Text: Yiqing
Edited by Chen Meixi
For iQIYI, the more challenging it is in this industry, the luckier it will be.
At the 2022 Yuexiang meeting, Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of iQIYI, once explained in detail to the Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) the content direction of the platform under the cost reduction and efficiency increase. At that time, the confusion of the entire industry about the future was unprecedentedly strong, the project became more difficult, the situation of practitioners changed, and everyone expected this head platform to set an example and turn losses into profits.
Under the adjustment of strategy and direction, iQIYI achieved annual profitability for the first time, and at the same time, the industry ecology is becoming healthier. At the 2023 "Scream Night" party, the total number of iQIYI's 10,000 dramas has reached ten, and young actors have gradually become an important force in film and television dramas on this platform, and artists have also expressed their recognition of the platform and are willing to create good content with it.
Despite the good going all the way, iQIYI in 2024 is especially different. On the one hand, iQIYI's annual financial report shows that in 2023, the platform will not only achieve large-scale profitability for two consecutive years, but also achieve the highest in history in core indicators such as total revenue, operating profit, net profit and cash flow, giving a "best in history" report card.
On the other hand, at the 2024 World Conference, iQIYI CEO Gong Yu, Chief Content Officer Wang Xiaohui, and Chief Technology Officer Liu Wenfeng respectively announced the platform's thinking and trend judgment on business, content, and technology. This sharing combined with the consumption environment, population size, and entertainment trends was full of dry goods, which made practitioners raise their mobile phones to record golden sentences, and their recognition of the platform deepened.
If the 2023 World Congress is still creating confidence for practitioners, then the 2024 World Congress will let the outside world see iQIYI's calmness and firmness in the face of change, and this platform has found the fulcrum to grasp the balance in the pursuit of commercial framework and content.
On the basis of this fulcrum, no matter what kind of wind and waves you face, you can be at ease. Those who have passed through the eye of the storm are undoubtedly the most experienced and the most worthy of reference.
Grasping "realism"
The wind of realism has been blowing for many years, but it is still tried and tested.
At the annual World Congress, Wang Xiaohui will share the main direction of the platform's content based on iQiyi's performance in the past year, combined with his own perception of the market. This year, at the main forum of the conference on April 23, he gave the judgment that "the biggest hit must come from realistic themes".
It is true that every year there may be dark horses of different types of themes, but when it comes to popular models, only realistic themes can win the resonance of the greatest common divisor. In 2022, "The World", which presents a cross-section of the times, will become the unique drama king of iQiyi;In 2023, a "Hurricane" will vividly depict justice and evil, power and ordinariness, leading the popularity of the platform to soar away;In 2024, the popularity of "Wind Chaser" will exceed 10,000, and the little people standing in the torrent of the times can always transcend time and have emotional connection with the current audience.
The platform's optimism about "realism" is not accidental, but has the traceability and summary of the historical cycle. At the conference site, Wang Xiaohui showed the high-quality film and television dramas introduced in the early days of China, such as the Mexican drama "Bianka", the Japanese drama "Zisanshiro", the Korean drama "Jealousy", etc., although the narrative mode and cultural background of these dramas are different, but they have one thing in common, that is, they always care about the fate of ordinary people.
This year, Wang Xiaohui specifically divides realism into two categories, one is warm realism, which satisfies the audience's pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, and the other is critical realism, which is also the cool point of the audience to let the fake and ugly get sanctioned. Two emotions, two themes, but they are the most basic elements in real life.
At the same time, iQIYI has also creatively created two theaters, "Everyone Theater" and "Dust Theater". The so-called "everyone" refers not only to all living beings, but also to adaptations from the hands of great writers, such as "One Day and Three Autumns" and "Plains Guest", which are all adapted from the works of the winners of the Mao Dun Literature Award. iQIYI cares about the fate of the general public in the times, and after these works are made into films, they will continue to feed back to the platform, create their ideological and spiritual heights, and lead the public's aesthetics.
"Dust Theater" focuses on "concrete people" and "concrete lives". For example, "My Altay", which is adapted from Li Juan's prose collection, has gone to Cannes and completed its international premiere on April 7 this year, changing from a Chinese story to a Chinese story seen by the world.
In 2023, the wind of cultural tourism has already rolled up, "Hurricane" has brought fire to Jiangmen and pig's foot noodles, and "Riding the Wind and Waves" at the beginning of the year has turned the audience's attention to the export of Liaoning swimwear, and "My Altay" can also create a cultural tourism effect, allowing the public to read a book, watch a drama, and go to a beautiful place to start a spiritual journey.
Although the stories of small people seem small in the times, the shaping of film and television stories can amplify them, thereby affecting a group of people, an industry, and a city.
Not only dramas, but also variety show lists, focusing on agriculture and life, "Let's Farm the Land" and "Burning Moon" are not a kind of "realism"? In the documentary list, "Clearing the Fog" explores real cases, isn't it also a kind of realism? The simple pursuit of ratings and brands is no longer what the platform wants, and behind the "realism", iQiyi stands with the general public, impresses people with scarce "sincerity", and constantly increases the value of the platform.
Serving "one old and one young"
As one of the pillar revenues of long video platforms, the importance of users is self-evident.
For a long time in the past, long video platforms have been trying to capture the "stomach" of young people. As a result, the adaptation of costume dramas is in full swing, and idol dramas are still an indispensable "hard dish" in the film and television industry, but there have also been a lot of controversies.
Behind this controversy, there is also the characteristic of Focus - one generation has grown up, and one generation is still growing. Growing audiences need more aesthetic works, and younger audiences, romance and Mary Sue are still the way they grow up, just like most audiences in the past.
