作者 | 《财经》新媒体王柏匀 编辑 | 蒋诗舟
"After the Spring Festival in 2024, many leading short drama platforms will begin to store script copyright IP, incubate screenwriting content teams, set up editing teams, and business teams that acquire scripts. The relevant person in charge of a short drama platform said that they tried to seize more market space by forming a complete closed loop.
When the skit platform was staking its ground, some MCN agencies were not idle. According to people familiar with the matter, some MCN companies have shut down some business lines and are preparing to "all in skits".
The reason behind it is inseparable from the temptation of "low investment, quick return". Lu Bowen, the producer of the head platform, told Caijing New Media that the rate of return depends on the short drama project, and some projects have a quick return, and even the cost can be covered in the first month of launch.
"The total amount of paying to watch short dramas every day is about 60 million yuan to 70 million yuan"
Kuaishou data shows that in 2023, there will be 94 million users who watch more than 10 episodes of heavy micro-short dramas on the Kuaishou platform every day, a year-on-year increase of 52.6%.
Yan Lun, the producer of the short drama, said, "On the subway and plane, you can see people watching short dramas, and this kind of fragmented entertainment meets the needs of current users." According to the report "From the Perspective of Internet Products, Research and Judge the Future Product Trend and Market Space of Domestic Short Dramas", the number of short dramas filed in 2022 will grow explosively, with a year-on-year increase of 252% to 3,293, and the number of short dramas filed in 2023 will increase by 8.53% year-on-year to 3,574, with the average number of episodes per episode increasing from 23 episodes in 2022 to 27 episodes in 2023.
"Now, more than 70% of the places where film and television projects are concentrated in Beijing, Hengdian, Xi'an and other places are short drama projects. When a track starts to get hot, a lot of people come in. Lv Bowen believes that practitioners related to information flow have the fastest response to the potential of the short drama track, and can be called the first batch of people to enter, followed by film and television companies that have been in contact with short drama projects, and advertising media companies and studios have also entered the game one after another.
"Caijing" new media learned that at present, short drama players have begun to recruit talents, and strive to build a complete closed loop to expand market share. For example, a leading short drama production team with director, project manager, screenwriter and other positions will have 500 to 600 employees at the end of 2023, and it has expanded to nearly 1,000 this year.
In Lu Bowen's view, short drama projects can quickly get results and market feedback, because they are directly oriented to the C-side, and as long as they have economic strength, they will think that they can try. In the field of short dramas, there is even a myth of two or three hundred million monthly flows.
Judging from the background data, the income of the short drama belongs to the wavy development, and there will be new peaks continuously. Lv Bowen revealed, "Some dramas have a mediocre response in the first month of their launch, but there are more and more recharge users later, and they are even more profitable than the dramas that exploded at the beginning." ”
According to Yan Lun's understanding, "The domestic short drama market consumes a total of about 60 million yuan to 70 million yuan per day on paid dramas, which is four or five billion yuan a week." In some periods, it is even higher than the box office of theatrical films in the same period. ”
A number of short drama practitioners said that at present, the main profit of short dramas comes from user payment, subscription account sharing and advertising placement.
"User payment" in the eyes of many short drama practitioners, "is not only the big head, but also the most commercial potential source of profits", mainly adopt the mode of watching payment, each episode is charged within 1 yuan, and the cost of watching the whole drama is less than 100 yuan, usually the first 10 episodes are free to attract users to watch.
"Subscription" is also the membership model, after opening a membership, users can watch all the dramas on the platform. Every time a user makes an on-demand, the corresponding fee will be shared between the copyright owner and the producer.
In addition to user payment, subscription account sharing, and advertising placement, short drama monetization methods also include e-commerce sales, brand customized dramas, game slicing, etc.
Lv Bowen said that the proportion of profit sharing in different projects is different, "The early cost of brand customized dramas is covered by the brand, and the revenue in the later stage will continue to be shared, because the producer and the brand make products together." ”
According to the "2023 Kuaishou Short Drama Value Report", Kuaishou has launched a total of 90+ commercial short dramas, with 35+ brand cooperation, and the investment revenue of Q3 short dramas in 2023 will increase by 10 times month-on-month, covering multiple industries such as e-commerce Internet, food and beverage, beauty and skin care.
