Sohu Entertainment Special Article (Fat Department/Text)
The current observation of the micro-short drama market can be summed up in one word: "chaos".
On the one hand, there are continuous hits, the platform plays triumphant songs, the long video side shouts for hundreds of millions of plays, tens of millions of accounts, and the paid micro-short dramas on the short video side are also doing well. The micro-short drama business that has exploded for half a year, the market is obviously still on the rise.
But on the other hand, there is news that the micro-short drama crew in Hengdian has decreased significantly compared with the same period last year, and it is Hangzhou Yimeng Company that announced its dissolution after "paying 30 million tuition fees", which is an endless story of company bankruptcy and investors losing their money.
The micro-short drama business that has entered the "Red Sea Period" is not easy to make money.
"Roll up".
In just half a year, the micro-short drama industry has "rolled".
Film and television celebrities are here, Wang Jing and Gao Yalin are out as producers, Wanda, Huace, and Ningmeng are already regular players;
If these are just gold diggers who have been attracted, then when the General Administration released the creation plan of "Travel with Micro Short Dramas", CCTV developed the "full-process AI micro short drama" "Chinese Mythology", and when Meituan produced advertisements in the form of micro short dramas, the efforts of official institutions and leading manufacturers proved that micro short dramas are becoming a way of life.
A market that covers hundreds of millions of people has long since lost value to economic value itself.
From the industry level, if it is said that in the past, micro-short dramas were to send directors, actors and other talents to the field of long dramas, including Cheng Lei of "False Face", Zhang Miaoyi of "Please! Don't Spoil Me", etc.;
Meituan also directly invited Dai Gaozheng, Zhao Yiqin, and Su Yuanhe, three "top streamers" of short dramas, to shoot a micro-short drama advertisement for the Shen Coupon Festival.
For example, the micro-short dramas produced by central state-owned enterprises and local cultural tourism with the idea of "cultural tourism +" are the embodiment of social value.
It can be considered that micro-short dramas are showing the value of being one of the mainstream entertainment contents like movies, dramas, and variety shows, and are no longer niche content consumption.
But what cannot be ignored is that the micro-short drama business is no longer the bonanza where every child who breaks in can pick up a piece of gold.
In the exchange between Sohu Entertainment and the producer of the micro-short drama Li Wei, he used four words to describe the industry in the past six months: "corpses are everywhere".
"I think it's like trading stocks, by the time you know the stock is going to rise, the market maker may have already gotten out. And we all know that when micro-short dramas make money, the industry has become very difficult to do. ”
Li Wei analyzed the essence of the "involution" of the micro-short drama business: "First, the micro-short drama business is too profitable, the threshold is very low, and there are too many people coming, and 1,000 micro-short dramas were opened in Hengdian in October last year, what is the concept? Second, the industry is rising too fast, and a lot of money has poured in overnight, and there are too many sequelae. ”
The consequence of these two points is that when big production companies rush to get ahead, they will gather good creators, and big platforms seize channels, but their financial systems and account sharing systems are not perfect at all. As a result, your new players can't find a good team, and the performance of the project you have done with great difficulty depends on the platform, which is the most cruel 'involution'. ”
On the one hand, there is a fast-running industry, which is soaring, and on the other hand, because it runs too fast, countless people who are left behind, and a piece of chicken feathers that have not had time to be sorted out.
Can today's micro-short drama business still make money?
Those who can't make money are leaving
Director Lao Guan heard such a story: A production company signed an account-sharing contract with a small program platform, and the first two works were quite pleasant, but because they offended a certain director of the platform, the third drama with an investment of 300,000 yuan only got 200 yuan two weeks after it was launched.
"It's hard for us to say whether this is the norm, but the key is that the industry's right to speak has been carved up. ”
The profit model of micro-short dramas, especially small program dramas, has been specially introduced by Sohu Entertainment before: attracting recharge depends on investment, as long as the ROI remains above 1.1, you can continue to maintain investment, and there were even some works with more than 100 million yuan last year, the most famous such as "Wushuang".
"The problem now is that there are too many similar content in the market, the audience will become more and more dull, and the ROI data will not go up; ”
Li Wei pointed out a bigger problem: "The black-box operation of the platform seriously affects the rights and interests of the producer. ”
"Tell you that you have been cast, but you can't search for your work on social platforms, and the other party will say that the backstage data will not be disclosed, and finally give you a settlement statement with 0 income if the ROI is not good and stopped, and finally 0 income, and your drama may have been sold for two rounds. Some even do accounts directly, obviously the platform broadcasts well, and the platform calculates to tell you that the cost of streaming is too high or there is no profit. ”
Like all emerging industries, those who grasp the channels in the early stage are more likely to have the right to speak.
