界面新闻记者 | 袁文文 佘晓晨
Interface News Editor | Song Jianan
Skit concept stocks are riding a "roller coaster" to flip wildly, frequently staging sharp rises and falls.
Last week, Reading Group just spent 600 million yuan to buy Tencent Animation's assets rose by more than 15%, and this week Chinese Online fell by more than 11%, Yao Ji Technology, Insai Group, Zhewen Pictures, Haikan Shares, Qujiang Cultural Tourism followed suit. After that, Zhongguang Tianxuan once again ushered in the rise and limit, and the stock price hit a record high, and Insai Group, Gravity Media, Haikan Shares, Chinese Online, etc. followed suit.
Earlier, in August, the myth of wealth creation of the short drama "Wushuang" "with an income of more than 100 million yuan in 8 days of broadcasting" circulated throughout the short drama circle; in October, "It's Over, I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women" stirred up the concept of "interactive film game + short drama" and set off a "short drama style". At that time, ReelShort, a subsidiary of Chinese Online, topped the overall iOS download list in the United States, driving the company's stock price to soar and its market value soaring by tens of billions.
Many companies with no IP copyright or film and television production experience are also eager to get a piece of the pie, "Even some listed companies in the e-commerce and consumer fields have come to us to consult how to make short dramas." Yu Zhichao, director of the short drama department of Qiuyuan Film and Television, lamented to Jiemian News that for a while, short dramas have become the most gold-attracting project on the Internet.
According to iiMedia Consulting, the market size of China's online micro-short dramas will reach 37.39 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%, and it is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan by 2027.
Gold diggers from all sides are ready to move, and short video delivery and going overseas as a platform have become opportunities to extend the tentacles of short dramas. Users also seem willing to pay for skits. According to a research report by China Securities Construction Investment, the monthly recharge amount of the short drama industry has increased from 40 million yuan in June this year to 60 million yuan in October.
But after a brief period of madness, the short drama market began to show many new signs. According to Sensor Tower, Reel Short's ranking had dropped to No. 15 in early December. A number of Internet delivery platforms have successively issued relevant restrictions on the purchase of short dramas, and supervision is also being tightened. Many industry insiders pointed out that short dramas have changed from a huge buying game to a competition of content itself.
A traffic game
The happy girl unexpectedly encounters a family accident and "transforms" into an avenger, and the rich child gives up the family inheritance and goes to a new life with his girlfriend......
On the surface, it is these extremely conflicting and even "bloody" plots that support the explosion of the short drama in the early stage, but the essence is still in the traffic competition.
In order to catch the user's attention in a few seconds, the production cycle and playback cycle of short dramas must be shorter than that of regular film and television content, and the requirements for the timeliness of return rate are also more stringent - most short drama platforms hope to get a higher rate of return within half a month to a month.
Liang Lili, the founder of the "Short Drama Xi Room", who has long been concerned about the short drama industry, told the interface news reporter that the current cost of producing a short drama to put traffic (advertising and drainage on the platform, hereinafter referred to as "casting") accounts for eighty or ninety percent. The recharge amount of 10 million yuan can basically be regarded as a hit, and the investment amount of such a short drama needs about 8 million yuan.
The traffic mainly comes from Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat, which have a large number of users. Especially on short video platforms, short dramas have become a big advertiser. Cheng Yixiao, chairman of Kuaishou, once revealed that in the third quarter, Kuaishou's consumption of paid short dramas increased by more than 300% year-on-year and nearly 50% quarter-on-quarter.
Even overseas, the popularity of short dramas is inseparable from buying volume.
Bella, the customer management and operation manager of EclickWorld's pan-entertainment, told Jiemian News that the European and American markets are the kryptonite centers of short dramas, and a customer could consume 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. dollars in one day just through EclickWorld's streaming channels.
The channels for short dramas to go overseas include short video platforms, social media, search engines, etc., but short video platforms are easier to attract users, and they also require more effort from the streamers. For example, in TikTok's advertising strategy, the content of the material not only emphasizes youthfulness, but also has to try to highlight the explosive point within 5 seconds, otherwise it can only be "swept away" by users.
