120 days after Coco Li cried and complained about the voice, Canxing evaporated 40 billion, and the investigation has been fruitless so far
It has been four months, more than 120 days, since Coco Li cried and sued "The Voice of China" and caused it to stop broadcasting.
On December 22, the share price of Star Chinese (the parent company of Canxing, the producer of "The Voice", the main body of the listed company, hereinafter referred to as Canxing) fell below HK$20 and closed at HK$19.76.
Compared with the opening price of HK$123 per share (market value of 48 billion) on the day of the exposure of Coco Li's recording before his death (August 17), the decline reached 83.93%, and the market value directly evaporated by more than 40 billion.
According to its 2022 financial report, it was originally planned to launch 8 variety shows in 2023: "Amazing! Dance Club 2023", "The Voice of China 2023", "This! is Hip-hop 2023", "China's Got Talent 2023", "The Masked Singer Guess Guess 2023" and an outdoor program, a music program, and a talk show.
However, the Coco Lee incident disrupted Chansung's plans.
Before and after the suspension of "The Voice", only three files were launched: "Amazing! Dance Club 2", "This! is Hip-hop 6" and "Asian Super Star Cluster". "Dance Club" has been broadcast in June, and the next two programs are being broadcast on Youku, Youku International APP and TVB.
Within Canxing, it was originally divided into two camps - the music program team led by Jin Lei, Shen Ning and others, which has works such as "Good Voice" and "Good Songs"; Xu Xiangdong and Lu Wei, who changed from publicity director to "chief director", built a dance program team with programs such as "Dance Forest Conference", "Dance Forest Competition", "This is Street Dance" (hereinafter referred to as "This Street"). A long time ago, the two producers of the dance team, Che Che and Chen Di, successively jumped to iQiyi as vice president.
A person familiar with the matter revealed to "Entertainment Spring and Autumn" that after the "Coco Li's recording exposed" incident, Canxing was mainly affected by the "Voice" team, and the chief director of the currently airing "Asian Super Star Cluster" and "This! is Hip-hop 6" is Lu Wei, and the dance team has almost no impact.
But judging from the financial report, Canxing's most commercial value is "The Voice of China": from 2019 to 2021, it contributed revenue of 490 million yuan, 324 million yuan, and 256 million yuan, accounting for 31.4%, 28.7%, and 29.3% of the total revenue respectively (in 2022, the specific revenue of "The Voice" was not disclosed to the public).
However, in the first half of 2023, only Canxing of "Amazing! Dance Club 2" will have a total revenue of only 144 million yuan, with a loss of 17.2 million yuan during the period. This represents a decrease of 21.1% from $183 million in the first half of 2022.
Canxing put "The Voice" and many programs planned to be broadcast on Q3 and Q4, but they were almost wiped out.
Moreover, Zhejiang Radio and Television claimed to investigate the "Voice" incident, why has there been no follow-up so far?
|The popular shows of the past are over?
"Entertainment Spring and Autumn" once mentioned in the article "The Voice Plummets, Zhejiang Satellite TV's Head Iron" that after the Coco Li incident, the official Weibo comment areas such as Master Kang, the exclusive title sponsor of "The Voice", and the special partner Kyoto Nian Ciom, were boycotted by netizens - these brands are bound to withdraw from Canxing's related programs.
Therefore, the title sponsor of "This Street 6", which has been bound to "This Street" since the second season, has been replaced with the wonderful duck camera incubated by Ali Entertainment, which cannot but arouse attention and conjecture. Snow Beer has been recognizing hip-hop dance for many years, and has won gold medals in the Golden Investment Awards for commercial creativity many times because of the title of this project. No more cooperation this year, it is inevitable that people will wonder whether this is the title sponsor's withdrawal from Canxing.
"Entertainment Spring and Autumn" asked insiders about this, and learned that "the reason why Xuehua no longer sponsors is only because" they want Wang Yibo. Wang Yibo participated in the third, fourth, and fifth seasons from 2020 to 2022, and Snow Beer also signed Wang Yibo as a brand spokesperson from 2021.
