Rhino Entertainment Original
Text|Fat Department Editor|Park Fang
Zhang Hao "made history", Du Hua "is such a great blessing", and the night of the finals of "BOYSPLANET" brought Lehua back into the public eye.
On the night of the South Korean Mnet TV talent show, trainees from Lehua Entertainment won 4 of the 9 debut places, and Zhang Hao became the first Chinese C (Chinese C position) in the Korean group draft, which is why Du Hua said that Zhang Hao "made history" and can drive a series of social platform topics.
At the opening of Hong Kong stocks on April 21, Lehua Entertainment rose 5.631%, and once rose 11.94% on the day. Many people also began to notice Lehua's model of operating simultaneously in China and South Korea, and pointed out that Lee Zhihan, a member of the entertainment department of South Korea's Lehua, recently starred in "Dark Glory", and there is no lack of presence in Korean entertainment.
One of the doubts that Lehua may be able to face directly at the moment is that because of the prospectus data at the time of listing, the business situation of "relying entirely on Wang Yibo" seems to have loosened with Zhang Hao's exit.
Since the 2021 mainland draft was suspended, how to establish a new idol ecological link is a common issue for artist management companies including Lehua, Lehua is not the only company that sends artists to South Korea to participate in the draft, but Zhang Hao, who won the C position of the ZB1 group, really opened up this new training link, and also reserved the foundation for his future development back to China.
This logic of "export to domestic sales" has been verified in Han Geng and the "four sons who returned to China", and Du Hua, who successfully signed him when Han Geng returned to China, and Lehua Entertainment, which was established at that time, are now back to the "old time", but how far this time can go will be a new story.
"Don't overdo it"
The rhino view remains
As early as when Lehua just released the prospectus, Rhino Jun issued an article saying that "there is no need to sing too much about Lehua".
At that time, the doubts faced by Lehua came from two aspects: first, the draft was stopped, the artist's management business was underestimated, and the listing prospects were worrying; The second is to over-bind a single artist Wang Yibo, and the artist's management income accounts for 91% in 2021.
Lehua's previous 2022 financial report also continued to be unfavorable, and the company achieved a total revenue of 980 million yuan, down 24% year-on-year; Adjusted net profit was approximately RMB267 million, a year-on-year decrease of 32.4%; The main reason for the decrease was that the revenue of artist management business decreased by 27.5% year-on-year to 852 million yuan. The sustained high growth of the previous three years also underscored last year.
Image from Lehua Entertainment's 2022 financial report
But a year on, new developments confirm some of Rhino's views.
First of all, look at Wang Yibo, before Lehua Entertainment listed and announced Wang Yibo's shareholder identity, although there is no public share of shares, it can be judged that it has developed a stronger binding relationship with it; Han Geng signed as a shareholder of Lehua when he returned to China, or you can refer to judge Wang Yibo's current position in Lehua. It seems unlikely that Wang Yibo will leave after the contract expires.
Secondly, looking at the idol business itself, there is no obvious market shrinkage.
Still taking Wang Yibo as an example, this year's Spring Festival file Wang Yibo starring in the movie "Nameless" won a total of 931 million yuan at the box office, proving the idol's ability to attract money; the single "Like the Sun" released at the end of 2022 sold 1.526 million copies, ranking ninth last year; as of the end of 2022, Wang Yibo has 23 endorsements, although lower than the 39 in 2021, it is still not to be underestimated.
The consumer demand for idols in the market is still obvious. In the past two years, a series of policies such as the suspension of the draft, the cancellation of the charts, and the restriction of album purchases have indeed significantly restricted the consumption behavior of the market, but the existing demand will not disappear; Among the top ten singers selling albums last year, in addition to Hua Chenyu and Jang Ye-hung, there are also Korean idol groups such as BLACKPINK, (G)I-DLE, BIGBANG and so on.
It should be considered that the focus of policy supervision is to crack down on the chaos and unhealthy trends associated with the idol ecology, rather than the artist management itself, especially since 2022, the overall control has gradually become normalized, and in the face of still strong market demand, it is normal business behavior for industry companies to seek new and compliant solutions.
And for an established artist management company like Lehua, it is not surprising that it can still play a card like Zhang Hao at the moment.
In last year's article, Rhino Jun proposed Lehua's three abilities, one is a mature artist training mechanism, which can continue to make blood on the supply side of the idol market; The second is the industry influence in the field of idols, which can "pinch" among enthusiasts who are still interested in this, and master the singing and dancing performance resources of the head; The third is the management, operation and promotion of idol artists after their debut, with sufficient experience and resources.
Now, as Lehua plays the Zhang Hao card, these abilities are gradually exerting their value.
According to Lehua's 2022 financial report, as of the end of 2022, the company has 68 signed artists and 58 trainees participating in the trainee program, of which 18 trainees successfully debuted in 2022 and became signed artists of the company. In the previous three years, Lehua signed 19, 28 and 50 new trainees in each year.
From this point of view, there are no obvious problems with Lehua's trainee selection and training mechanism, and at the same time, the model of joint operation between China and South Korea has also shown a stronger attraction to young people who are interested in this under the current trend of domestic trainees sending to South Korea to participate in the draft. Under such a mechanism, it is actually inevitable for Lehua to build Zhang Hao.