"A short drama ran 100 million yuan, and the cost of investment was 80 million to 90 million yuan"
According to the "Notice of the General Office of the State Administration of Radio and Television on Further Strengthening the Management of Online Micro-short Dramas and Implementing the Creation Improvement Plan", online micro-short dramas refer to film and television works with a single episode length from tens of seconds to about 15 minutes, with relatively clear themes and main lines, and relatively continuous and complete storylines.
From the perspective of the industrial chain, the upstream of micro-short dramas includes investors, copyright owners, MCN institutions, etc., the midstream is the producer of photography teams and performing arts teams, and the downstream is the video distributor.
During the whole project flow process, Yan Lun emphasized the importance of self-control and flow. "The upstream of short dramas are some platforms with closed-loop production capacity, or institutions that have no production capacity but control the online channels and streaming channels of the repertoire. ”
Yan Lun believes, "This is like investing in angel rounds, we are investing in the future valuation of these production lines, and we also expect to use these more controllable production methods to increase the number of plays launched on our own platforms in a single month." ”
For film and television investors, they don't put all their eggs in one basket. Due to the short drama cycle, the results can basically be obtained in one or two months, and film and television investors may invest in 10 short and fast projects at the same time.
Li Wen, a short drama production practitioner, revealed that he had previously filmed a Douyin short drama, planning 25 episodes, each episode of 3 minutes, and the filming period was 15 days, but later in order to save costs, the shooting cycle was compressed to 6 days. "In this tight timeline, there is a possibility that all levels can be cut, such as the scene is more or less passable and the shooting can start. ”
Compared with the filming of online dramas, the number of short drama production teams is smaller. Under normal circumstances, an online drama needs about 100 people, but most short drama production teams only have more than 20 people.
Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Consulting, believes that at the actor level, it is not so important whether the participants of the short drama are first-line stars, to a certain extent, this ensures the output of the short drama, because the cost of actors is controllable, "Even if the cost is relatively higher now, this is not a pain (cost) that everyone can't bear." ”
In terms of publicity, it takes 1 to 2 years or even longer for long dramas and theatrical films to go from the preparation period to the publicity and distribution period, but the entire cycle of short drama projects is very fast, from preliminary preparation to finished film, it takes 1 to 2 months. Lu Bowen said that there is no spare time for the short drama to be promoted, because after completing this project, he will immediately enter the next project.
"The gameplay of the skit is completely different from the online drama. In terms of distribution, the core of short dramas is that the drama is looking for people, while online dramas are people looking for dramas. Many people in the film and television industry will not adapt to the soil when they enter the field of short dramas. Yan Min, a short drama practitioner, said that taking Douyin as an example, short drama streaming is to spend money to buy traffic, and Douyin is looking for accurate audiences according to the type of drama.
In the era when traffic is king, marketing expenses such as short drama streaming are naturally expensive. A short drama practitioner revealed, "A short drama ran 100 million yuan, and its investment cost may be 80 million to 90 million yuan, but the actual income is only 10 million yuan, not even enough." ”
"The market size of short dramas is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan within five years"
In the eyes of many short drama practitioners, after 3 years of development, the content homogenization in the field of short dramas has been serious, users have gradually experienced aesthetic fatigue, and the short drama market has entered the stage of big waves and sands.
As early as 2018, iQIYI launched the vertical screen short drama "Life Started with Me", which officially opened the prelude to the boom of micro-short dramas. Subsequently, short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin, MCN institutions, creative talents and other participants entered the game one after another. Starting from 2020, the micro-short drama industry has gradually entered an explosive period, with various platforms launching short drama support plans, and short video platforms have become the main supply force.
