will always see netizens "archeology" the variety show clips many years ago to process a new social hot meme in the context of the current era, which is indeed the long-tail IP value of the old variety show.
Whether it is the hilarious clip of "Nine Turns of the Great Intestine" that triggers people to archaeology "amateur food competition variety show" "Top Chef", or the CP interaction of Feynman and Belle to recall the "parent-child national comprehensive ceiling" and "Where is Dad Going", people look at these variety shows through the filter of the feelings of the times.
However, if you really want to consider such a variety show at the production level of restarting, you will find that erasing the "feelings", we may not be able to reproduce the so-called classics.
Take "Top Chef" as an example, the dramatic logic presented by the show that year largely relied on the fact that in the era of underdeveloped social media, amateurs and stars in the program could express themselves bravely and express themselves in the program without fear of the judgment of others. This may be unthinkable in 2023.
Therefore, restarting variety shows is a double-edged sword, although these shows show "selling appearance" due to emotional blessings and audience base, but without "feelings", whether the narrative mode of these shows can still meet the picky tastes of the current audience, platform developers need to think again.
Perhaps like "Kangxi is Coming", it is good to "say goodbye decently" at the right time when the vitality of IP is declining, and let a classic "forget about the rivers and lakes". Otherwise, if you really want to choose to "resurrect" the classics, the platform must show no less innovative power than the development of a new IP.