No blockbuster is the norm

In March, the entertainment industry did not have any category of explosions.

This month is the traditional off-season in the film industry, but there are so many domestic films scheduled that there is a tendency to bake the off-season into a hot season. But in the end, the box office performance of high-reputation movies is still above passing, and the hit is not full. It turns out that it is still far away for the public to spend movies like a holiday every weekend, and in the context of rising ticket prices, movies are still the consumption habits of the masses on specific holidays, even with a continuous supply of content.

Needless to say, "Crazy" raises expectations for a whole year of dramas in 2023. But as of March, there is still only one "Crazy" blockbuster in the series. Compared with the film industry, which relies on holiday consumption, the national hit of dramas is even more watching the sky. At a time when audiences are becoming increasingly stratified, the uncertainty of content has intensified.

Variety shows are another logic. In the second consecutive quarter without a draft, the voice of variety shows on social platforms continued to be weak. According to Yunhe data, the cumulative effective broadcast of variety shows on the whole network in 2022 fell by 14% year-on-year. iQiyi, which turned into a profit, the effective broadcast of variety shows fell by 30% year-on-year. After reducing costs and increasing efficiency, variety shows were difficult to produce, which also made the industry pessimistic.

In the field of short video live broadcast, the next Li Jiaqi or Simba, and even the platform is not so hopeful.

The game also came to the Red Sea market early, the overall water level was stable, and the heads of each pendant were close to saturation. However, as the version approval enters a stable period, there are still some products that have achieved outstanding performance this month, and the second quarter may usher in a blowout of new tours of large manufacturers. The biggest variable in the future is whether Fist's Valorant can stir up the spring water of esports.

The industry is not fluctuating, and I am afraid that in the long run, what is needed is not one or two blockbusters, but more far-reaching changes.

Movie: A hundred flowers are indeed blooming

On the last day of March, there are still 7 new films released, which also constitutes the epitome of the "lively" of the entire March.

March, which has always been a low season due to the lack of holidays, has ushered in a fixed season this year. The number of new films released in March reached 39, compared to 33 in the same period last year. The recovery in volume also boosted the box office, with a box office of 1.906 billion in March, compared to only 910 million in the same period last year, but still far from 2.5 billion in 2021. The cumulative number of moviegoers was 49.02 million, more than double the year-on-year; Attendance was 3.9 per cent, compared to 2.7 per cent in the same period last year.

In previous March, the pillars of the box office often came from imported films, and this situation has changed this year. There is only one imported film in the top ten box office this month, compared with 4 in 2022 and 2021, and as many as 7 in 2019 before the epidemic.

The reason behind it is not difficult to understand, March is a cold period, and often the residual heat of Spring Festival films has not dissipated, so it is more difficult to become the choice of domestic new films, so that imported films often appear in March as an important option to supplement the market. But this year, due to the backlog and other reasons, many popular domestic films have been scheduled for March, forming a rare fixed tide.

Among them, the top two box office are "Keep You Safe" with 550 million and "Journey to the Bell Bud" with 430 million. Both films have a Douban score of more than 7 points, which has a strong word-of-mouth effect, and is still full of stamina, which is expected to continue to help the box office in April. The second echelon is "The Cloister Pavilion" and "Poisonous Tongue Lawyer", which received 200 million and 110 million respectively, a total of 4 films that exceeded 100 million and 3 domestic films. The subsequent echelon is still dominated by Spring Festival films, and imported films from Marvel and DC only ranked 11th and 12th at the box office, respectively.

In addition to box office data, the diversity of genres and themes also makes people see more possibilities of domestic films this March: "Disconnection", which focuses on information security themes, "More than Endless", which tells the story of the journalist industry, and the thriller comedy "Great Night" as a rare category, etc., all provide reference samples for the industry to expand new fields in creation.

Looking ahead to April, the May 1st gear is more crowded due to the Qingming holiday being merged into May 1st gear this year, but the whole of April faces an embarrassing situation similar to March. The film market can only be finalized around non-holiday festivals such as April Fool's Day ("Space Exploration Editorial Office"), Black Valentine's Day ("Be'er Like You", "Think of a little").