The demand side of the market is still there, and Lehua's energy efficiency as the supply side is still strong, and the previous trouble is actually mainly due to the fact that the "pipeline" connecting supply and demand of talent shows is broken.
In the past three years, this pipeline has achieved mainland traffic for artists including Meng Meiqi, Wu Xuanyi, Huang Minghao, Fan Chengcheng and other artists. The industry has participated in the Korean draft in the past two years, but also wants to reconnect a pipeline, perhaps the efficiency of traffic transmission is low, but at least it has a certain normalization value.
Today, Lehua has done this first, and although the re-established supply and demand system still has stability problems, at least, Lehua has seen hope through Zhang Hao.
Build Zhang Hao
Not Lehua's final answer
As mentioned earlier, how to cultivate the next Zhang Hao is a question that Lehua's new system still has to answer.
Just as the country once was, the Korean draft also had a significant decline in popularity after the first year's super popularity. In particular, the "Produce 101" series also created by Mnet TV had a ticket fraud scandal, and the chief producer An Joon-young was imprisoned, which further lowered the market expectations of such programs.
Last year's first episode of "Girls Planet 999" had a rating of only 0.46%; By this year, the rating of the first episode of "BOYS PLANET" was only 0.379%, ranking 88th overall, and ranking 31st in the variety category, setting the lowest record for Mnet since the "101 series". Fortunately, the performance of such programs will gradually improve in the later stage, and the audience stickiness will be strengthened, and there will generally be a breakthrough in live broadcast night data.
However, the influence of the program is directly related to the results of the debut combination, which in turn affects the marketing effect of Chinese trainees in China.
CHINESE TRAINEES ARE CONSTANTLY IMPACTING THE RESULTS OF THE KOREAN DRAFT UNDER THE DEMAND OF BUILDING NEW "PIPELINES" ACROSS THE INDUSTRY, AND "BOYS PLANET" ALONE HAS ATTRACTED 27 CHINESE PLAYERS, INCLUDING 22 MAINLAND PLAYERS AND 5 PLAYERS FROM TAIWAN.
This process is not easy, on the one hand, these Korean programs have limited influence in the mainland, and even if they debut, it is easy to find this person; On the other hand, there are different weights for the program vote counting according to different regions, and the weight of Korean audiences' votes is much higher than overseas, which will greatly affect the result on the debut night.
Shen Xiaoting, who debuted in "Girls Planet 999" "Yan C" last year, is an example, not only was her ranking affected, but her voice in China after her debut was also extremely limited. And a key reason why Zhang Hao stood out in the final round this year was also that there were too many Korean players in the late finals, and only Zhang Hao and Shen Quanrui were left with 18 Chinese trainees in the final round, resulting in the dilution of high-weight Korean tickets.
If he can't become a "middle C", perhaps Zhang Hao's debut effect will not be so obvious. And the debut is just the beginning, last year's "Girls Planet999" debut group kep1er, did not release any business materials for Chinese fans in the form of a combination, which caused more obstacles to Shen Xiaoting's opening influence in the mainland.
Perhaps a feasible solution is to improve the level of trainees on the one hand, after all, after many rounds of screening since 2018, the Korean trainees in "BOYS PLANET" this year have seen a significant decline in ability, and various funny scenes have been on the Korean trend, and companies with training mechanisms such as Lehua can still see opportunities.
On the other hand, while maintaining the system built with the Korean draft, it is to find new "pipelines". It is important to create new marketing outlets that are energy efficient in communication.
Lehua has been focusing on the singing stage for the past three years, and the initial purpose is to imitate the Korean idol ecology, seek normalized idol exposure, and get out of the limitations of "debut is the peak" in China. As a result, Lehua teamed up with Youku, from the planning of "Cosmic Hit Song Center" to the final landing of "Sunrise Hit Song Center", with the selection stopped, the stage became the only answer to build "pipelines".
Although the results of the attempts on several platforms in 2022 are not satisfactory, the output of more stage programs can be seen on the film lists of various platforms, which may be able to open up the audience's minds and cultivate new viewing desires.
In addition, artist management companies, including Lehua, have also tried new revenue models in the past two years.
For example, in the music business, Lehua's financial report said that the music IP production and operation business will grow steadily in 2022, with revenue increasing by 26.8% to 98.6 million yuan, and 16 digital singles and 13 digital albums released; In addition, in 2020, it also created a virtual idol group A-SOUL, which was also operating well before the withdrawal of members of the group last year, and similar pan-entertainment businesses also include variety show form licensing and artist derivative sales.
Of course, artist management revenue is still the absolute core of 87% in 2022. In this regard, Lehua's "export to domestic sales" business does still have a lot of uncertainty, and it is still looking for more reliable "channels", but at least the supply and demand still exist, and the idol business can still be done.
Creating Zhang Hao is not an answer that Lehua can finally get a full score, but as an answer, it can already circle a number of points. Next, Lehua and the industry need to give better solutions to the problem.