"The short drama has completed the journey of online dramas in five or six years at a rate of two or three years. Lu Bowen said that this requires short drama players to do high-quality products more quickly and urgently. "The industry predicts that at the beginning of 2024 or the first half of the year, there will be a large number of high-quality upgrades in the short drama industry, but I didn't expect this trend to start by the end of 2023. In the early days, 100,000 yuan could make two short plays. Now, the production cost of a short drama is about 360,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, and there were already short drama projects with a cost of up to 1.2 million yuan at the end of last year. ”
Lu Bowen believes that it is a good thing that the industry is flooding with excellent players to muddy the waters. "If an industry wants to progress and the ecology wants to improve, it needs a variety of teams to come in and find and optimize the problems of the industrial chain. Therefore, I am very optimistic about this kind of involution that forces industrial upgrading and ecological improvement, and countless tracks have verified this law. ”
The popularity of short dramas has also ushered in the attention of regulatory authorities. On April 17, 2023, the China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Online Micro-short Dramas and Implementing the Work Related to the Creation Improvement Plan", requiring platforms such as WeChat, Kuaishou, and Douyin to further strengthen governance of online micro-short dramas such as "Mini Programs" and guide the standardized development of "Mini Program" online micro-short dramas.
On November 25, 2023, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the "State Administration of Radio, Film and Television to Take Multiple Measures to Continue to Carry Out the Governance of Online Micro-short Dramas", which clearly stated that it will study and promote the integration of online micro-short drama apps and "mini programs" into the daily management of institutions, and establish a "blacklist" mechanism for mini programs and a statistical mechanism for online micro-short dramas.
By 2024, the supervision of micro-short dramas will be further increased. In April, a number of media reported that a provincial regulatory department had issued the "Latest Work Tips on the Filing of Micro-short Dramas" to the production and broadcasting institutions in the province, requiring all platforms to report the relevant information of the micro-short dramas that are currently broadcast online without filing to the provincial-level radio and television authorities for the record before May 31, 2024. From June 1, 2024, micro-short dramas that have not been reviewed and filed shall not be disseminated online.
From the initial platform self-review to the current intervention of the regulatory authorities, it is the embodiment of formalization and process. A practitioner said, "The art film and television content itself should give the audience positive guidance, and the audience of the short drama project at the beginning was a middle-aged man or woman in his thirties and forties, but now we see in the background that the short drama users have covered most of the short video users, including primary school students, junior high school students and other teenagers, and they may be affected by the content of the short drama." ”
"If the entire industry is still stuck in a low level of production, overdrawing the user's aesthetics and patience, it will do no harm to the development of the industry, and its requirements will be higher and higher under the increasing consumption level of the audience, which will force the industry to output high-quality products, correct values, etc. Zhang Yi believes that the next supervision of short dramas must be stricter, which is the inevitable law of the development of the industry.
Starting in 2023, short dramas going overseas will become a new outlet.
Zhang Yi believes that in the short term, the business model of short dramas is the first in China, and there are no too strong competitors abroad for the time being, so short dramas going overseas from 2024 to 2025 is a track worth trying.
In the opinion of people in the short drama circle, the feedback to various countries is similar, and foreign users also like short dramas, but they need to find suitable content. "A lot of stories and plots that we think are very good are not adapted to the outside world. Localization leads to better feedback and results, which means that the script is culturally appropriate and the local actors, directors and production team work together to complete the project. ”
There are platforms "All in short dramas", some platforms set up a closed loop to seize the market, and some platforms go overseas with dramas, all signs indicate that the market is optimistic about the future of the short drama industry.
Zhang Yi believes that in the next one or two years, short dramas will still be the most worthy investment and layout direction in the field of film and television dramas: on the one hand, the profit model in the field of short dramas is clear, on the other hand, the production cycle of short dramas is relatively short and controllable, and in addition, the short drama plot also accurately grasps the emotional value of some audiences.
"In 2023, the size of the short drama market will be nearly 40 billion, equivalent to 70% of the volume of the film market in the same period, and the market size of short dramas is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan within five years. Chen Yiyi, head of Kuaishou's entertainment business, said.
(Names have been changed for some interviewees)