Among them, the head film with the highest market expectations is undoubtedly "Dragon Horse Spirit" starring Jackie Chan and the Japanese manga IP masterpiece "Slam Dunk", which is expected to replicate March's double-strong competition.

Episodes: Good dramas are common, but blockbusters are not

The "crazy syndrome" in the drama market lasted until the end of March.

More than two months after the end of "Crazy", the market share can still squeeze into the top ten. Although the number of new releases this month is completely the same as in February, with a total of 29 new dramas (longer than 20 minutes), there is still no phenomenal work like "Crazy" that is enough to set off national discussions, or "new boyfriends" like "Canglan Tips".

Last month's outstanding performance of the ancient puppet drama track, this month only contributed two important works, namely "Flower Liuli Anecdote" and "Spring Dream People", Lighthouse Professional Edition data shows that the market share of these two dramas in the whole network broadcast market is ranked five or six, both less than 6%, the results are decent.

Still, ancient puppets are still a hot area in 2023. In the camp of "Ancient Puppet 101", "Long Moon Ember Ming" starring Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu is scheduled for April 6, 85 flowers are also holding ancient puppet dramas to be broadcast, Liu Shishi has "One Nian Guanshan", Yang Mi has "Fox Demon Little Red Lady", Zhao Liying has "With Phoenix Xing", as well as "Sauvignon Blanc", "Jade Bone Yao", "Ning'an Like a Dream" and other queues and other queues to explode, I don't know which one will become this year's ancient puppet champion.

Compared with ancient puppet dramas, it is worth paying attention to this month is the comprehensive warm-up of realistic dramas. This month's drama king is undoubtedly Youku's suspense criminal investigation drama "Who is He", through the battle of "Crazy", Zhang Yi's network popularity and ratings appeal have simultaneously completed the jump, "Who Is He" has been online for more than half a month and can still get the first position in the online broadcast market share, and the ratings of CCTV-8 prime-time broadcasts are also good, China's audiovisual big data shows that "Who is He" ranked first with a rating of 1.741% last week.

Other realistic works also have a certain volume. "Love Only", which was launched on March 27, was broadcast simultaneously on CCTV-8 prime time and Tencent, ranking third in the channel of radio broadcasting and online broadcasting with a rating of 1.081% (March 28 data) and a market share of 8.34% (March 31 data), respectively, and Wu Lei and Zhou Yutong's partners also set off discussions about "sister dog love" again.

In addition, the drama of the same name "The Way Home" adapted from Mo Bao Feibao's novel, the period drama "The Road of Life" based on Lu Yao's novella "Life", the two-heroine family drama "Wishful Thinking" starring Mao Xiaotong and Zhang Li, and the urban drama "Spring Warm Sun" starring Wu Gang and Huang Zitao were all broadcast this month, covering almost all genres of realistic themes.

Different from the Spring Festival and summer stalls, which are easy to hit, March is also a "cold month" for the drama market, and it is difficult to appear the so-called "national drama". Even if the schedule factor is removed, the "explosive model" is also encounterable and undesirable, in addition to its own quality to be excellent, it also needs the blessing of "the right time and place".

Blindly pursuing popular dramas or thinking that they can find the detour of "explosive formula", the drama market has almost gone through: the IP bubble has not been completely squeezed out, the pursuit of traffic stars is returning to calm, and the female group dramas who wanted to copy the blockbuster last year have also been muted.

After all, blockbusters are not common, for creators, letting go of explosive obsessions and sinking down to think more about how to do a good job is the right thing.

Variety: Not as good as expected

At the end of Q1, the situation of the variety show market was not as good as expected.

According to Lighthouse data, the number of new shows on variety shows in March is low, and there is a lack of variety shows with both topic and popularity. Among them, "Detective" won the first place in the market share of feature film broadcasting with a market share of 38.05%, almost "thriving". Not only is the number of broadcasts leading, the program score of "Great Detective" has also returned to the level at the beginning of the series, and it has scored 9.1 points on Douban, which shows that the newly taken over Yan Ji team has been fully adapted to "Great Detective" after a season of training.