In the absence of industry rules and the lack of transparency of relevant operating mechanisms, the infringement of interests is almost inevitable.
In fact, most of the people who are waving money into the industry have, as Li Wei pointed out, already missing out on carving up the industry's resources. In conversations with practitioners, it will be found that in addition to the platform side holding the power of life and death of the work, if the production team is unreliable, the budget and production time are out of control, it will also bring huge risks to investors.
"The logic is this. If you take 300,000 yuan to make a drama (now at least 500,000 or 600,000), it is impossible for you to get good conditions from the platform. Agui, the producer of the short drama, introduced, "The platform needs you to help him go, not how high the content value is." ”
"But if you open ten dramas at the same time, this will become a heavy capital game, you have to use the money settled in front of you to support the dramas behind, if this capital chain is broken, you will be finished. There are dozens or millions of people who have smashed into it and lost all their money. ”
There is a surplus of players, the industry is completely carved up, the industry barriers are strict, and the "Red Sea Period" characteristics of the micro-short drama industry are particularly obvious.
Many players are already pulling away, or reducing their boot rates. It is reported that the vertical screen short drama crew in Hengdian has decreased by nearly two-thirds compared with the same period last year, and another public data is that Hengdian launched 40 short dramas last month, while the number was 1,000 in October last year. Although the data needs to be verified, and there is also the impact of short drama industrial parks in various places, this is not a kind of industry barometer.
After the chaos, or is there a chance?
The further tightening of the policy has also sounded the alarm for the industry. Recently, the relevant departments have launched a new review system for micro-short dramas, and will promote the classification of review and filing.
According to the requirements, before May 31, all micro-short dramas that have not completed the filing must be completed, including the second round of dramas, and from June 1, micro-short dramas that have not been reviewed and filed must not be disseminated online.
As a result of the new regulations, first, the overall review process will be greatly slowed down, and the product model of volume investment will be forced to slow down, and second, the operation of selling the "second round" by filling in the edge content after the first round of review in the past is now also included in the scope of supervision.
The content and account period are precisely cut at the root of the current industrial model.
The early frenzied staking seems to be coming to an end.
"Is that set of things right in the past? shoot ten short dramas a month, pinch your fingers to calculate the return ratio on the platform, and rely on rubbing edges, refreshing content and even deception skills to attract recharge, I can hardly say that this is a content industry, isn't this a financial product?"
"Micro-short dramas are currently in the chaos of the early days of the industry. "Don't you think this is very similar to the 1,000-broadcast war in the past? It's all Internet logic, targeting the needs of the audience, desperately trying to make money by relying on regulatory loopholes." When the industry is saturated, the regulation is heating up, and the capital that wants to come in and make a fortune is gone, the industry will be truly normalized. ”
And in the foreseeable future, the industry still leaves opportunities for future generations.
"Everyone says that short dramas are shoddy and 'three guarantees', but my feeling is that the quality of short dramas has been improving. Lao Guan pointed out, "For example, the Dragon King and the God of War have long been useless, and the kind of people who quarrel in the white billet room is not easy to use." Now the content at the top of the list begins to require brainstorms and special effects, and the more audiences you face, the more requirements you have. ”
In his opinion, the recent swiping of "Reborn Me as a Nanny in the Boss Short Drama" can also be called a collective statement of the audience on the routine micro-short drama.
Li Wei also further pointed out that it is difficult for the industry to return to content.
First of all, the industrial model needs to be reconstructed, "we need scripts, we need to serve the road, lighting, and special effects, but these types of work are now cheap labor for 168 hours a week, how can they do a good job of content? ”
Second, we need to retain talent. "Money is one thing, satisfaction is one thing. A script with hundreds of episodes sells for 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, which is not proportional to the work intensity of the screenwriter; more important is the star, but now the head star, you ask, if there is a long drama asking TA to play a supporting role, will TA refuse? The work intensity is high, and the content is not on the stage, who will have a sense of belonging. ”
Escapes are happening continuously.
After this "Red Sea Period" mixed with congestion and chaos, there may be a group of longer-term and more professional players who will appear in the micro-short drama industry, and they will eat the dividends of industry formalization and create more vibrant content.
However, the wind and waves are high, and when to go to sea to wait for the fishing flood, it tests the courage and ability of the captain.