"The core gameplay of short dramas is to buy volume, that is, advertising. Liang Lili said that this is also the reason why she paid attention to the short drama track as an advertising practitioner.
A data from ReelShort also proves the huge cost behind the above gameplay - the net cash flow generated by Chinese Online's operating activities in the third quarter decreased by 225.02% year-on-year, and the key is the increase in the channel cost and promotion expenses of copyright-derived paid video dramas.
But the money does not mean that it is 100% popular. "The popularity rate of the industry is not high, generally 1 out of 10 dramas may explode, and advertising costs account for 80%-90%, not counting script costs, production costs, technical service costs, payment channel fees, etc. On the whole, the average profit margin of the industry is basically within 10%, and most of the companies that can make money are the heads. Liang Lili said.
There are traces of explosions
There are many kinds of players participating in short dramas, and a relatively complete industrial chain has been formed, among which the IP side is located in the upstream, which is mainly responsible for obtaining the copyright of various original or existing IP for the use of short drama producers. The producers belong to the midstream, and they rely on the IP they have obtained or their own online literary works to produce short drama content. As for the downstream, there are social media platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat, or specialized skit streaming platforms, who are responsible for distributing and broadcasting these skit works.
As one of the earliest companies to enter the short drama industry in China, Qiu Yuan Film and Television is a midstream player, and started a short drama business in Xi'an in 2021. Yu Zhichao told Jiemian News that the company initially did novel information flow advertising business, which involved a large number of material shooting. When he came into contact with skits, he realized that this could be a future opportunity.
2021 also happens to be the initial stage of short dramas, and a few film and television drama production companies are involved, but the overall climate has not yet become a climate, and it will only begin to show blowout growth in 2022, and this year it will reach its peak.
Participants like Akimoto Film and Television have applied their previous experience in doing in-feed advertising in short dramas. In terms of how to make money, online articles have become the preferred reference object.
The subject matter of the short drama is closely related to online literature, and both can attract attention with a fascinating storyline and emotional experience in a short period of time. If users want to unlock more content, they have to recharge, and this "paid card point" type of profit model is similar to online articles. In addition, many short dramas will also earn income through business advertising cooperation, platform customization, etc.
Even, most of the companies that provide delivery services for short dramas in the industry chain also have experience in the delivery of online articles. In 2020, eclickworld set foot in the overseas business of online literature, doing content delivery and operation, but it was not until this year that this business showed an obvious growth trend.
"The promotion of online articles in the initial stage provides some suitable paths for short dramas. Bella told Jiemian News that since the beginning of this year, the purchase volume of short dramas has skyrocketed. Compared with the purchase of other content, they pay more attention to the story in the purchase of short dramas, to see if they can make the audience have more emotional resonance and appeal.
The explosion of ReelShort also has the contribution of online articles. In 2017, Chinese Online launched Chapters, an interactive visual novel reading platform, to enter the international market. It makes full use of the online novel content accumulated in the past, promotes each other in Chapters and ReelShort and other product matrices, and improves the gross profit margin of products through traffic sharing on multiple platforms.
告别“躺赢”，新一轮洗牌开启
The reason why skits attract all kinds of players is largely due to the temptation to make quick money.
Like Qiuyuan Film and Television's revenue composition, including "floor price + account sharing". The so-called reserve price refers to the cost of producing a short drama, and the account sharing is the share of the recharge fee after the short drama is launched. According to the information released by major video platforms, nearly ten short dramas have achieved more than 10 million accounts this year.
It is not an exaggeration to describe the early producers as "lying to win", and film and television companies such as Huace Film and Television, Ningmeng Film and Television, and Noon Sunshine are successively laying out the short drama business, in order to share the short drama "cake". But when the number of eaters has increased dramatically, and there is no shortage of people from outside the film and television field - since the beginning of this year, some MCN organizations that do content incubation and live broadcast e-commerce have also announced their involvement in short dramas - if you want to survive, you can only rely on more "volume".