In 2023, Wang Yibo's energy will mainly be on the big screen, "No Name" will be released at the beginning of the year, and he will be busy promoting "Warm" in the summer, and he is currently waiting for the movie "Mermaid" directed by Cheng Er to start. It is guessed that it is because of schedule conflicts and the artist's inability to support the extremely physically demanding dance content, so he has no chance to participate in "This Street".
Although the title sponsor of "This Street" has changed, the sponsors have not decreased, and related brands such as milk powder, coffee, SUVs, mobile phones, luncheon meat, etc.
lost Wang Yibo's "this street", and there is no top class among the mentors. The number has been reduced from four in previous years to three: the return of mentor Wu Jianhao, who was the second season, South Korean singer Park Jae-beom, and Ding Chengxin, a member of the Times Youth League.
Insiders of "This Street" believe that this is actually a good thing. For a long time, there has been a problem of focusing on the mentor in "This Street". But reality shows are about "making stars", returning from focusing on mentors to focusing on contestants. The program team believes that the dancers this time have the original intention of returning to focus on the dancers in the first season.
For example, the dancer Yumaru came to participate in the audition from the first season, and was favored by Yi Yang Qianxi at a glance, but he was not selected into the team, and then Yumaru came every year, after six years of transformation, in the sixth season, he finally grew into a real god and contributed a wonderful Battle clip.
In the matter of creating stars in dance programs, the most successful time for Canxing was "Dance Forest Competition" ten years ago, which led to the emergence of famous dancers such as Zhu Jiejing, Zhang Aoyue, Xiao Jie, and Liu Yuxin. On the stage of "This Street", from Han Yu to Feng Zheng, from Xiaohai to AC, after recording the show, they can't have a public stage to show themselves like singers.
The best-looking dancers have gone to be actors, and many dancers with superb dancing skills still can't become stars in the broad sense.
On the other hand, "The Voice" Zhou Shen, Wu Mochou, Zhang Bichen, Liang Bo, Huang Xiaoyun and others, with their singing strength, really stayed in the entertainment industry to shine.
The "This Street" team also felt that after six years, the dance program had been exhausted in this dimension. The program team has tried their best to tap the good dancers that can be tapped in China and the world. Insiders told "Entertainment Spring and Autumn" that in fact, the team wanted to stop for a year.
The Douban score of the show has dropped from more than 8 points in the first three seasons to 7.6 points in the fourth season and 6.3 points in the fifth season. The sixth season has not yet started, but the volume is not as loud as before.
On the other hand, after the development of short video platforms, more and more "wild" dancers are publishing their works on short videos. Such as mechanical dance Barbin.ili Barbie, animal costume dance silver carbon Gintan, group dance uneven dance troupe, etc. Audiences who love dance can watch dance and enjoy it by swiping Douyin, without having to click on long videos and watch lengthy reality shows. In this way, the flow of dance programs is also dispersed.
The decline in ratings for dance shows is global, and it's not just "this street." "So you think you can dance", which was once popular in Britain and the United States, also saw a miserable decline in ratings when it aired its 17th season last year. caused this evergreen variety show to be off the air this year. Season 18 will be presented in March 2024 in a new documentary style. It can be seen that the road of foreign dance auditions cannot go on.
In the future, if "this street" continues to be done, we should also think about how to change the style and emphasis.
Of course, it cannot be denied that just as the commercial performance tickets of various talk show clubs have become particularly good after the "Talk Show Conference" every year, "This Street" has influenced China to give birth to more dance training, at least from the perspective of fitness, and it also has a positive effect.
Another talent show "Asian Super Star Cluster" is done by Canxing and TVB, which should theoretically be a perfect match.
Canxing started as a male star-maker, and Tian Ming, the boss of Canxing, who was the director of Dragon TV's variety show department, is the chief director of "Come on! Good Boy". TVB has held the "Rookie Singing Contest" since 1982, and singers such as Anita Mui, Liming, Eason Chan, Miriam Yeung, etc., and even Coco Li, the party involved in the "The Voice" incident, also won the top 3 of the 12th competition in 1993.
In addition, Li Ruigang's Chinese culture is now the majority shareholder behind these two companies (as described in a previous article). has a common draft gene, and is considered a "family", so cooperation comes naturally.
However, when they join forces, the volume and traffic are both low.
