Is the suspension of "The Voice" not the end, Starry Sky Chinese or a total collapse?
August 25 is the fifth broadcast day of "The Voice of China 2023". At 11 a.m. on the same day, Zhejiang Satellite TV announced the suspension of broadcasting, saying that "the problem of the program is under investigation."
Under the disturbance of the Li Min incident, the suspension of the broadcast is also an inevitable end.
But this is not the end, the suspension of the broadcast is only Zhejiang Satellite TV's stop-loss move, and the subsequent "investigation" tests Lantai - whether it is fair and objective, or unpopular.
More importantly, Starry Sky Huawen, the parent company of "The Voice", is still in turbulent waves under the continuous collapse of stock prices, how to resolve the crisis of public opinion and break free from the quagmire?
| The antecedent of the Li Min incident
All this has been doomed since the death of Coco Li Min.
If Li Min is still alive, he may put aside the controversy because of his feelings. Judging from the voice exchange between her and Wang Zepeng, she is by no means silly and sweet, and she also understands the unspoken rules of the entertainment industry, but it is not the same to complain in private and put it on the table.
After Li Min left, there was no scruple about people's feelings and worldliness, and it was only a matter of time before the turmoil broke out.
In fact, the cause and effect, many people still do not know, so they only know that Li Min has suffered "grievances".
The conflict between Li Min and "The Voice" began with the opacity of the rules on the spot.
In 2022, "The Voice" did not have Li Min at the beginning, and one of the initial mentors was Liao Changyong, but after the audition, he gave up. At that time, there were rumors that Liao's departure was precisely because he felt that the program group was unfair, so he resolutely resigned.
Subsequently, the program team found Li Min to replace her - she can be regarded as a "savior".
After Li Min became a mentor, the list of his students has been determined, including Zhou Feige and Wang Zepeng. Towards the final, Zhou Feige was eliminated, but he scored 88.3, while the other mentor group students with more than 70 points were able to advance.
This creates a contradiction - Li Min believes that it is unreasonable for high scores not to advance. As a result, there was a live video of "questioning the director" at the end of September 2022.
The rest of the things, a month and a half after Li Min's death, as everyone knows, always exploded.
There is another saying in the market that the reason why Zhou Feige could not advance was because he did not sign Mengxiang Qiangyin (a brokerage company owned by Starry Sky Chinese).
This is another unspoken rule of talent shows, not only "The Voice", but also other talent shows - non-self-signed contestants are likely not to come out, and even if they advance, they will not have outstanding rankings.
Wang Jingwen of The Voice of China in 2021 is because she did not sign Mengxiang Qiangyin, and despite her strong strength, she only won the second place runner-up.
From this point of view, Li Min is against the unspoken rules of the entire industry.
|Zhejiang Satellite TV stop loss
The director involved in Li Min's "director deliberately rectifying me" is said to be Liu (currently not confirmed, so his name is hidden), but what can be confirmed is that Liu is the staff of Fang Canxing (a production company owned by Starry Sky Chinese), the producer behind the good voice.
In the previous articles of "Entertainment Spring and Autumn", we all emphasized one thing: Zhejiang Satellite TV is the broadcaster, and the real operator of the program production is actually Canxing. In other words, it is Canxing who has a grudge with Li Min, not Lantai.
However, Zhejiang Satellite TV missed the "golden stop node" on August 18, and still insisted on choosing to broadcast, and was condemned as it should be.
Then, the suspension of the broadcast on August 25 is imperative. This is the stop loss that Lantai must choose.
But, is it just "temporarily suspended"?
We judged that it was likely to be a "permanent suspension".
In the future, regardless of the results of the survey, this situation will be like this -
Assuming that the investigation results are that the program team is responsible (or even fired the director and the senior management resigned), in response to the facts complained by Li Min, this show must not turn over;
Assuming that the results of the investigation are fine, it will fall into a larger dark cloud, and it will be difficult to block the mouth. Even if it is rebroadcast, every time it is broadcast, it will be scolded, of course, no sponsor is willing to throw money at a show full of slots.
Therefore, under "left and right are not people", "The Voice of China" can only withdraw from the variety show market.
|How to deal with the Chinese language in the starry sky
After Zhejiang Satellite TV announced the suspension of broadcasting, the focus of observation was - where is the parent company of "The Voice", Star Chinese (the main body of the listed company), going?
After consecutive stock price plunges on August 18 and August 21, the capital entered the market on August 24, rising by 10%, and fell by 17.89% after the close of trading on August 25. Basically, Star Chinese shares fell 56% in a week, and their market value lost more than 27 billion in total (before the incident, the market value was around 48 billion).
And that's not the deadliest yet.
Zhejiang Satellite TV can stop the broadcast, plus it is a government-run provincial station, the storm is only temporary for it, and there will be no problems in the future.
But, Starry Sky Chinese is not.
