The author | dumbfounded
Edited | Yiqing
Li Shi was very busy.
The fourth season of "Talk Show Convention" just ended on October 14, and as the initiator and laughter leader, he became one of the presidents of the organizing committee of the "Annual Comedy Contest" that premiered on October 16.
"Usually a variety show, the director will put a note on this seat, Teacher Huang, Teacher Xu, Teacher Li, we don't have it, why?" Ma Dong spread his hands and explained with a serious expression, "This is what we just said..."
Ma Dong was halfway through his words, and Li Shi, who was standing on the right side, came over and said loudly, "Because you lack morality." Mercilessly poking through Ma Dong's "bad eyes" of letting the four presidents grab their seats, causing the audience to laugh, and the other presidents also laughed out loud.
The show only progressed to the 20th minute, and Li Shi had already contributed a second laugh. The last laugh point appeared two minutes ago, when Ma Dong complained ("Strange Story") that all the formats were seen in the "Talk Show Conference", "Connotation" "Talk Show" format plagiarism, Li Shi reacted quickly, replying, "I can only say, Mi Wei is my university." ”
Source: Sina Weibo @ Annual Comedy Contest
Weibo user @Kelly wrote frankly under the topic #Annual Comedy Contest#, "I like Ma Dong and Li Shi hosted together, 'reasonable and unexpected' and 'see and say broken', too funny." ”
After becoming popular with the "Talk Show Conference" and "Spit Conference" series, Li Tian became a popular candidate for variety shows and a synonym for "funny" in the hearts of young people.
In 2018, Zhang Shaohan mentioned in the "Spit Conference" when he complained about Li's birthday, "The most popular programs now invite him to be a guest. In 2019, the champion of the talk show conference of that year wrote in the paragraph that many people said "I especially like you, and Li Zhichizi", which shows the status of Li Tian and Chizi in the hearts of the audience; at the end of 2020, the 2021 iQiyi Scream Night held at the end of 2020, Li Shi was named the "Annual Variety Star" together with Da Zhang Wei and Fan Chengcheng.
However, comedy variety shows, must Li Shi be?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" > "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference" can be without Li Birthday</h1>
When the first season of "SpitTing Conference" was broadcast in 2017, Li Tian, who appeared with a piercing pink hair, looked like a hanging Lang Dang, and his label at that time was "hair is redder than people". Five years later, Li Shi, who now has an inch, has become an iconic figure in the talk show industry, and as the initiator, he has successfully brought the "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference" series into the vision of Chinese audiences.
According to Yien data, as of October 12, the five seasons of "SpitTing Conference" have been played more than 1.7 billion, the fifth season of Douban score is 6.6 points, compared with the fourth season, the popularity and reputation are relatively stable; the cumulative playback of the four seasons of "Talk Show Conference" is 1.28 billion, 860 million, 1.48 billion, 2.85 billion, the second to fourth seasons of Douban score are higher than 7.5, the third season of the popularity climbed, and even achieved "breaking the circle".
"In the third season, we did a pretty cool thing, from show fever to cultural fever." Bai Hongyu, head of Penguin Pictures Seven Ounce Studio and producer of the third season of "Talk Show Conference", said in an interview with Tencent PGC.
The cultural fever of talk shows has "burned" from online to offline, and the popularity of variety shows has also led to the development of offline performances and related industries.
Source: Laughing Fruit Culture
Bai Hongyu introduced at the expert seminar of the fifth season of "Spit Conference" that in 2020, the number of offline performances of talk shows increased by 320%, and the number of talk show clubs increased by 400%. Damai's "2021 "May Day" Performance Observation" shows that during the May Day period, the number of talk show viewers and box office increased by 6 times and 3 times respectively compared with 2019.
Talk shows have also gone from niche to the public, becoming the object of everyone's "scramble". According to 36Kr, Xiaoguo Culture revealed that its mini program that sells offline performance tickets has millions of users, and by the end of 2020, shanghai Xintiandi's Xiaoguo Factory (which was settled in July of the same year) has held more than 200 commercial performances, with a attendance rate of 99%. Yu Jie'er (ID: yuci-er) opened the "Laughing Fruit Performance" mini program and found that of the next 28 performances in Shanghai in October, 27 tickets had been sold out.
The talk show industry is getting lively and mature. However, Li Shi himself is standing on the stage and talking less and less time, and more talk show actors are showing their heads.
When the third season of "SpitTing Conference" was broadcast in 2018, because it did not appear in the show for two consecutive episodes, the #Spitting Conference did not have Li Tian and Chi Zi # on the hot search.
Some netizens asked under Li Tian's Weibo, "Where have you been, why don't you go to the spit conference", Li Shi replied, "The show is the third season, we have come to the newcomer, the planner is always planning the program, is it that this planner is quite unspoiled." ”
Judging from the reply, Li Shi's fading out seems to be making room for the newcomer. From the second season of "Talk Show Conference" in 2019, Li Shi no longer exported content as a contestant, but became a member of the leading laughter group, and jointly selected the "talk show king" every year with the audience.
