Entertainment Business Observation
Text/Rich
The day after the end of "Talk Show Conference 4", Mi Wei returned with a new original comedy competition variety show "Annual Comedy Competition".
In order to make a good start to this new attempt, Mi did not put a lot of thought into it.
First, Huang Bo, Li Shi, Xu Zheng, Yu Hewei and Ma Dong were invited to form members of the organizing committee, and then at the press conference, the "Strongest Comedy Foreign Aid Group" composed of Shen Teng, Jia Ling, Sun Honglei, Jia Bing, Yang Tianzhen, Lei Jiayin, Yang Mi, etc. was invited to cheer up the president of the organizing committee, and released the theme song of the program "Happy Etudes" co-starring 25 comedy squads, five members of the organizing committee, and comedians such as Jin Jing and Liu Shengying.
Later, in the first episode of the officially broadcast program, iQiyi rubbed the heat of canceling advanced on-demand, and through "Internet Physical Examination", it alluded to Internet consumption routines such as advanced on-demand, pop-up window advertising, ultra-long advertising, forced push, and data leakage. With the topic #iQiyi spit on iQIYI#, which rushed to the Weibo hot search list on the night of the launch, Mi did not achieve his wish, and iQiyi, as the main producer, also earned a wave of goodwill through this "self-blackness".
But in the end, the show has just begun, and no one can give a conclusion on whether the next trend is to continue to improve or to start broadcasting, that is, "highlight".
Ma Dong "returned to zero" again?
Mi Wei's life is not good, especially compared with the laughing fruit culture and Galaxy Cool Entertainment, which are always mentioned side by side.
Mi Wei and Xiaoguo Culture, Galaxy Cool Entertainment were all established around 2015, in terms of staffing, the three are initiated by producers with TV station backgrounds, and in the early days, they are also inclined to indoor language programs in content production, and the reason why they can quickly rise to the head status of the network comprehensive jianghu is also because they have taken the east wind of video website content self-control, relying on the "Spit Conference", "Strange Story" and "Mars Intelligence Bureau" three different focus of explosive language programs to take the lead.
In addition, at that time, entertainment was still a hot spot, so these three companies were favored by capital.
In May 2017, the valuation of Xiaoguo Culture, which completed the A+ round of financing, soared 10 times to 1.2 billion yuan, and a month later, Galaxy Cool Entertainment announced the completion of more than 200 million yuan of B round financing. After the A round of financing in 2016, Miwei, which has just been established for 5 months, has received about 2 billion yuan worth.
However, the good times are not long, with the gradual disappearance of the dividend period of the network comprehensive market, the "back wave" and the continuous improvement of the platform's self-control ability, the "trump card" that Mi Wei, Xiaoguo Culture, and Galaxy Cool Entertainment once proud of have shown an increasingly tired situation, and the stories of the three have also moved towards "different".
Laughing fruit culture chooses to "go black" on the road of young comedy.
While actively expanding the territory of comedy by launching a new network synthesis represented by "Talk Show Conference", "Offending Family" and "Saturday Night Live", as well as a special talk show "Laughing Field", a New Year's Eve event IP "Talk Show Anti-New Year's Eve" and other diversified content products, Xiaoguo Culture is also constantly going offline, with the help of holding hands in modern sky, creating a "Laughing Fruit Factory" and other ways to lay out offline performances, large-scale life festivals, offline consumption scene operations, integrated marketing and other aspects.
Mi did not focus on the "xyz axis model" conceived by Ma Dong, on the one hand, it extended outward from the language program, and on the x-axis of the representative content, it explored and incubated the new program IP with "Bye-bye Meat", "Strange Flower Conference", "Summer of the Band", etc. as the fulcrum; on the one hand, it represented the y axis of the derivative business by signing the "Strange Story" contestants, launching the "Commissary" and "Testing the Water" knowledge payment; on the other hand, it invested in the z-axis representing the investment, and invested in the Guoshi Media and the main control TV series "East Fourth Arch Building East" on the z-axis representing investment. Mega Media, etc.
Galaxy Cool Entertainment's steps out of the "comfort zone" are bigger than the meters.
In the two years of the absence of "Mars Intelligence Bureau", Galaxy Cool Entertainment has cooperated with Youku to launch the family companion travel reality show "Think of a Way!" Daddy", the young actor's on-set survival reality show "Acting School", and cooperated with Mango TV to launch the costume sweet pet drama "One Night Bride" and the urban love idol drama "What About the Boss". At the same time, Galaxy Cool Entertainment is also constantly increasing the youth aesthetic education industry sector and artist management sector, signing artists such as Zhao Lusi, Liu Te, Qi Peixin, Li Jiulin, Lu Siheng and so on.
In the first half of this year, the urban love drama "A Little Pick Up Love", co-produced by Galaxy Cool Entertainment and Youku, starring Zhao Lusi and Liu Te, and the costume sweet pet drama "QingLuo" that participated in the production have been broadcast on Youku.
Judging from Ali's acquisition of Galaxy Cool Entertainment last year and Tencent's becoming the third largest shareholder of Xiaoguo Culture this year, after moving towards "difference", Xiaoguo Culture and Galaxy Cool Entertainment are still highly recognized by capital, but according to Tianyancha app, Miwei's latest round of financing is still stagnant in January 2018, and the most fundamental reason for this result is that Miwei's "xyz axis" does not have a way to go, especially the most critical x-axis.
