Zhongxin Jingwei, April 25 In February, with a record high of key indicators such as total revenue, operating income, net income, and profit, iQIYI ushered in a highly anticipated 2024.
On the other hand, short videos are standing on the cusp of hurricane. According to the "2023 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report", as of 2023, the number of short video users in China has reached 1.012 billion. At the end of 2022, the number of Chinese announced by the National Bureau of Statistics was 1.412 billion, in other words, 5 out of every 7 Chinese are short video users.
Changes in the macro environment and industrial development have never stagnated, which is also a "catalyst" for the long video industry to urge change. Whether we can embrace changes from inside and outside the industry with an open mind and positive actions is related to whether enterprises in the industry can meet the new needs and expectations of the times and users, and usher in their own real "spring".
This is also the key to the online entertainment industry to seize the development opportunities brought by the inflection point of consumption and lock in the next stage of sustainable growth.
Under the proposition of the times, as an entertainment company driven by scientific and technological innovation, iQIYI has shown a particularly strong calmness, firmness and execution.
From iQIYI's point of view, how to get inspiration from the thinking and trend judgment of business, content and technology to develop itself, and enter the situation of "the light boat has passed the ten thousand mountains", it has found a good direction and listed a strategic plan - at the 2024 iQIYI World Conference that opened on April 23, Gong Yu pointed out that it is necessary to serve the increasingly important "old" and "small" in the changing demographic structure The two groups are returning to the concern for realism in the field of content creation and continuing to provide high-quality and diverse content for the majority of users, and embracing the production and service upgrades brought about by the widespread application of generative AI.
Good service is one "old" and one "small"
"When a country's per capita GDP is greater than $10,000, the growth rate of cultural and entertainment consumption will exceed the growth rate of GDP. Chinese's per capita GDP exceeded $10,000 in 2019, which is an inflection point in consumption and gives us more space. Gong Yu believes that since 2021, the online entertainment industry has entered a stage of high-quality growth. In this new stage of development, consumption has ushered in new opportunities and new space.
For long video platforms, factors such as the number of users, activity and willingness to pay directly affect their revenue and market position.
Dismantling the composition of iQIYI's total revenue in 2023, membership service revenue will reach 20.3 billion yuan after a year-on-year increase of 15%, accounting for more than 60% of the total revenue. It can be seen that paying attention to the needs and experience of users and continuously optimizing content and services to attract and retain users is an important path for relevant platforms to achieve sustainable development.
Combined with the trend of Chinese population structure with a declining birthrate and aging, which is gradually changing the status quo of online video platform user composition, the two groups of "old" and "small" are important anchors for iQiyi to gain new space.
For a long time, the entertainment video market has focused on meeting the needs of mainstream consumer groups such as young people, which inevitably inadvertently left marginalized groups such as the elderly and children out in the cold. Popular dramas such as costume dramas, idol dramas, and urban dramas rarely have works suitable for the tastes of the elderly, so their viewing options have become quite limited. At the same time, the complicated operation of mobile applications has become, to a certain extent, an insurmountable obstacle between the elderly and the ever-changing Internet world.
According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's elderly population aged 60 and above is close to 300 million, accounting for more than 21% of the population, and the total number of elderly people is expected to exceed 400 million by 2035, accounting for a quarter of the total population. As Gong Yu said, in the future, the sunset red industry is likely to become a sunrise industry.
According to statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center, in December 2022, the number of Internet users aged 60 and above in mainland China exceeded 150 million, and recent survey results showed that middle-aged and elderly people are 10 times more addicted to short videos than young people.
The increase in family investment in the refined cultivation of children is expected to drive the growth of consumer demand for groups aged 0-15.
The "2023 Short Video User Value Survey Report" released by China Guangshi Sofurui Media Research (CSM) provides some evidence: although China's short video users are still dominated by young and middle-aged people aged 20 to 39, the proportion of people aged 10 to 19 is still stable at nearly 20%, and the proportion of people over 60 years old is 12.8%.
From the perspective of these two groups, they have needs, and from the perspective of video platforms, they are two potential and important user groups.
To this end, Gong Yu said that the emphasis on the two groups of "one old and one young" will run through the whole process of iQIYI's product design, content production and service in the future. iQIYI is strengthening the age-appropriate and barrier-free optimization of the App, and the children's business will also further deepen the industrial layout, expand the commercial space for the development of IP multi-format, and provide good services for the children of Generation α and the parents of Generation Z through the Kiwi TV's "Children's Mode" and Qibabu App experience upgrade.
Enter the era of "downward empathy, upward creation".
In recent years, the mindset of global content consumers has undergone a profound shift – gradually pulling their gaze away from the distant world of fantasy back to the soil of reality. People are beginning to cherish and pay more attention to the moments of life around them, and seek real experiences and insights that are closely related to their daily lives. This shift in consumer mentality from fantasy to reality has also imperceptibly affected the vane of the cultural market.
Over the past two years, a clear trend has emerged: TV ratings, box office films, and major awards have shown the rise of reality-based productions. Comparing the most popular and popular films and dramas in different periods, iQIYI Chief Content Officer Wang Xiaohui found that international films such as "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" once occupied the focus, and in the past two years, dramas such as "The World" and "Hurricane" that focus on the cross-section of the times and the stories of ordinary people can always have a deep link with the current audience;
Behind the success of these works is the public's desire for authentic and profound content. In the fast-paced modern society, there is an increasing need for people to understand and reflect on their lives through works of art. Works with realistic themes are like a mirror, allowing people to see their own joys, sorrows, and sorrows, and also find resonance and solace. Therefore, this trend of returning to reality is not only an accurate response to the changes in consumer mentality, but also an important embodiment of artistic creation keeping pace with the times.
