In the past few days, the Douyu platform, which has been in turmoil, has once again rushed to the hot search on the Internet. What happened this time was the "master Hua Dan" of the Douyu PUBG plate - a small group.
On April 23, 2024, after a few months of suspension of broadcasting, the Internet celebrity anchor "A Small Tuantuan" successfully incarnated "A Little Prisoner".
"Xiao Tuantuan" was arrested, but the "battle royale" against the Betta anchor continues, since Douyu was arrested by CEO Chen Shaojie, and the sky over Douyu has been shrouded in suspicion of "gambling".
And the news of the arrest of "Tuan Tuan" made the internal rumors of Douyu even more alarming, and everyone was in danger. The anchors don't know if they will follow in the footsteps of others, and they don't know when this turmoil will pass. Now, a large number of betta head anchors have announced that they will stop broadcasting, and betta fish is no longer as lively as it used to be.
So what destroyed the "head anchor" represented by "Tuan Tuan", and where will the betta fish swam to be shrouded in the dark cloud of "gambling"? Let's go to today's topic together.
The wave of "off the air" is turbulent
As the top anchor on the Douyu platform, "A Small Group OvO", she has more than 26 million loyal fans on the Douyu live broadcast platform. And on the Douyin platform, the number of her fans has reached a staggering 37 million.
With the huge traffic brought by the live broadcast, she not only has a commercial value comparable to that of celebrities, but also has a huge social influence.
In the past, OvO served as the "chief cheering officer" of the mobile game "Sword and Crusade", and she not only participated in the shooting of the game's official promotional video, but also sang promotional songs for the game with well-known stars.
In addition, she also provided professional voice package recording services for the "Peace Elite" mobile game and AutoNavi Map. Despite this, the "A small group of OvO" voice package on the AutoNavi map can still be downloaded and used by users normally.
Sadly, however, although her voice still rings in the map navigation, she herself is out of the fan's field of vision forever.
However, it is such a popular head anchor with a bright future, but now he has become a "prisoner", is it miserable? Is it wrong? The insider said that he was not wronged.
You must know that Douyu's "paid lottery" was popular before, and as the platform's leading anchor, "a small group" is naturally the pioneer and vanguard of the lottery industry. In 2019 alone, she won 5.39 million yuan in gift income through the "lottery";
Since Douyu CEO Chen Shaojie was arrested for gambling, the dark cloud of "gambling" has always shrouded the platform.
In January this year, after Xiao Tuan Tuan announced that she would stop broadcasting, some people speculated that she also participated in the "paid lottery", and some industry insiders broke the news that Xiao Tuan Tuan was involved in a very large amount, and the assistant who assisted her would face 6 years in prison, and the "main offender" Xiao Tuan Tuan Tuan would face the most severe punishment.
After "A Small Group OvO" was confirmed to be arrested, she was on the hot search list with a series of betta anchors who had been off the air for a long time, such as "pdd" and "Da Sima".
It can be seen that the reason why the arrest of "a small group" can cause such a wide range of public opinion discussion is not only because of its own popularity and traffic, but also because it is regarded as a "weather vane" for how the superiors deal with the "gambling" incident of Douyu.
Previously, affected by Chen Shaojie's arrest, many anchors chose to stop broadcasting and wait and see. For a while, the Douyu anchor had an urgent matter, and every household did not start broadcasting. The whole betta fish fell into a panic and could not live forever.
Among the anchors who were out of the air, only some resumed broadcasting after confirming that they were safe, such as Doinb. After Chen Shaojie was arrested initially, Doinb returned to South Korea with his wife for "refuge" as soon as possible, and it was barely resumed five months later, and Da Sima, PDD and other previously popular anchors had no plans to resume broadcasting in a short time.
In addition to temporarily avoiding the limelight, "deleting the number and running away" and starting all over again has also become the choice of many anchors. In August 2023, the former "Betta Brother" Xu Xu Baby premiered on Douyin.
According to the data, the total number of viewers of the live broadcast reached 60.11 million, and the average number of online users was 1.708 million. In the face of fans' questions about "whether to participate in the paid lottery", Xu Xu Baobao did not make too many comments, leaving only an intriguing sentence: "I knew that I would go to Huya at that time" for the audience to figure out.
Traffic "monetization", or legal "edgeline"?
Previously, traffic monetization was once a headache for live broadcast platforms. Many anchors only have popularity and traffic, but lack effective means of monetization, and their income depends on basic salaries and irregular gifts from fans. In order to monetize the "traffic" in their hands, some anchors came up with this trick "live broadcast lottery".
The so-called "live lottery" refers to the anchor sending large lottery red envelopes in the lottery group, the amount of which can reach up to 1 to 20,000 yuan. The condition for participating in the lottery is that you need to apply for a card to become a fan of the anchor, and the more "cards" you do, the greater the probability of winning the prize, and this gives some unscrupulous anchors and viewers an opportunity.