Slow heating is the most important reason. On the other hand, the lineup of judges is very average, and the director has to work the Korean star Rain. But after a few issues, Rain's character has an unreasonable deviation, giving people the feeling that they are completely at the mercy of the screenwriter, and the script has a serious sense of the script.
In the fourth episode of the reality show, contestant Wen Zuokuang smashed things in the rehearsal room, and the program team not only fired and punished the contestant who should have gone to the psychiatric department, but also arranged for Rain to help him return on stage - because he was bullied since he was a child, so he did such an act.
In order to have a good meal in the Chinese market, Rain also endured too much.
The players kicked and smashed in the rehearsal room.
The past and present lives of Canxing
"This Street" is broadcast on Youku, and the title sponsor is Ali's wonderful duck, and "Super Star Cluster" also shoulders the task of overseas traffic of Youku International APP.
A person familiar with the matter told "Entertainment Spring and Autumn" that in fact, Canxing wants to suspend "This Street" in 2023, but Youku wants it, so there is a sixth season. The reason why Youku takes a fancy to "this street" is to cooperate with the risk of the Coco Li incident, putting aside other issues of right and wrong, objectively speaking, Canxing is an excellent variety show production team.
The introduction of IP, the separation of production and broadcasting, and the gambling with TV stations, with the ultimate lineup and team, Canxing has built up its "variety show empire".
In 2011, Tian Ming, the boss of Canxing, led the team to take the initiative to step out of the system and form Canxing, and when he left, he was already the director of Dragon TV. Jin Lei, Shen Ning, Dada and other directors left Dragon TV with Tian Ming.
Lu Wei once said in an interview with Time Weekly, "In the operation mode outside the system, some things that consume time and energy within the system can be avoided, such as too many meetings." Now that there is a person in charge of the transactional work, we just need to concentrate on the show. ”
要做出高于内地综艺市场的节目，灿星先后从国外引进了《America's Got Talent》（美国达人）《The Voice of Holland》（荷兰好声音）《So you think you can dance》（舞林争霸）《Dancing with the Stars》（与星共舞）《미스터리 음악쇼 복면가왕／미스터리》（神秘音乐秀：蒙面歌王）等IP。
has an advanced process of foreign program production, Tian Ming "codes" China's best artist lineup, in this regard, he is a capable person.
When he was still in Taiwan, Tian Ming once said that he would invite Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou to shoot Dragon TV's image promotional video. As soon as these words came out, no one dared to say anything. But Tian Ming went to invite Chen Kaige several times, moved Chen Kaige, and finally used the idea of "The Wind Comes from the East" to guide the promotional film "Magic City".
It's the same when doing "The Voice", Tian Ming said that he would invite Liu Huan and Na Ying to be mentors, such heavyweight mentors have never appeared on the talent show, and they were also considered impossible. Tian Ming visited him dozens of times, and the grinding was successful.
Later, "Dance Forest Competition" invited Yang Liping and Jin Xing, who are recognized as China's top dancers, to share the stage, and "this street" has Yi Yang Qianxi, Zhang Yixing, Wang Yibo and other top performers, all of whom follow the tradition of the top tutor lineup.
Canxing also has top talents in the professional field behind the scenes. The sound director of "The Voice" is Jin Shaogang, a sound engineer who managed the 2008 Olympic Games, and the artistic director of many dance programs, Fang Jun, an international judge of the World Dance Federation.
But in fact, the original introducer of "The Voice of China", which made Canxing a top domestic production company, was not Canxing, but the current wife Yang Yuancao of Li Ruigang. She is a post-80s generation who studied in the UK and worked for the BBC after graduation.
At the age of 25, Yang Yuancao started her own business and established a company, IPCN (International Program Content Network), focusing on introducing foreign IP to China. The first IP she operated was "China's Got Talent" broadcast on Dragon TV.
China's Got Talent is the Chinese version of Britain's Got Talent, a global hit produced by ITV. The partner of Yang Yuancao IPCN is Mick Desmond, the former president of ITV.
It can be seen that Yang Yuancao's personal connections and operational ability are extraordinary.
Because of the "Talent Show", Yang Yuancao was also able to meet Li Ruigang, then president of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), and the two got married in 2017. Today, Yang Yuancao is the Chairman of Christie's China.