The second place in market share is "Sound Endless Treasure Island Season", which is less than half a month old, with a market share of 16.41%, and yesterday's Douban scored 7.3 points. In third place is the fourth season of iQiyi's romance "Like You and Me Too", with a market share of 12.61%.

The variety shows with more prominent data in terms of public opinion throughout the month are "Infinite Beyond Class", "Our Inn" and "Let's Farm". It can be seen from the list that no matter how controversial Wu Tong's variety show is, it is undeniable that his show will never lack topicality. For example, "Infinite Beyond Class" from Zhao Yingzi, who caused heated discussions at the beginning of the broadcast, to simply changing the acting variety show into a romantic variety in the later stage, directly forming a CP on the show, turning the audience's attention to "CP", these are the traffic passwords that Wu Tong is skilled in.

And "Let's Farm", which ranks third in the public opinion list, stands out completely by relying on its simplicity that is different from other variety shows on the market. Ten hard-working, down-to-earth teenagers and the variety show content of "eating by the sky" are valuable in the variety show market, but after experiencing low opening and high walking, the popularity of "Farm the Land" still has not made a greater breakthrough, and the future performance remains to be seen.

In March, an article released by "Cold Eyes on TV" was more popular than the program of the entire variety show market, and the author believes that the entire variety show industry has reached the moment of pushing back again. This view has caused shocks in the entire variety show industry, but we still have certain expectations for the industry.

Although the variety show market did not explode in the first quarter, the performance of Q2 in the future is worth looking forward to. A number of "talent show" shows on various platforms are in preparation. Mango TV's "Sister Lang" and "Youth Party Project" have entered the recording stage, Tencent Video's "Freshly Dressed Boy" and iQiyi's "New Student Class" are all in preparation, and the Q2 variety show market may usher in a wave of new attention.

Short video: Look for increments too

In March, the short video industry was still struggling to find new increments.

In terms of big data, a data at the beginning of the year showed that as of December 2022, the number of short video users in China reached 1.012 billion, accounting for 94.8% of the total number of Chinese Internet users (1.067 billion). The number of netizens who do not use short videos is only about 55 million, which makes it difficult for short video platforms to make new breakthroughs in the scale of users.

The data is also reflected in the financial reports of various platforms, and on March 3, the financial report released by Station B showed that its average daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2022 reached 92.8 million, a year-on-year increase of 29%; Average monthly active users increased by 20% year-over-year to 326 million. However, from a month-on-month perspective, the average number of daily active users of station B only increased by 2.5 million, and the average number of monthly active users even fell to a certain extent compared with 333 million users in the third quarter of last year.

Kuaishou, which announced its earnings report on March 29, is not optimistic about the growth of user data. Its average daily active users in the fourth quarter of 2022 reached 366 million, an increase of 13.3% year-on-year, but only increased by 3 million compared to Q3 2022, an increase of less than 1% sequentially. In terms of monthly active users, Kuaishou had an average monthly active user size of 640 million, an increase of 14 million compared to Q3, an increase of about 2.2% month-on-month.

Douyin is not listed, so there is no clear data. However, from the perspective that it has never announced that the number of users has exceeded 700 million, Douyin's user growth has also encountered a certain bottleneck. Of course, in the past month, Douyin has steadily created a new top stream. Host Zhang Dada, relying on the script means of Lianmai Live and Worry-free Media, has risen to nearly 10 million fans.

The Internet has always had a strategic tradition of swapping losses for growth. Whether it is Tencent Baidu in the early days or Didi Meituan in the middle period, they have similar experiences. However, for the upstart short video platform of the Internet, the growth story is nearing its end, but the revenue still seems to be delayed.