Although the "containment of births" has decreased, "Talk Show Conference" has won more talk show actors.
In addition to Jianguo, Cheng Lu, Pang Bo, Hu Lan and other "old people", Yang Kasa became popular with "he is so ordinary, but so confident", contributed to the "end of the universe is Tieling" and other golden sentences such as Li Xueqin out of the circle, Wang Mian won the third season championship with a unique music talk show. Thorny rose He Guangzhi, talk show vase Xu Zhisheng, social fear patient aka Beidacai female bird bird, "family disciple twelve walls" Qiu Rui... The new people in the fourth season are also threatening.
Image source: DT Finance
The influence of the show is getting bigger and bigger, not only Li Tian, but also other popular talk show actors who have come out of "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference", and the commercial value has also emerged.
"Recently, the media rumored me, saying that Hulan participated in the event, the appearance fee was between 3 million and 5 million a hour, I think the people who made this rumor are not have no concept of talk shows, they have no concept of money, to be honest, I have also participated in the activities of three or five million a hour, and I have gone to the grave." In the tenth issue, Hu Lan clarified his "sky-high appearance fee" in the paragraph.
According to Tech Planet, lcy, co-founder of Shan Li Ren Comedy, said, "Hulan's 5 million performance fees are fake, and the low income of stand-up comedians is also fake." ”
LCY said that the cost of performances on talk shows is higher than before, and there are more business opportunities. Actors who rely solely on performances, even if they are not star-level, can earn five figures a month in first-tier cities. And celebrity talk show actors may earn tens of millions of dollars a year.
In the eleventh issue of the variety show "Only One Day to Love", Yang Kasa mentioned, "Our company is who has money and who spends, and no Li Birthday is my checkout." Yang Kasa participated in the second season of the variety show "Under the Same Roof" and "Make Life Look Good", and participated in the fan live broadcast festival of Taobao anchor Sydney with other talk show actors. She wrote in the paragraph of the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference", "Netizens said that Yang Kasa really didn't seem to be able to receive business haha, I immediately called the company and said, and then give me an advertisement." ”
In the tweet of the Xiaoguo Culture public account, the talk show actors are very busy, busy with advertising promotion, variety shows, live streaming and other business activities. In the tweet on September 29, there were 11 actors' news, including Hu Lan as a guest of "Only Three Days to See", Yang Meng'en and other guests of "Tomorrow's Creation Plan", Rock's cross-border performance "Can You Not Get Married", He Guangzhi Xu Zhisheng's cooperation with Ping An Good Car Owner and other news.
In fact, whether from the content side or the commercial side, the laughing fruit culture of making "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference" has long ceased to rely only on Li Tian.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="157" > the "transition period" of comedy variety shows</h1>
For a long time in the past, Li Tian's top Microblog has not been changed, and at the end of that Weibo, he wrote, "Be happy friends, the world is not worth it." "Life is already bitter enough, and young people who can't escape the inner volume and anxiety need to release the pressure in entertainment consumption and find sweet and happy that can be compensated."
In 2018, the CBN Business Data Center and Xiaoguo Culture jointly released the "2018 China Young Comedy Audience Consumption Big Data Report", pointing out that nearly 80% of urban residents are plagued by pressure and like to decompress by watching TV, playing games, sleeping and other brainless ways, of which entertainment is the most sought after type of network. Aurora Big Data's "2018 Network Variety Show Audience Research Report" pointed out that funny is the audience's favorite online variety show element, with a vote rate of more than half.
Audiences need comedy variety shows, but the number of comedy variety shows has fallen sharply. According to the "2019 Tencent Entertainment White Paper and Variety Show", from 2017 to 2019, the number of TV comedy variety shows was 9, 5 and 5, and the number of online comedy variety shows was 12, 8 and 3, respectively.
Comedy variety shows "met the cold", and the stable output of the "Spit Conference" series and the "Talk Show Conference" series began to receive attention. In addition, young people hate forced sensationalism, and they do not like stereotypical preaching, and only want to harvest simple happiness in comedy variety shows. The real observations and funny spits of the stand-up comedians who are close to life can tease the audience while hitting their inner emotional "bullseye".
Since 2020, video platforms and satellite television have accelerated the layout of comedy variety shows, launching a number of comedy variety shows such as "Serious Gagas", "It's Nice to Laugh", "Deyun Dou Laughing Society", "Sister Club", "Ivory Mountain Love Comic Group", "Annual Comedy Competition" and so on.
Source: Sina Weibo @ Tencent Video Deyun Douxiao Society
"Deyun Dou Laughing Society" as a group of Deyun Society, using a combination of reality TV and cross-talk competition. The part of the reality show can present the state of the daily life of the cross-talk actors to meet the needs of the fans of the "Deyun Girls", and the part of the cross-talk competition shows the business ability of the cross-talk actors. In addition, unlike offline theater performances, "Deyun Dou Laughing Society" pays attention to the hot social issues and actively "embraces" the audience, such as "Big Cake Roll Everything" in the first issue of the second season, which actually explores the problem of "inner volume".