As a result, creators echo the return of the content consumer mindset by reconsidering the subject matter of creation. After keenly capturing the subtle changes in the public's aesthetics, they began to focus more on realistic subjects. This is not only a kind of pandering, but also a deep grasp of the spirit of the times.
In fact, judging from the high-quality film and television dramas such as the Mexican drama "Bianka", the Japanese drama "Zisanshiro", and the Korean drama "Jealousy" introduced in the early days of China, the audience's concern for the fate of ordinary people has never changed.
Therefore, Wang Xiaohui asserted: "The biggest hit that can really record the times must come from realistic themes." He 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 audience's cool point to let the false and ugly be punished.
These two directions of force are also the "two legs" that take the road of "downward empathy and upward creation". Downward empathy requires the road of realism, and upward creation requires film and television creators to improve their creative aesthetic pursuits - for professional content producers, artistic creation cannot hit people's cool points in the shortest time and the simplest way, whether it is social responsibility, artistic expertise, or aesthetic pursuit, we must go up to pierce the ceiling. After that, the market space is still broad.
Following this cognition and thinking, Wang Xiaohui announced that iQIYI will launch two theaters next: Weichen Theater and Everyone Theater. The difference is that the former depicts ordinary people, focusing on new aesthetics, new audio-visual, and high-quality short dramas; the latter refers to the use of the works of great writers to adapt them into film and television dramas, so that their literary thinking can be presented through image expression, such as "One Day and Three Autumns" and "Plains Guest" are all adapted from the works of the winners of the Mao Dun Literature Award, and also mean to write for everyone and care for all sentient beings.
It is understood that among them, one of the blockbuster works of the Microdust Theater, "My Altay", focuses on the integration of national cultures, and depicts the beauty of the nation, the environment, and the soul with high-quality artistic standards, and has been successfully shortlisted for the best long drama competition unit of the 7th Cannes TV Drama Festival, and will be broadcast in the near future. In addition, iQIYI also released more than 300 latest content lists for 2024-2025 at the World Congress, covering dramas, variety shows, documentaries, movies, animation, children's sports events, entertainment and other fields.
Reinventing the video content industry with generative AI technology
Coming from the frontier of science and technology, generative AI technology has also provoked deep thinking and discussion at the social and cultural levels in recent years. It is like a surging undercurrent, which not only stirs up various industrial fields, but also touches on people's ideas and worries about the future society.
This is not only because of the technological innovation it brings, but also because it reveals the prelude to a changing era. Behind this prologue is the exploration of the redefinition of the relationship between machines and humans, and the profound reflection on ethics, morality and career prospects in the intelligent era.
The rise of generative AI has also caused widespread concern among those working in the entertainment industry, with the fear of being "replaced" spreading across the industry, reflecting mixed emotions about technological advancements. Practitioners are not only worried about the problem of jobs, but also about their own value and positioning.
However, in this series of changes and impacts, iQIYI has seen the deeper value of generative AI. Gong Yu believes that in the face of the impact of generative AI, it is wrong to be numb and panic, and the correct attitude should be to think about what changes will happen to the industry in the next three to five years. As the first platform in the industry to embrace AI transformation in an all-round way, at present, iQIYI has applied generative AI in all aspects of creation, creating an AI capability matrix with creators as the core, in order to greatly improve the industry's film and television industrialization level.
Liu Wenfeng, chief technology officer of iQIYI, also believes that generative AI should not be misinterpreted as a content product that competes with PPC, PUGC, AND UGC, but that creators of all kinds of content can use the learning and generation capabilities of generative AI to have new and new quality productivity, so as to create with higher quality.
So, as a deep participant in the content industry, how exactly does iQIYI embrace AI?
According to Liu Wenfeng's sharing, in the planning stage, generative AI has improved the efficiency and level of the creation of scripts and novels for iQIYI's relevant teams. For example, the trained AI can accurately identify strong plot points in text when evaluating scripts, and its accuracy has been well verified in user feedback.
In the production phase, the application of generative AI in virtual production, sound production, and asset production can significantly improve the level of production. With the help of AI, the IQ Stage virtual shooting system independently developed by iQIYI has supported the filming of "Big Dreams Return", the drama project with the largest number of virtual shooting and the most scenes in the industry.
In the publicity stage, a large number of advertising creatives produced by iQIYI through generative AI have been put into use, showing great potential in extending the value of IP.
The deep integration of iQIYI and generative AI may be a typical example of the power that generative AI is gradually becoming to reshape the creative industry.
In Liu Wenfeng's view, with the gradual popularization of generative AI, individuals or small teams will have stronger creativity, the value of personalized content will be further highlighted, industry iteration will accelerate, and innovation opportunities will increase significantly.
In this process, what iQIYI needs to do is to use the leverage of generative AI to amplify the value of creators, so that creators can give full play to their creativity and make more wonderful content. "Because excellent creativity and unique aesthetics are scarce resources in the AI era. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)