"Bye bye Meat", "The Temptation of the Meal", "Speak Well" all stirred up a splash, "Black and White Planet" was taken down after a few episodes were taken off the shelves and suspended, and "Strange Flowers" was also ordered to be removed from the shelves for rectification in the second season. The only one that stirred up the mainstream discourse in the variety circle, "Summer of the Band", quickly flourished and declined, and the Douban score in the second season slipped to 7.3, while the old ace "Strange Story" series was difficult to reshape the peak.
As a result, Ma Dong remembered a sentence that he hung on his lips every time he changed his role and identity - life needs to be zeroed, but turning from "Summer of the Band" to comedy variety shows is not a complete sense of zero for Ma Dong and Mi Wei.
As we all know, Ma Dong is the son of the famous cross-talk actor Ma Ji, the company partner Mou Wei was once the general director of the comedy variety show "Joy Street", and the most typical label of the signed artist Jin Jing is also "comedy". On the other hand, as Ma Dong himself said in other media interviews, "Strange Story" and "Summer of the Band" all have a very prominent comedic component.
But all this is only enough to prove that Mi does not have the potential to do comedy variety shows.
Can Mi Wei win the "Laughing Fruit"?
Douban opened at 8.0 and then fell to the 7-point line.
The current word-of-mouth performance of "The Annual Comedy Competition" is not as good as the first season of "Strange Story" and "Summer of the Band", and there is also a significant distance in terms of popularity performance, but it is still outstanding compared with other network roundups broadcast in the same period, and it is not impossible to bring greater surprises, after all, the "Talk Show Conference" series of Laughing Fruit Culture is also not until the third season.
Beyond that, Mi Wei has another chance of winning.
Laughing Fruit Culture is the one who masters the password for talk show traffic and wealth, but it only stops at talk shows. This year, although the innovative variety show "Sister Club" that focuses on women's topics launched in cooperation with iQiyi has received a Douban score of 7.0, the number of ratings is only more than 2,000, which is evident in its lackluster performance.
At the moment of this show, its sitcom comedy talk show "Offending Family" cooperated with iQiyi, the pan-two-dimensional talk show "Super Story Club", and the young comedy comprehensive show "Saturday Night Live" cooperated with Youku are all "season-ending".
The laughing fruit culture in the comedy variety track is only a branch of talk shows, which undoubtedly gives Mi Wei a chance. "Annual Comedy Competition" takes sketch as the main body, integrates more diversified comedy expression forms such as sketch comedy, comic talent, musical, and mime, and in terms of overall mode and format, the show also has the characteristics of similar themes such as "Laughing Proud of the River" and "Happy Comedian".
It is worth mentioning that Shan Li Comedy participated in the production of the "Annual Comedy Competition" as a content partner, and Shi Jiefu, the founder of Shan Li Comedy, served as the content director of the show, and the most outstanding work "Internet Physical Examination" is currently from the hands of six beasts under The screenwriter of Shan Li Ren Comedy. On the other hand, zhou Qimo, the champion of "Talk Show Conference 4", is still "talk show conference kasi" and "single-person comedy signed actor", and the same "man who grows on the laughter point" Xu Zhisheng.
South laughing fruit, north single liren.
It is true that Xiaoguo culture has the absolute advantage of crushing single-person comedy in terms of company popularity and volume, artist scale, market discourse power, etc., but single-person comedy still has the advantages that laughing fruit culture yearns for and cannot get, such as Zhou Qimo and Xu Zhisheng.
Kam's drug use and Chi Zi's exodus have brought serious negative public opinion to Xiaoguo Culture, and also damaged its competitiveness in the online variety content and offline performance market, especially the latter. According to Yang Kasa's self-exposure in the show, because of concerns about safety, she has performed no more than 10 times offline in the past year, and "famous mouths" such as Li Shi, Hulan, and Pang Bo have also had more work to pay attention to than stage performances.
Unfortunately, Zhou Qimo and Xu Zhisheng did not make the same choice as Yang Kasa.
The lack of head comedy talent is a headache for Mi Wei, which can be clearly seen from Li Tian's becoming a resident guest of the "Annual Comedy Competition". On the other hand, Mi Wei's ability to produce comedy content is also very poor, and the production team of "Annual Comedy Competition" is almost the original team of "Summer of the Band".
The combination of the two parties, the cooperation between Mi Wei and Shan Liren Comedy has naturally become a matter of course, after all, Shan LiRen Comedy also needs to use Mi Wei to further open up its own popularity and influence.
However, in the comedy variety circuit, Mi Wei and Xiaoguo culture need to face more than just each other.
Following deyun she's comedy label reality show "Deyun Dou Laughing Society", Benshan Media's city tour group "Ivory Mountain Love Comic Group", Happy Twist and Youku, Oriental Satellite TV's first group roundup "Twist Special Happy" was announced in December 2022 at the Youku Boutique Pioneers. According to reports, the program as a whole adopts an immersive, anti-routine comedy model, with Shen Teng, Ma Li, Chang Yuan, and Allen as resident MC, through all-round and diversified layer-by-layer progressive assessment, a new generation of happy twist team is selected among more than 300 comedians.
In addition, after the transfer to the network, the Directory Team of Yan Min, who successfully launched "Deyun Dou Laughing Society", "Rap New Generation" and "Drama New Life", has begun the planning of "Avatar", and this reality show known as the "Online Comprehensive Edition of "Extreme Challenge" focuses on "absurd comedy" and "black humor".
Everything has just begun, and as for how many editions of the "Annual Comedy Contest" can be held, it will eventually be decided by the audience.