The hot network in the first half of this year is all here|Count

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Before you know it, 2023 is already halfway through. I have to say that in the company of various dramas, variety shows and movies, this half year has been quite interesting.

Generally speaking, audiences are more willing to find resonance in the drama and "watch fun" in variety shows. As a variety artist, if you haven't knocked on the keyboard for Xie Na in "Riding the Wind 2023", smiled for Sister Meng in "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock 3", and shouted "Ye Qing Hui" for the IP restart of "All Staff Acceleration 2023"... Then your variety show life is not complete.

Behind these shows, there is still the variety show market that is "as always" and "full of variables". Among them, some projects are full of enthusiasm in the flowers and applause of the audience, and some projects are facing a decline in popularity and word of mouth in the difficulties of routines and innovation.

Therefore, taking advantage of this turning point in the middle of the year, Bone Duo specially sorted out the online variety show launched this year, hoping to work with you to meet a better second half of 2023 through the data review of the first half of the year.

Is the variety show market warming up?

Compared with the same period last year, the number of online comprehensive networks in the first half of this year shrank slightly, and the overall quality improved. Among them, Youku has the largest number of online syntheses, with 26 (all of which are independent broadcasts); followed by Mango TV, with 20 programs (6 solo broadcasts and 14 simulcasts); Tencent Video has 17 files (16 solo broadcasts and 1 simulcast); iQIYI has 11 programs (9 solo broadcasts, 2 simulcasts) and so on.

The main themes of the network complex have also changed from marriage, reasoning, talk, music and other categories to talk, travel, music, marriage, etc., and the mystery is obviously "out of favor". The concentrated emergence of tourism programs is closely related to the complete liberalization after the epidemic. The proportion of tourism in the cultural and entertainment life of the public has increased significantly, and there are no restrictions on the venue, number of people and other aspects of program recording.

Statistics on the number of 2023H1 network comprehensive themes

In addition to travel, marriage and romance shows are also a battlefield that everyone cannot give up. Although compared with 12 in the same period last year, only 8 results in the first half of this year showed a downward trend in the number of marriage and romance programs. However, as a rigid demand in the variety show market, this type of theme has always occupied a huge user market and has long cultivated a stable audience. And with the deepening of the public's attention and discussion on this social topic in the past two years, the marriage track is also rolling in an increasingly crowded situation.

In the marriage and romance online ensemble in the first half of this year, the popularity and word-of-mouth performance were relatively prominent in the N generation of the two series, namely "Half-Acquainted Lovers 2" featuring Tencent Video and "Like You and Me Too 4" launched by iQiyi. The reason why they stand out among many similar shows is that they have accurately found their respective power points.

Among them, "Half-Mature Lovers 2" chooses to cut from the perspective of light maturity, and explores the attitude of light maturity towards marriage in the way of "not looking at the five senses and looking at the three views first", and excavates the practical significance of love in the real, frank and sharp collision; "Like You and Me Too 4" mainly focuses on young people who have been paying attention to their own bodies for a long time and have lost feelings and motivation for love to a certain extent, which has a high overlap with the young audience that has grown up in the current Internet environment.

It can be seen that it is precisely by focusing on different groups that the two shows have grasped the subdivisions in the current romance market, so that they have the possibility to stand out and build the confidence of comprehensive N generation IP.

Let's look at talk shows. This category is basically led by Tencent Video, which holds the "Thirteen Invitations" series of IP. Music programs are dominated by Mango TV, which holds ace variety shows such as "Riding the Wind" and "Endless Sound".

Although throughout the entire variety show market in the first half of the year, there was no "explosive" national explosion, but there were still programs such as "Riding the Wind 2023", "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock 3", "Let's Farm", "Heartbeat 20 Years Old Season 3" and other programs, basically all tracks have given steady and steady works to meet the needs of the audience.

Constantly new, who has seized the popularity and word of mouth?

In the first half of the year, among the 78 Shangxin Network Ensemble, a total of 16 works had an average bone popularity of more than 50.

Among them, there are 6 simulcasts of Mango TV and Migu Video, 5 files of iQiyi (4 solo broadcasts + 1 simulcast with Tencent Video), 4 files of Tencent Video (3 solo broadcasts + 1 simulcast with iQiyi), and 2 unique broadcasts of Youku. Obviously, in the past, Mango TV, a single large network comprehensive market, is diversifying in the joint efforts of various platforms.

In the total popularity ranking, the top three are "Riding the Wind 2023", which successfully continued to the fourth season by relying on "her power" and strong topics, "All Staff Accelerating 2023" with the old variety show feelings, and "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock 3", which has always maintained eye-catching social experiments. These three works actually show the different dilemmas and ways to break the situation from the three sections of "super IP value maintenance", "emotional IP restarting" and "how to recover from the decline in popularity".

It is worth mentioning that "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock 3" has experienced a strong eye-catching in the first season and the topic of the second season, and then opened up in the general environment, and the public's enthusiasm for outdoor, distance, travel and other elements has surged, facing a broader audience market, and the show itself has further strengthened the excavation and display of social experience and humanistic exploration, breaking the curse of the N generation to a certain extent and ushering in a recovery in popularity.