After reducing costs and increasing efficiency over the past year, Kuaishou achieved full-year profitability in its domestic business. However, combined with overseas business, Kuaishou still has a loss of 12.6 billion yuan a year, but the figure has narrowed significantly from 27.7 billion yuan last year. On the other hand, although Station B also shouted the slogan of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, it still lost 7.5 billion yuan last year.

Growth is limited and profitability is far away. Short video platforms have different ways of coping.

For Douyin, which has already enjoyed the maximum dividends on existing platforms, on the one hand, it is to continue to strengthen live streaming e-commerce, cultivate more user habits, and tear out more share from the online e-commerce industry. On the other hand, the continuous development of new apps eats away at the dividends of other industries, and the launch of the "Green Peach" app not long ago also proves this.

Live streaming e-commerce is also becoming a lifesaver for other content apps. In mid-March, Dong Jie exploded in Xiaohongshu's live broadcast, which attracted the attention of the industry to a certain extent. Xiaohongshu has always been known for having many high-net-worth users, and its users are not only willing to consume enthusiastically, but also have more ability to spend. However, the daily activity has not yet exceeded 100 million, which may limit the further development of Xiaohongshu live e-commerce. Similar to Xiaohongshu, Station B has also made certain attempts on live streaming this year. At present, there is already a decoration UP master with certain achievements.

This March earnings season also points to a certain direction for the future development of the industry.

Games: Emerge with Energy

Throughout March, Egg Party remained the hottest game. Since the Spring Festival, "Egg Plate Pair" now has an absolute head posture, with a total revenue of more than $81 million for the entire quarter, and the degree of discussion on various social platforms is also high.

But in addition to its daily hegemony, this month there are also "Guild Wars Yarat", "Three Kingdoms - Warchess Version", "There is someone in the depths of Taoyuan", "In the name of Shining", "My Name is MT: Classic Reproduction" 5 new games have topped the App Store free game list at different times, with relatively diverse types and obvious market vitality.

Among them, the SLG game "Three Kingdoms Zhi Warchess Edition" self-developed by Lingxi Interactive Entertainment topped the App Store free game list on the first day of its launch (March 17), and was among the top 10 in the first three days. According to Qimai data, as of March 28, the IOS side download of "Three Kingdoms Zhi Warchess Edition" is estimated to be a total of 548116, and the IOS side revenue is estimated to be a total of 4.872291 US dollars.

The dress-up game "In the Name of Shining" produced by Zulong Games is a long-lost small hit on the women's game track. It ranked No. 1 on the App Store free-to-play list from March 24 to March 26, with more than 550,000 IOS downloads in March and a total revenue estimated to exceed $1.95 million.

The ancient farming game "There Are People in the Depths of Taoyuan" published by Tencent and Fifty-first District Studio also performed well, with more than 760,000 downloads and an estimated revenue of more than 890,000 US dollars. This proves once again that the casual track for lightweight players still has great potential this year under the trend of involution.

In terms of version numbers, a total of 86 domestic game version numbers were issued this month, almost unchanged from the previous two months (88 in January and 87 in February), which is enough to indicate that the approval of version numbers has entered a stable period.

Among them, it is worth paying attention to NetEase's "Mission Zero", Paperpaper's "Backlight Sneaking In", "Love and Deep Space", Deep Blue Interactive "Back to the Future: 1999", Mu Pu Technology's "Fantasy and Adventure", etc.; Independent games "Babel Hitchhiker's Guide", "Hardcore Mecha" and more.

Mission Zero

Not only that, but in March, another batch of imported game version numbers were issued, a total of 27, including "MapleStory: Will of the Alliance", "Power Dance Troupe: National Party", "Legendary Mage", "Yokai Watch 4 Enhanced Chapter" and so on. Only 3 months after the issuance of the imported game version number in 2022, this month ushered in the imported game version number in 2023, which also boosted the confidence of the industry.

In the upcoming second quarter, Tencent, Netease, Mihayou, Lilith and other head manufacturers have already finalized heavy new products, and the game industry may usher in a long-lost liveliness.

Attached: List of full version numbers in March 2023