Yang Yuancao and Li Ruigang, they are known as China's version of Wendi Deng and Murdoch.
Due to the smooth cooperation with the Dragon TV team, after Yang Yuancao introduced the copyright of "The Voice of Holland" from the Netherlands, she naturally cooperated with Canxing, which was established by Tian Ming, Jin Lei and others, the original team of Dragon TV. Therefore, there was the later "The Voice of China".
In the first season of "The Voice of China" in 2012, Tian Ming created a precedent for the separation of variety show production and broadcasting - "investment sharing". signed the first VAM agreement in the history of Chinese TV with Zhejiang Satellite TV:
If the ratings of "The Voice" are not higher than 2.0, Canxing will compensate, and if it is higher than 2.0, it will get a considerable share.
In the end, the ratings of "The Voice" in the first season were 3.08, far exceeding the figure set by Tian Ming.
People who stay at the table for too long won't win all the time.
Tian Ming used to be the director of Dragon TV.
What will be the endgame of Canstar?
In 2011, at the first meeting after the establishment of Canxing, Tian Ming said to the team: "We want to make this company public!"
In 2014, Canstar's team grew from a dozen people to 300 people. Tian Ming was interviewed and told the reporter of the "Bund Pictorial" that there is no pressure on the listing of the starry sky this year, it is just a gas station.
The predecessor of Star Chinese, the main body of Canstar's listing, was Star Media, which was once Murdoch's property and had lost money for 17 consecutive years. Chinese Culture, owned by Li Ruigang, a student of Tian Ming's Fudan Department of Journalism, bought most of the shares in two installments in 2010 and 2014.
One view is that Canstar's listing was not successful in 2014 because Murdoch suddenly sold his remaining shares, and the business territory left China completely, and Canstar's listing was forced to be suspended.
In 2017, Canstar opened a Pre-IPO round of financing to prepare for listing, and was once valued at more than 20 billion. At the beginning of 2018, Canstar submitted an IPO application to the Shanghai Securities Regulatory Bureau.
This suspension is believed to be due to the increase in the supervision of variety shows by external policies, and there have been a series of disputes between internal Canxing and Tangde Film and Television because of the copyright of "The Voice", and even "The Voice" was once renamed "New Singing", resulting in a loss of 27.26 million yuan in the first half of 2018. In mid-2018, Canxing's valuation shrank by 2.9 billion and was suspended again.
On December 29, 2022, Canxing and Star Chinese Media were restructured and successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The share price has risen all the way, and in June 2023, at its peak, it has risen to HK$132, and the market value has exceeded HK$52 billion.
But with the exposure of Coco Li's recording, Canxing's stock price fell all the way, falling more than 85% from the highest point.
At the beginning, Tian Ming resigned from the senior management position of Dragon TV, hoping to make a difference, and also set the KPI for listing on the first day of business. As the top variety show production company in Li Ruigang's Chinese cultural and commercial landscape, Canxing should give back by going public.
Today, TVB and Lehua are both industries invested by Chinese culture, including Alibaba, one of the shareholders of Chinese culture, working together to try to slowly rescue Canxing.
But Canxing may have lost its "good voice" forever, but the Internet has no memory. Soon, Tian Ming will be able to lead the team, or change the name of the company, and start working on the next project again.
The question is, is there any IP suitable for introduction in the world? In today's gradually declining variety show market, can Canxing make the next phenomenal variety show?
Will delisting, or falling into a "penny stock", become the endgame of Star Chinese?
The investigation has been inconclusive
On the evening of August 20, Zhejiang Radio and Television issued a notice saying that it would investigate the Coco Li incident.
The notice said that it would "further investigate and verify" the issues that everyone was concerned about, and said, "Listen carefully to everyone's opinions, and earnestly maintain fairness and justice in the production of the program, so that every participant is respected." ”
In fact, the investigation should be very simple, as long as the director of the program and the staff involved (and Coco Lee's side) make it clear and clear, and all the conversations can be made frank.
Coco just wants a fair clarification, is that hard?
However, the notice does not mention what matters to be investigated, and there is no time constraint, such as when the results will be announced. Therefore, the hidden danger is buried - it is destined to be a long wait.
So, up to now, 120 days have passed, and 2023 is over, and there is no result.
Can we wait?