Even if "The Voice" draws an end to this, it will not be able to divert public opinion accusations, and it will most likely affect other programs under it, including "This! is street dance" and other IPs, the possibility of encountering continuous resistance from netizens is quite high.
Then, Starry Sky Chinese needs to find a way to "reconcile" with public opinion.
However, the "best time window" is gone.
If, on the evening of August 17, after Li Min's 9-minute audio was released, he could apologize and express a thorough investigation in a very low posture, and then give the result within two days - as Entertainment Spring and Autumn issued on August 18, to give the public a thorough and comprehensive explanation, there may be room for redemption.
If it is postponed to the end of September 2022, Li Min doubts the turmoil, it can be properly handled at that time, sincerely, spread out in the sun, rather than "can't be put on the table and say", it will also turn big things into small things.
But these are only hypothetical.
Get used to the dark box processing, and it is only a matter of time before it is eaten back.
On the evening of August 25, Star Chinese issued an announcement on the Hong Kong stock market, saying that it supported the decision to stop broadcasting and fully assisted in the investigation. In fact, the announcement has no incremental information, and there seems to be no attempt to change the public's perception, and it still lacks emotion.
Then, the next "time window" is that before the results of the Zhejiang Radio and Television survey are released, Starry Sky Chinese needs to take active measures to proactively solve and remedy it. If during this period, Starry Sky Chinese still does not move, it can only be regarded as "giving up the struggle".
From the onlooker's perspective, it was hard to imagine that a company with a market value of tens of billions would have been so slow to respond — even more clumsy than the official Zhejiang Satellite TV.
Perhaps, it is too difficult for the elephant to turn around?
All in all, if Starry Sky Chinese cannot convince netizens within a limited time, there will inevitably be more serious consequences than the suspension of the broadcast, such as:
Total collapse
|The Voice Behind the Scenes Capital Bureau
On July 4, 1991, Li Ka-shing's company set up a television station called "Satellite TV Chinese", which was acquired by Murdoch's News Corp. two years later.
In 2009, the company changed its name to "Star Greater China" in the Chinese market, including satellite TV Chinese, satellite TV movie station, star satellite TV, Channel V, Star Chinese Media Film Co., Ltd., etc. In August 2010, it was renamed "Star Chinese Media", of which 53% of the controlling stake was acquired by Li Ruigang of Chinese Culture, and completely acquired in January 2014.
This is the "prehistory" of Starry Sky Chinese.
In 2021, the mainland's Canxing Culture submitted two applications for A-share listing, both of which were rejected. On December 29, 2022, Hexing Chinese Media was restructured and successfully listed on the Hong Kong stock market.
According to the Starry Sky Chinese prospectus, its shareholding structure is now as follows -
Shareholding structure/source: Starry Sky Chinese Prospectus
In terms of equity distribution, Chinese Culture controlled by Li Ruigang is the largest shareholder, but the company forms a "concerted actor" with Tian Ming (CEO), Jin Lei and Xu Xiangdong (executive director and vice president, respectively) as the controlling party of Star Chinese. Li Ruigang and the other three were former colleagues of Oriental Satellite TV.
If the starry sky Chinese collapses, the biggest loss is undoubtedly Chinese culture. However, Tian Ming and others have already made a lot of money.
Because, in 2016, Canxing bought Mengxiang Qiangyin for 2 billion, which was a private holding company of Tian Ming and Jin Lei at that time, so the 2 billion went to their own pockets.
Star Chinese has four major businesses, namely variety show IP production, music IP operation and licensing, film drama IP operation and licensing, and other IP business.
Business model/source: Starry Sky Chinese Prospectus
In terms of the revenue of Starry Sky Chinese, variety show content occupies the absolute majority, and at the beginning of its listing, a total of 32 variety shows were produced, with a total of 307 episodes broadcast.
From 2019 to 2022, the proportion of variety show IP revenue will be 74.2%, 69.9%, 78.0%, 46.9% and 74.7% respectively; Among them, "The Voice of China" accounts for the highest proportion. In the Starry Sky Chinese prospectus, he proudly declared that "The Voice of China is not only a creative music competition program, but also the record holder for the most seasons of a variety show in China. ”
However, the brilliance is temporary, and as the influence of program IP declines, the proportion of revenue of "The Voice" is also shrinking. In 2019, "The Voice" accounted for 36.6% of the revenue of all variety shows in Starry Sky Chinese, and by 2021, it has decreased to 28.6%, and "This! is street dance" sprung up, accounting for 27.2%.
Of course, the figure of "The Voice" will completely disappear from this list. However, whether other programs can be broadcast again, as mentioned in the previous section, is still undecided, and will be determined by the actions of the Chinese language of the starry sky.
It is worth noting that "The Voice of China" is the starting point of Canxing Culture, the company behind Starry Sky Chinese, and in 2012, with this program model imported from the Netherlands, Canxing was born.
Eleven years later, it also became the company's Waterloo.
It can be said that the world is good reincarnation, and the sky spares whom!