It is reported that Douyin has established a new cultural and entertainment department to integrate multiple businesses such as live broadcast programs and music

Text | Li Xiaoxia Dou Xuan

Editor|Qiao Qian, Yang Xuan

36Kr learned from multiple sources that Douyin recently established a new entertainment department, headed by Chen Duye, former vice president of marketing of Giant Engine, and reported to Han Shangyou, the head of Douyin. Jiao Yingying, head of closed-loop monetization products of Huge Engine, took over Chen Duye's original position.

According to public information, Chen Duye graduated from the Department of Industrial Engineering of Tsinghua University, worked in Procter & Gamble and Shangyang, engaged in marketing-related work, and later joined ByteDance, successively serving as the general manager of Toutiao Marketing Center and the vice president of marketing of Giant Engine.

As early as June this year, it was reported that Chen Duye had transferred to Douyin and was responsible for Douyin's entertainment business. According to people familiar with the matter, previously, Douyin did not have a unified entertainment department, but now, Douyin has integrated live broadcast programs (including events, concerts, etc.), music, variety shows, film and television dramas, stars and other businesses into a larger entertainment department, and the organizational structure of the department is still in progress.

The above-mentioned informed sources revealed that in Chen Duye's OKR, live broadcast programs ranked first, such as S-level projects such as World Cup live broadcast, and the others were film and television drama variety shows, music, stars, etc.

In the past two years, it can also be seen that Douyin has invested a lot of effort in the live broadcast of programs including events and concerts, including the World Cup, the Chengdu Universiade, the concerts of stars such as Andy Lau and Sun Yanzi, and stage plays. According to the data, the total number of views of the live broadcast of the Douyin World Cup event is 10.6 billion, and the total interaction of users live broadcast is 1.3 billion. Andy Lau's concert attracted more than 300 million people.

These live broadcasts not only greatly enrich Douyin's content ecology and maintain user activity, but more importantly, they can support the commercial development of Douyin, in addition to the existing paid viewing, live broadcast rewards, etc., but also may leverage local life services such as ticket sales and takeaway.

A person familiar with the matter once told 36Kr that during the World Cup last year, Douyin simultaneously opened the third-party delivery pilot of the takeaway business in 9 cities, and launched a limited-time campaign with no merchant delivery fees, which promoted the GMV of takeaway in November and December last year to reach 80-90 million.

According to 36Kr's understanding, a few days ago, Chen Duye attended a closed-door meeting of the Douyin variety show "New Shake Mix" in Shanghai as the head of the new cultural and entertainment department. At the meeting, Douyin told producers that content people are the most vulnerable group in the investment model, so Douyin tried to change this situation, hoping to help all production companies transform and get rid of the dependence of the 2B model.

"In the past, all variety show shows were 2B models, and the program could only be done if there was money in the market, and the program could only be done if the investment was obtained, so that now there are fewer and fewer variety shows set up for the project, indicating that there is actually a huge problem with the entire content business model." An industry source told 36Kr. This is a common problem faced by several parent video platforms represented by Youai Tengmang.

"Douyin wants to use its own short video model to see if it can solve the monetization problem of long videos, like the monetization model of self-media on the platform and small creators, whether it can be applied to professional TV stations and large content companies." An insider explained to 36Kr that it is such as gathering fans through variety show content, creating IP accounts, and then trying to monetize based on the accounts, such as live streaming goods.

At the closed-door meeting, Douyin's original variety shows "Nice to Meet You" and "All-out Action" were used as classic cases to convey the possibility of commercialization. It is reported that "Nice to Meet You" has obtained a good return through account live broadcasting, and "All-out Action" has also opened an e-commerce live broadcast room and tried local life and other models.

"Nice to Meet You" stills, source network

According to the self-media "Xinsheng Pro", the account system is the core logic of "Xinjing Comprehensive": first, through the combination of long, medium and short videos and live broadcasts to create a full-matrix account, secondly, long-link operation of the account, and then in commercialization, through multi-form monetization including star map platform, live streaming goods, live broadcast rewards, local life, content payment and other forms to increase the revenue ceiling.

In the eyes of the above-mentioned industry insiders, Douyin's motivation for doing such a thing is very good, and it works theoretically, but it is very difficult to get through, because the intermediate chain is very long and requires the scale of a TV station to complete, "So I guess Douyin established the entertainment department to help content people build a platform to solve these problems." ”

Another informed source told 36Kr that compared with film and television dramas, Douyin Entertainment's greater ambition is in the variety show. It is not difficult to understand that Song Binghua, then head of Douyin variety show, said at the 2022 Engine Conference that variety show content only accounts for 5%-8% of the whole site on the long video platform, but provides more than 40% of commercial revenue.

At the closed-door meeting, Douyin also described to the producers the potential commercial value behind the above model - the current variety show market size is about 150 billion, and it may be N times this number in the future.

In terms of dramas, Douyin's focus is on short dramas, and in Q1 of this year, Douyin Short Drama announced the list of recommended films in 2023 and the "Chenxing Plan" for young creators, and made it clear that the key direction of Douyin short dramas in 2023 is to strengthen users' minds of chasing dramas and continue to produce influential hits. According to public data, Douyin will broadcast more than 200+ 100 million short dramas in 2022. In terms of the short drama monetization model, Douyin's focus is on short drama commercialization and content payment, and it is reported that last year's Douyin short drama revenue increased by 72% compared with 2021.

In addition to programs, film and television comprehensive businesses, music has also been integrated into the entertainment department, including Douyin Music and Soda Music. In the past, these two businesses were separate, but now they are integrated into the China Music business.

A year after the official launch, people familiar with the matter revealed that in the first half of this year, the internal caliber of the soda music DAU was about 8 million, while the DAU was about 5 million at the end of last year. However, according to 36Kr's understanding, in the music business, Douyin now has no intention of spending expensive fees to buy copyrights.

Last year, 36Kr reported that in the second half of 2021 and 2022, it has reached cooperation with music companies such as China Music, Modern Sky, and Emperor Entertainment. But now, the music department has quietly removed the rights of some key music companies, preferring to focus on cultivating its own musicians.

In the past, although Douyin has always had a layout in entertainment, it is not much different from the traditional online video platform gameplay. However, with the rise of business ecology such as e-commerce and local life, the entertainment monetization model has a richer imagination, and from the perspective of time nodes, Douyin's integration of cultural and entertainment business is timely.

But whether the story belonging to Douyin Entertainment can finally be told will take time to verify.

(36Kr continues to pay attention to Douyin, if you have clues, welcome to add WeChat xhht100 to communicate)