Sohu Entertainment Special Article (Fat Department/Text)
There is no shortage of outlets in the entertainment industry every year in recent years.
On the one hand, the prospect of science and technology has become the focus of national attention, from the metaverse in 2021, NFT in 2022, and then to AIGC in 2023, it has successively risen as the most moving vane in the entertainment industry, and then in the second half of 2023, the micro-short drama will surge "more than 100 million in eight days", and it is expected to create an industry output value of 20 billion + last year.
AIGC and micro-short dramas, as the two major "outlets" in 2023, are consistent in their external performance. First, the market showed great interest and confidence, and the market value of companies in related fields soared, and then drove the industry giants to go down, and the leading companies expressed their competitive positions, and then drove another round of capital carnival.
And these, whether they are sails pointing to the future, or capital games with empty concepts like before, will become the most important memory of the industry in 2023.
Its impact will continue to ferment in 2024.
AIGC: Market capitalization stimulant in the first half of the year
With Chat-GPT at the beginning of the year as a symbol of the leap in AI technology, this technology is becoming an industrial driving force for subversive changes in various industries. iResearch predicts that the scale of China's AIGC industry will be about 14.3 billion yuan in 2023, and this figure is expected to reach 720.2 billion yuan in 2028.
In the past two years, the development of generative AI has had a profound impact on the entertainment sector. Whether it is image technology, or the application in animation, games, and even live shooting, it is changing the production efficiency of the industry.
Therefore, the entertainment industry is regarded as the frontier that can enjoy AI dividends. At the end of the year, the movie "If You Are the Truth, Do Not Disturb 3" directly put the topic of AI into the movie.
At the beginning of the year, a number of "demon stocks" such as Shanghai Film and Television appeared, and then, including Huace Film and Television, Ciwen Media, Baina Qiancheng, etc., wrote the AI layout into the 2022 financial report, and Wang Changtian, chairman and general manager of Guangguang Media, released an internal letter to promote the company's AI development ideas out of the circle and once again drive the carnival.
April 12, with a large increase
If Baidu, Huawei and other major manufacturers focus on creating basic AI technology products, film and television companies often focus on building vertical applications. For example, the large language model "China Literature Wonderful Pen" launched by China Literature.
Whoever can first combine the trend of AI technology innovation to create products suitable for the film and television cost reduction and efficiency increase period may become the frontrunner in the next industry stage, and profoundly affect the company's market value and future industry status.
But the reality of the past year has proved that such a leap will clearly take time.
"The technology has not yet been fully used in the process of the film and television industry, and everyone is still testing. Candice, the head of AI on the video platform, introduced to Sohu Entertainment, "For example, Wenxin Yiyan now has a script evaluation function, but user feedback is relatively average." At present, the most practical function may still be GPT's word processing, which still needs to be optimized and adjusted. ”
Science and technology reporter Cen Yu will talk more enthusiastically about some cutting-edge technologies, such as dubbing, which is very close to real people at first glance; For example, Pika's achievements in the field of video generation in the past six months, in their latest promotional video, they only need to enter text such as "girls and fireworks" to appear the corresponding picture, "The highest artificial substitution in the entertainment field may be video generation." ”
However, Candice also pointed out that it takes time to put these technologies into practice, "There are many products, but they are all like semi-finished products, at most they make some posters, short videos or something, but it takes a long time, and maybe people in related types of work will do it in the traditional way." The easiest way to realize value in the content industry, we used to think that it was anime, but now it has actually hit a bottleneck. ”
According to the technological development in the field of AI, the current progress in the fields of images, videos, dubbing, music, etc., has actually met the requirements for making an anime, but obviously artificial intelligence is not enough to really form a valuable work. However, earlier than the practical application value, it is the anxiety it brings to practitioners.
"The more pessimistic view is that the content created by AI is not recognized, but it will squeeze many people off the job, and now it is in a very screwed state. Cen Yu said.
In the 2023 Hollywood strike, the use of AI by major studios has become a key topic, and screenwriters are worried that their future jobs may become "reassignments" for AI, which will greatly affect their content weight in the industry. Although the final contract restricts the use of AI, there are many voices who believe that the contract is not sufficiently restrictive.
Candice also pointed out the copyright crisis of the AIGC, that is, all its output stemmed from the imitation of existing content, and even the direct copying of large sections of literature. The most famous incident in this regard is "AI Stefanie Sun", and the music field is the hardest hit area of AI copyright issues.
Of course, all this is just the beginning, with the increase in the market attention of AI technology, various technology iterations have obviously entered a period of acceleration, and this development may make many problems automatically resolve in the future.