User needs almost determine the direction of IP adaptation. With the growth of the age of core users,Long video platform also needs to meet the needs of mature users,Women's themes、Urban workplace dramas have begun to become well-known,iQIYI has not only launched a "love theater" that satisfies young people",It has also launched a "Crazy Flower Series" that satisfies mature age,Win the hearts of users,Enhance user loyalty。
However, in the years of attaching importance to the needs of the main consumer force, the market has also ignored the needs of children and the elderly, whether it is costume dramas, idol dramas, or urban dramas, it is difficult to become the choice of the elderly to watch dramas, and the complexity of APP use has also become a barrier for this group to contact with the Internet world.
At this world conference, iQIYI CEO Gong Yu took the lead in raising the question of "life and old age". According to the data he mentioned, in 2023, the mainland's elderly population (over 60 years old) will be about 300 million, and it is predicted that by 2033, China's elderly population will exceed 400 million, accounting for a quarter of the total population. This means that in the future, the elderly will become the main group, and the sunset red industry is likely to become a sunrise industry.
In the "2023 Short Video User Value Survey Report" released by CSM, although short video users aged 30-49 account for 40% and are still the backbone of the user group, 10% are aged 10-19 and 12.8% are 60+.
In the face of aging, iQIYI proposed a strategy to better serve the "old and the young", which is very predictable. In terms of technology,iQIYI will use the mobile phone terminal"Suitable for aging",Do a good job in the safety and purification of the children's mode interface;In terms of content,The film list also radiates to a wider age group,For example, there are both confrontations that young people like、Blood、Competition、Slow variety,There are also variety shows such as "Silver Wing Girl"Designed for the average age55+;In the documentary list,There are "Grandpa Tiantuan"Content that focuses on 60+ groups;For children,iQIYI also has an independent brand Qibabu to provide content services for it。
According to the report of Quest Mobile, the post-90s generation, as a generation that grew up with the Internet, has a high stickiness to the use of the Internet, and the post-70s and post-80s generations have a rapid growth in demand for the Internet with the development of online, which will drive the online transfer of children's economic development. Doing a good job of content for seniors and children can undoubtedly bring fringe benefits.
Seizing the user gap is not only a responsibility for the platform to meet all kinds of users, but also a new increment of membership and advertising revenue.
Embrace the limitless potential of "technology".
In 2023, AIGC, as the hottest outlet, has become a necessity to be discussed in every forum, and the talk that practitioners are replaced by AI is pouring in, and last year's Hollywood strike is a typical example. However, the platform has always been optimistic about the changes that this technology will bring to the entertainment industry.
iQIYI's CTO Liu Wenfeng's speech at the World Congress soothed the anxiety of practitioners and brought the expectation of new technologies for efficient content blessings.
He once asked programmers if AI with language coding skills had an impact on their mentality? The answer was no, and for programmers, the use of AI would make them more capable.
In fact, the generation of AI technology has never been to replace anyone, but to become a tool that can be used, so as to amplify the creative ability and creative value of practitioners, make the content production process more standardized, professional, and large-scale, and promote the process of film and television industrialization.
In 2024, "Big Dream Returns" in iQIYI's film list uses the virtual shooting system independently developed by the platform, which is applied in virtual scenes such as light delay matching, rain and snow scene special effects matching, large-area water surface reflection shooting, and Weiya high-speed shooting, becoming the drama project with the largest virtual shooting volume and the most scenes in the industry. Judging from the trailer screen, virtual technology does not bring a sense of distortion, but simplifies the complex, making the shooting of film and television projects more efficient.
In addition to the filming stage, AI can bring efficiency and level improvement to the team's creation in the planning, production, and publicity stages.
Without AI, the larger the volume of novels or scripts, the longer it will take for producers to browse, but the intervention of AI can improve reading efficiency by 9 times. At the same time, it will directly extract the story outline, world view, character introduction and character relationship diagram, so that practitioners can choose IP more conveniently and accurately.
Without AI, film and television practitioners may need to re-investigate, summarize, and judge if they want to make the story more exciting, but AI can quickly identify the plot points of the script through a huge database and database, so as to help the screenwriter make appropriate adjustments to the story and adapt to the audience's viewing habits.
From producers, screenwriters, directors to cinematographers and art directors, the intervention of AI can help them become more "powerful" in the production process of film and television projects, just like Liu Wenfeng said: "A producer who can draw concept posters is not a stronger producer?"
In the past, without the blessing of technology, the longer the production cycle of a film and television project, the greater the risk. Because there are many uncontrollable factors, a large number of staff will also appear "unprofessional" if they are not managed in an orderly manner. However, the blessing of technology can "escort" the creation of content, through the reading of a large amount of data, it can not only give effective information, but also form a basic reference standard, stabilize the project cycle, give opinions and references, and make the platform content better serve users.
In the second quarter of 2023, iQIYI has made progress in the application of AIGC: AIGC has been introduced to assist in script evaluation, and internal data shows that the current accuracy rate of scene and character dismantling is more than 90%. In 2023, iQIYI's artificial intelligence ability to understand video content at the minute level can extract a detailed plot introduction in a professional dimension, covering more than 3,000 dramas.
"Content" and "technology", as the double helix of iQIYI's DNA, drive and empower each other, and will also bring more imagination, just like Gong Yu's hope at the conference: "Repeating the road of Hollywood, we will never be able to keep up, and the technological innovation led by generative AI has given us the opportunity to overtake in corners, and there is a lot of room for derivative business development." ”
Whether it is content, technology, business model, challenges every year, innovation is also engraved in the bones of the platform, but this year seems to be a process of "breaking" and "reshaping", breaking what I once dared not do and would not do, embracing new changes, and using them for my use, making popular models more "explosive" and uncertain more "certain".
The past practice has made the entertainment industry more convinced that iQIYI's three predictions will not only be correct in the next few years, but will also be effective.