It can be seen that because there is no limit on the number of lottery draws, the number of card holders can grow indefinitely, and the number of cards held will directly affect the probability of winning the lottery. ”
As for the risks that may be involved in the lottery, the Douyu platform is not unclear. However, for this kind of behavior, the platform not only did not organize, but promoted it as a "way to make money" to the major live broadcast rooms. even issued relevant "speech guidance", let the "paid lottery" be laissez-faire, and developed wantonly on the platform.
In addition to theoretical support, Douyu has also used practical actions to "platform" for the anchor. Previously, many betta anchors had been sued for gambling.
Faced with this situation, Douyu was very "righteous", risking the head of others and inviting his own legal team to defend him. And the question they debate the most is whether the "lottery behavior" constitutes gambling.
Judging from the amount, the behavior of the anchors is undoubtedly legal, according to the relevant provisions of the "Commercial Law": "The amount of the highest prize sold by lottery prizes cannot exceed 50,000", and most of the paid lottery amounts are between 1 and 20,000, far from touching the boundary line of illegality.
However, while the amount is legitimate, the behavior is not necessarily. As for the "lottery behavior", the Interpretation of the Criminal Law of the mainland stipulates that "simple probabilistic play does not constitute a crime, and the standard for judging whether the perpetrator constitutes the crime of opening a casino lies in whether the actor actively constructs or allows the gambling closed loop of "open betting-probability play-open exchange of chips". This is also the fundamental reason for the panic of the betta anchors.
On the one hand, the Douyu platform does not set the number of cards for the audience, and the audience can buy as much as they want, and on the other hand, affected by the lottery rules, the number of cards is closely related to the probability of winning, in this case, the card of the audience, in another sense, is the chip to participate in this "lottery". From this point of view, the "paid lottery" is indeed suspected of gambling. As for what the truth is, everyone knows it.
In this case, the audience did not dare to buy the card, for fear that the money in their hands would become a bargaining chip. The big anchor didn't dare to draw a lottery, for fear that he would be imprisoned if he gave back with kindness.
And when the audience does not dare to spend money and the anchor does not dare to make money, the live broadcast platform that is divided from it will lose the opportunity for development. The "betta fish" swimming in the capital market has come to the end of the journey at this time.
Betta, where is the future?
Now the betta fish is like a fish in the throat, and the belly and back are under attack. The internal anchors are lost, the turnover is declining, the external financing is not smooth, and the stock is down. The fundamental reason is that they are no longer optimistic about the long-term development of betta. The fundamental reason for the lack of optimism lies in its core productivity, the continuous loss of live broadcast talents
With the anchors "off the air" and "leaving", the attractiveness of Douyu as a content platform is constantly decreasing. For the platform, "talent" is the absolute means of production and the absolute "primary productive force." "The relationship between the anchor and the platform is closer than fish and water, and more related than paper and pen.
In the case of this incident, the arrest of "Xiao Tuantuan" is a lose-lose situation for both Douyu and the anchor. On the one hand, anchors have lost their important platform to gain popularity and monetize profits, and their careers have suffered a major blow.
On the other hand, the platform has also lost the stable "cash cow" of "Xiaotuantuan" and its unique competitiveness in the track of "peace elite".
Now, Douyu is also seeking to transform, trying to reduce its dependence on "anchors" by creating original content. However, freezing three feet is not a day's cold. On the track of original entertainment, Betta still has a long way to go.
Compared with the highly subjective and difficult definition of "content", Douyu's business model and compliance issues are more worrisome. Previously, in order to realize traffic realization, Douyu did not hesitate to cross the legal bottom line of "" and "gambling". This overly aggressive "business strategy" has brought unprecedented legal and moral hazard to Douyu.
As early as February 26, 2023, in the 2022 inventory of the "Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Activities" released by the Cyberspace Administration of China, Douyu was named for disseminating bad information and other issues. In less than two months, Douyu was subjected to a one-month centralized rectification and supervision by the Cyberspace Administration of China because of related problems.
In November last year, Douyu's CEO Chen Shaojie was arrested by the public security in accordance with the law for gambling. The continuous problems have also reduced the market confidence and performance of Betta.
On October 25, 23, Douyu announced that it was already at risk of delisting because its closing price of American depositary shares was below the minimum purchase price of $1 for 30 consecutive working days.
This "betta" that cleaves the waves in China's live broadcast market and is indomitable is now ushering in the most dangerous time. Where is the future of Douyu, and where is the future of its anchors?
Epilogue:
The news of the arrest of the well-known anchor "Xiao Tuantuan" once again brought the controversial live broadcast industry to the forefront of public opinion. Her thunderstorm stems from the improper guidance of the platform, as well as her own greed and ignorance. Her ban is sad and lamentable, but it is not unjust at all.
Nowadays, the "anti-pornography and anti-illegal activities" for the live broadcast industry is still continuing, and the wealth myth of "paid lottery" will also turn into a bubble environment.