Text / Amu
You've heard of Hollywood, you know Bollywood, but do you know "Lywood"?
Recently, Himalaya, a well-known domestic content platform, and a number of partners jointly launched the "Hilywood Project" to officially enter the short drama development track. As the largest online audio platform in China, Himalaya has laid out micro-short drama tracks many times before, what are the new highlights of this "Hilywood Project"?
In this plan, Himalaya will not only open up the IP copyright pool and link multiple resources to create blockbuster short dramas on a large scale, but also carry out full-chain and diversified development around original IP.
The fledgling Himalaya can stand firm in the field of mini-dramas? How will the new audio platform play new tricks?
Open IP copyright pool
How many IPs does Himalaya have?
At the end of last year, the State Administration of Radio and Television issued a notice on "Opinions on Promoting the Prosperity and Development of Short Drama Creation", proposing to "build a modern short drama dissemination pattern and market system". When micro-short dramas have been widely recognized in the content market, the form of micro-short dramas has also swept the big and small screens in an instant, not only with the participation of short video platforms and long video platforms, but also with the participation of streaming media audio platforms.
Among them, Himalaya is the first to bear the brunt, and the biggest support behind it is Himalaya's own IP resources.
Since 2018, since the launch of Miracle Works, it has maintained in-depth friendly cooperation with Himalaya FM, and behind it, Miracle Literature is directly affiliated with Himalaya. In 2021, Himalayan Miracle Literature launched the "Miracle Project" to launch the "100 million creation gold, find the best creator" activity for all authors and copyright owners on the Internet.
Similar to the current recruitment plan for micro-short drama creators on major platforms, the "Miracle Project" mainly focuses on supporting online content creators, encouraging authors to create more original content suitable for audio adaptation, and accelerating the monetization of creators' content through all-round services.
According to the latest data, Himalaya's original literary website Miracle Literature now has more than 3,000 original high-quality full-copyright web literary IPs.
Many IPs have successfully realized comprehensive derivative development from web novels to audio dramas, comics, games, short dramas, script killing, online movies, publishing, audio comic dramas and other forms.
In the face of so many web novel IPs, Himalaya chose to open the IP copyright pool in this "Hilly Wood Project", so how open is this openness?
According to Himalayan insiders, this time Himalaya entered the short drama track, using an innovative and win-win model. In their words, this is an asset-light model, which adopts the model of copyright investment and accounting by opening up some of their own IP resources.
To put it simply, this kind of openness is not actually giving up copyright, in a sense, Himalaya has taken its copyright advantages to find more partners.
Multi-party help micro-dramas
How many "partners" does Himalaya have?
In addition to the copyright support of Himalaya's Miracle Literature, this "Hilywood Project" also has several "partners".
It is understood that the "Hilywood Plan" adopts a multi-party cooperation model, in addition to Himalaya, there are Yangxuan Pumen Film Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Walllywood Culture Group Co., Ltd., Jinbailin (Shanghai) Investment Management Co., Ltd., Wuxi Lingshan Charity Foundation, etc. jointly initiated, the activity will combine the professional capabilities of all parties, integrate multiple resources, invest, produce and distribute a number of excellent short drama works.
Among these four "partners", each company has a different division of labor, and basically shares all aspects of the production of micro-short dramas, becoming a "link" in its micro-short drama production chain.
First, financial support. This "Hilly Wood Project" will set up a special fund for film and television, using short dramas as an incision to gradually realize the development of online movies, online dramas, animations and other film and television projects of the same IP. Among the partners, Wuxi Lingshan Foundation and Xuanpumen Pictures are responsible for taking the lead in providing part of the financial support.
Second, production support. The "Hilly Wood Project" will provide support in various links such as filming location, actors, filming, production, and review, one-stop allocation of resources, and in-depth participation in the production of short drama works to ensure the quality of short drama creation. Among them, Wuxi Wallywood Film and Television Industrial Park provides support in short drama shooting venues, shooting services and post-production.
Third, publicize support. In this "Hilywood Project", Himalaya will not only provide copyright support, but also provide publicity resource support, and realize the effective linkage of audio and video platforms "audio, audio, text, land and air" when the short drama is launched.
In addition to these "partners", Himalaya's micro-drama production in recent years has been synchronized with multi-parent video platforms. In 2022 alone, Himalaya has reached cooperation with Tencent Video, Mango TV, Kuaishou, Youku, iQiyi and so on. It can be seen that Himalaya's entry in the field of mini-dramas is not single-handed, but chooses to stand on the shoulders of predecessors.
Seize the micro-drama market
How many advantages does Himalaya have?
Since last year, Himalaya has been in the sea micro-drama, after a period of testing the waters, as an online audio platform, can Himalaya achieve a high degree of compatibility with micro-mini-dramas? What are the advantages of itself?
Compared with other platforms broadcasting micro-short dramas, Himalaya's micro-short drama strategy will be more comprehensive overall. Take the short drama "The Rumored Lu Shen Doctor" jointly developed by Himalaya and Mango TV last year as an example, this short drama was broadcast simultaneously on dual platforms, which also made this drama the first short drama in China to be simultaneously broadcast on audio and video dual platforms.
This short drama is adapted from the original IP of Himalayan miracle literature "Doctor Lu, Your Wife is on the Hot Search Again", when broadcast, Himalaya is presented to users in the form of "audio drama" and "video short drama", and users can experience the three-in-one function of "watching dramas, listening to books and chasing texts" in the Himalaya platform.
From the perspective of advantages, the platform makes full use of web novel IP resources to achieve "one fish eats more" through development forms such as film and television, publishing, script killing, and animation, so as to maximize the volume and scope of content dissemination.
At the same time, Himalaya is good at using other platforms to develop its own IP and commercialize it. Previously, Himalaya adopted a "time-limited free" model when broadcasting mini-dramas, and the initial estimate was that the free time would be one month, and the paid model would be used in the future. In addition, there are other forms of commercial transformation of mini-dramas.
In March this year, the short drama "Little Mad Doctor" adapted from the Himalayan original web novel IP "The Little Mad Doctor of the World of the War King's Pet Concubine" was broadcast on Tencent Video, ranking first on the popularity list of Tencent Video short dramas on the day of broadcasting, with a cumulative account of nearly 4 million yuan in the first month of launch.
From the point of view of disadvantages, the current form of micro-mini-dramas coincides with the audiobook mode of online audio itself, which will cause homogenization within the platform in content adaptation. It is also worth noting that not all audiobook content is suitable for film and television adaptation, especially for some works, film and television is actually the "castration" of text content.
At the same time, in the field of audio platforms, radio dramas face the problem of content transformation, the development of text content into audio and video, will need to be secondary processing of content, and editing will have an impact on the original content. Like film and television dramas adapted into radio dramas, the sound of micro-short dramas also faces the same dilemma, how to find the foundation of audio under the erosion of text and video.
Finally, on the whole, the biggest problem of micro-short dramas on online audio platforms lies in the cultivation of users' viewing and consumption habits. From reading online articles, to watching videos, to listening to radio, the entire development process needs a longer period of cultivation, and in the future, Himalaya still needs to go a long way.