Micro-Short Drama: The Myth of Wealth in the Second Half of the Year
Towards the end of the year, the news that the four short dramas of the Mimeng team were taken off the shelves of the whole network cast a layer of fog on the hot track of micro-short dramas. Since November, the control of micro-short dramas in all aspects has continued to rise, pouring cold water on the industry's rising frenzy.
In 2023, the new story of "breaking 100 million in eight days" and short dramas going overseas has made the micro-short drama industry a public topic that breaks the circle. Fox Factory Entertainment Observation has also had an in-depth analysis before.
But controversy also followed, and the mini-program dramas targeting the sinking market and the so-called "three guarantees" (security, nanny, and cleaning) crowds are also encountering corresponding backlash after attracting the audience to "watch a drama for hundreds of yuan".
"China Consumer Daily" and other media have frequently reported the news of audiences reporting Mini Program drama fraud, especially involving the lax management of some Mini Programs, the need for audiences to re-pay after exiting, and the closure of Mini Programs after recharging.
In November 2023, Douyin announced that it had recently removed a total of 119 illegal micro-short dramas from the mini program, and dealt with 1,188 Douyin accounts that illegally promoted micro-short dramas, and Kuaishou and WeChat also took related actions. In addition, dramas such as Mimeng's team's "Black Lotus Upper Position Manual" were removed from the shelves, and the impact was further expanded.
Can micro-short dramas make money next?
"The market is still expanding rapidly, and there is always someone who can make money. Yang Shen, director of the micro-short drama, said, "The problem is that when everyone wants to make money, there will be more and more people who can't make money." ”
"And ninety percent of the money in the micro-short drama business itself is channel, which is equivalent to each project is a business with high investment, high risk, and a profit of 10-15% in the early stage, so how to roll it up next? ”
Producer Zhao Ting also agrees that the blue ocean period of micro-short dramas has passed, "In the second half of the year, there are more than 300 micro-short dramas recorded every month, and this is still a platform project for filing." In the end, I think the result is to leave three or four head platforms like Kyushu, and the producer pays the channel fee, even if this part of the benefits is divided, the windfall profits will definitely be gone. ”
The more important question may be, how long can the business of micro-short dramas be booming?
On the one hand, the sinking market has shown its sentiment towards the high payment of micro-short dramas, and can it be sustained in the future; on the other hand, the quality and values of micro-short drama content have become the hardest hit area of supervision, can mini program dramas continue to occupy a place?
In Zhao Ting's view, these problems are actually not problems, "The current demand that has been formed is that the sinking market is paying for micro-short dramas, and the power of Xi is very strong; the problem may lie in management chaos, fraud, etc., but if several large platforms with brand protection are formed, user anxiety and regulatory problems can actually be solved." ”
In the context of industry cost reduction in the past two years, a large number of companies are flocking to the outlet of micro-short dramas, including major film and television head labels. This may accelerate the formalization and systematization of the industry, but the current intensification of competition will also become a hurdle that all parties must overcome next.
Anxiety: Three years of infatuation
Whether it is AIGC, which is expected to promote the revolution of industry productivity, or a micro-short drama that is open source for the industry, the common denominator is that at the stage when the prospects are not clear, it has driven the enthusiasm of the market and the hasty end of the industry in advance.
In the past three years, similar "tuyere" events have continued, showing the confusion about the growth prospects inside and outside the industry.
One clear trend is that while the past year or so has seen a recognized wave of content upgrades, audience confidence has been stronger, and the financial data of major platforms has improved significantly, in absolute terms, the number of members has remained at its peak about three years ago, and growth has basically peaked.
In the film industry, the data performance of non-head schedules also shows the weakness of the market.
Where is the new growth point of the film and television industry? Is it animation, is it linkage games, is it IP diversification and commercialization? And both investors and practitioners are trying to find some more definitive indications.
In the past two years, the overall logic of the industry has also been rapidly adjusted. On the platform side, the cost reduction and efficiency increase have reduced the opportunities for a large number of small and medium-sized practitioners, and in terms of content creation, the rapid changes in the market have made long and short video creation a To C business, and also forced practitioners to adjust themselves.
For many practitioners, this may be a time of confusion. Because of this, they and the investors behind them need an answer.
"The metaverse, NFTs, AIGC, in fact, most people can understand, this is a futuristic direction, and it must be at least five to ten years to be put into practice. But the market will run after the story, to put it bluntly, not only the film and television industry, but now everyone urgently needs a little new possibility. Candice said.
This chase for the tuyere will not end here.