Up to now, the average popularity of the bones of "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock 3" is 58.44, the program is not more than half, the popularity has surpassed the first season, #Meng Zi Yirui commented on the Min Tang Jingmei band incident##Wang Chuanjun cried for the bird that hit the glass# and other content attracted many netizens to participate in the discussion under the hot search. It can be seen that not only film and television dramas are pursuing the ultimate in character and plot, but variety shows also need to see the importance of deep cultivation in the pendant track.

From the perspective of word of mouth, many excellent works also emerged in the first half of the year. There are a total of 18 online complexes with a Douban score of 7 or above, including 3 with 9 points or above, namely Tencent Video's "Thirteen Invitations 7" (rating 9.5), Youku's "Gong Gong Xing World 3" (rating 9.4), and iQiyi's "Let's Farm" (rating 9.0).

Although the first two shows belong to the same talk category, the core positioning is not the same. "Thirteen Invitations" has now successfully created seven seasons, bringing long-term and profound inspiration to its audience. The rising reputation not only makes it a model of longevity word-of-mouth variety shows, but also highlights Tencent Video's deep exploration of humanistic care and social value behind the show.

"Traveling the World" combines travel and talk shows, bringing relatively in-depth cultural experience to the audience in the structure of acquaintances with Dou Wentao as the core and the flowing external environment. For example, this season takes Jiangnan as the theme, discusses the history and culture of Jiangnan, carries out non-genetic inheritance, tastes local food, and feels social life, which can be said to lead the audience to cultural experience while also carrying the significance of the combination of culture and tourism.

The labor documentary interactive reality show "Let's Farm" has received different attention from the whole process of sowing, irrigating, fertilizing, harvesting, real operation of farms, live streaming of goods to take responsibility for profits and losses, and establishing a farmer's market. Not only did the guests of the program such as "Farming Squad" grow steadily in these 190 days of labor, but the audience also gained a sense of immersion in the whole process. "Let's Farm" is opening up new ideas for labor documentary reality shows from a unique perspective of down-to-earth children.

Although it is not easy for the current variety show market to achieve both word-of-mouth and popularity, there are also many programs that have proved with personal practice that longevity can also create word-of-mouth and innovate properly and gain audience recognition.

Track segmentation: dig deep into the N generation, focus on new pendants

Overall, the problem of the downturn in the variety show market still plagues the industry and audiences who love variety shows, but fortunately, the creators have not given up, still have enthusiasm for each output, and constantly try to balance inheritance and innovation.

Frankly speaking, at this moment, there are nothing more than two paths in front of variety show producers, one is to dig deep into the N generation, and the other is to focus on new pendants. It's clear that both platforms and production companies are doing their best to pursue both.

For example, the longevity word-of-mouth variety show "Thirteen Invitations 7" produced by Tencent Video is based on exploring the core of the times from the perspective of Xu Zhiyuan, and emphasizes the sense of action, going out, entering a more real life and a broader world, seeking wisdom and a way out in the question of spirit and thought, and exploring the thickness of life. At the same time, as a rare domestic original variety show IP, "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Dock" takes "experimental group life social observation reality show" as its own positioning, and has continuously given new attempts from scenes, guests, gameplay and other aspects for three seasons, leading the audience to explore outside the comfort zone in innovation and topics.

There is also the aforementioned "Riding the Wind 2023", although this show won the top 1 among the 78 network complexes in the first half of this year with a popularity of 59.59, but this result is not surprising for "Sister Lang", a super IP with quite national popularity. Since the Wang Xinling effect of "love" all over the network in the last season brought a lot of boost to Sister Lang, and also made the creators discover the potential power of sweetness and nostalgia, so in this season, the program team tried to launch Xu Huaiyu's replica miracle, and then took advantage of the high popularity of Mei Yili Bud in order to pocket the two-dimensional audience.

It can be seen that for the N generation, with the decline in the popularity of seasonal broadcasting, how to re-attract public attention and effectively maintain IP value in subsequent program planning is crucial.

Of course, it is often more comfortable to create a new show than to extend the life cycle of classic IP, which also makes it more diverse to focus on the vertical perspective of niche fields. For example, the mystery that grew up in it, the camping theme and comedy variety show that were popular last year, etc., have many works that have become famous and left a deep impression on the audience.

However, novelty often comes and goes, just like last year's camping activity preferred by the new middle class, with the complete liberalization of the environment at the end of the year, this year has quietly eclipsed. However, due to the sluggishness of the market response, the variety show market in the first half of the year still launched 4 camping variety shows, and the results can naturally be imagined. In fact, the "Sister Lang", who borrowed "her power" to create momentum, take off, and fall back, was also affected to a certain extent by the changes in the social environment by female power. It can be seen that the variety show born from the vent is also facing the problem of how to stand after the outlet disappears.

However, for more on-the-ground innovation, it may be possible to reduce this part of the trouble. For example, "Mao Xuewang", which started with an acquaintance variety show, poked at the relatively stable social topic of interpersonal relationships and the spiritual growth of young people, and further promoted the exploration of acquaintance bureaus in the variety show market.

At the same time, the variety show market has also shown a strong trend in derivative variety shows, whether it is a member-exclusive derivative program launched on multiple platforms, or a film and television drama derivative variety show that will appear next, all of them are making longer-term explorations towards the marginal benefits of variety shows.

Although the outside world has been singing about the variety show market for a long time, and the cold market has become a cliché, it has been proved that the land of variety shows, under deep cultivation, there is still vitality to inspire and inspiration to flash. I believe that those creators and audiences who have always had a love for them are also deeply aware of this.