This kind of "volume" has been reflected in the production cost, "In the past, it only cost 30,000 to 50,000 yuan to make a short play, but now it costs 300,000 to 500,000 yuan, and the production cost has increased by 10 times." Yu Zhichao said that at the beginning, they only had about 10 people in a drama, and now there are 40 to 50 people in the whole crew; in the past, 100 episodes of short dramas could be produced in three days, but now it takes eight or nine days, and now the director of the short drama must have the ability to adapt the script and write storyboards, and also find more professional crew lighting engineers to light up.
In addition to the increase in cost, the requirements for the content of short dramas are also increasing. Feitian Yundong, which just entered the short drama mini program business this year, also has the same feeling, "Last year, some very inferior content could have a market, but this year, the entire content (quality) has improved rapidly, and the user's taste and threshold are improving." ”
Since the development of short dramas, it is no longer a business where the producer casually invests tens of thousands of yuan and can make quick money by buying volume. Sun Ruiqiang, head of Feitian Yundong's short drama business, said, "Now the whole market is very volatile, and many large platforms and high-quality short drama content producers have entered the game. "And the increased competition means that the purchase volume and customer acquisition costs are also increasing.
"In the past, the market was blank and the customer acquisition cost was very low, but now the overall customer acquisition cost is rising. Sun Ruiqiang told the interface news reporter, for example, for the same content quality, the cost of a single paying user of some short dramas may have reached more than 100 yuan, "The cost is closely related to the quality of the short drama and the quality of the user itself, and it is also related to the time period and the degree of competition in the same period." ”
Not only that, but the supervision of the content of short dramas has also opened a new round of reshuffle in the industry.
Since late November, a number of short dramas have been removed from platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou and WeChat, such as the micro-short drama "Black Lotus Upper Manual", because it "exaggerates the bad values of extreme revenge and countering violence with violence, confuses the concept of right and wrong, and destroys the good ecology of the platform".
On December 12, the Secretariat of the Cyberspace Administration of China announced that from now on, it will carry out a one-month special action of "Clear and Rectify the Problem of Poor Orientation of Short Video Information Content". The action mainly focuses on the frequent chaos in the field of short videos, focusing on rectifying three types of negative content orientation problems in short videos: disseminating false information, displaying inappropriate behaviors, and spreading misconceptions, including but not limited to posing for fake photos, technology-generated fake content, pornographic "rubbing edges", vulgar characters, malicious marketing, challenging the bottom line of public cognition, and disseminating false value orientation.
The China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association also recently announced that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is about to implement new management measures, involving all aspects of the field of online micro-short dramas. These measures include the formulation of the "Detailed Rules for the Creation and Production of Online Micro-short Dramas and Content Review", and at the same time consider including micro-short drama apps and mini programs in the scope of routine management.
"The whole market is not as hot as it used to be. After the release of the new regulations, December became a gap period, and non-compliant old dramas were removed from the shelves to face rectification, and if there was inappropriate content for new dramas to be launched, the final rectification should be carried out before they were launched. Liang Lili said.
The space left for small players is narrowing, and short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin are also tightening the delivery channels for short dramas. Recently, Kuaishou announced that it will officially stop the commercial promotion and launch of third-party micro-short drama mini-programs on December 31, and WeChat has also issued a notice to short drama practitioners to pay a deposit, and if they refuse to pay, relevant functions may be restricted.
When the proportion of content increases and the number of traffic gameplay increases, the short drama industry will also enter the 2.0 era. "The previous delivery logic is still valid, but the content logic will dominate in the future, so we have increased our investment in the content side. In Sun Ruiqiang's view, with the progress of the market and users, streaming and content need to be constantly changing, new and refined, including high-quality screenwriters and scripts and high-quality director teams, "Perhaps only in this way can there be room for survival in the future." ”