According to Yunhe data, the effective playback of the first season of "Deyun Douxiao Society" was 487 million, ranking 9th in the effective broadcast of online variety shows in 2020, with a Douban score of 7.3, and during the broadcast of the program, deyun club members Weibo rose by 8.4 million fans. As of September 30, the effective playback of the second season of "Deyun Dou Laughing Society" was 283 million, ranking fourth in the third quarter of 2012 for effective broadcasting of online variety shows, and one place higher than the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference", with a Douban score of 7.2.
Previously, Deyun She, because of Zhang Yunlei, Guo Qilin, Qin Xiaoxian and other actors, has attracted a large number of audiences with strong fan attributes. Guo Degang once described Zhang Yunlei, "He sat there eating noodles, as if someone was watching." ”
Thanks to the relatively wide audience base of crosstalk, fans of popular actors, and the blessing of well-known director Yan Min, the first season of "Deyun Dou Laughing Society" won the "opening red" and launched the second season. Next door Youku's "Ivory Mountain Love Group" is not so lucky, Liaoning Folk Art Troupe's Song Xiaobao, Poplar Shulin and other comedians have national popularity, but do not have a fan base, resulting in mediocre performance of the show, as of now (October 21), Douban has not yet opened points.
On October 15, 2021, Mi Wei did a new variety show "Annual Comedy Competition" for more than half a year. According to Data ENT Digital Entertainment, the effective playback volume of the positive film on the first day of the launch is higher than that of the seventh season of "Strange Story", and there are a total of 35 Weibo hot searches and cultural and entertainment hot searches on the first day, and as of October 21, the Douban score is 7.8 points.
After only 4 episodes, the show has already contributed a lot of "famous scenes".
"Internet Physical Examination" pays attention to various problems on the Internet, pop-up window advertising, advanced on-demand, live broadcast chaos, the audience who suffered from it "saw the fist hard"; "Sanmao Defense War" accurately poked the "life gate" of the Chinese social animals, and the harmonic terrier "it is not easy to do mao" caused the audience to laugh; "Three Dogs Live Room" was funny and nonsensical, Dongdong Gun commented, "I think the two of them have done a good job in the matter of spilling dog blood, and can constantly turn out some new ways to play." ”
On the stage of the "Annual Comedy Competition", the contestants "showed their own magic", Sketch (sketch comedy), sketches, musicals, comics... A variety of comedy forms refresh the audience's definition of "comedy".
Image source: Data ENT Digital Entertainment
However, innovation is risky. The bullet screen keywords provided by Data ENT Digital Entertainment show that although there are many praises, there are also many "not funny" bullet screens.
Douban user @ otherworldly magic bird wrote that what is professional, a comparison feels that the talk show conference is their own family. Accompanying it was the comment of the user @ I Love Robin: "The funniest thing is that this show makes people can't laugh at all, so it's better to talk show it." Netizens' evaluations and opinions are different, the only thing that can be determined is that the "Annual Comedy Competition" has re-attracted the audience's attention to comedy variety shows, and in the past, a large number of voices that have sung and declined comedy variety shows have appeared in the same way.
Comedy is still the "darling" of the platform, and outside of Xiaoguo Culture and Deyun Society, Shen Teng leads Happy Twist to enter this field again. At the 2022 Youku Boutique Tasting Meeting, Youku announced that it plans to launch the first group roundup of Happy Twist co-produced with Happy Twist, "Twist Special Happy". Shen Teng said at the meeting that each episode of the program is based on the story of ordinary people, hoping to give 12 ordinary people a little smile through the 12 programs, Shen Teng half jokingly and half seriously said that there will be suspenseful factors in comedy variety shows.
With the blessing of Shen Teng, Ma Li, Chang Yuan and others with high national popularity, "Twist Flower Special Happy" may provide a new idea for comedy variety shows.
The comedy variety market, carved up by traditional sketches and talk shows, is facing a fierce new rival.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="158" > comedy variety show has newcomers</h1>
According to the Penguin Zhiku report, more than 60% of viewers aged 19-25 will watch a variety show because they "like the guests in the show/fixed guests", ranking second among all influencing factors, second only to "like the content of the show or the type itself".
This may be the reason why artists such as Li Shi and Da Zhang Wei are popular with comedy variety shows. However, even with the addition of Li Shi and Shen Teng, "You Laugh So Good" is still "pulling the crotch", and the Douban score is only 3.0 points; "Serious Gagas", which invited Li Shi, Da Zhang Wei and others, performed mediocrely, and the Douban score of the program was 5.6.
Guests may be able to attract audiences and drain variety shows, but they cannot influence the reputation of variety shows. For comedy variety shows, what is indispensable is not the icing on the cake of guests, but the truly excellent players and high-quality content.
Comedy variety shows are a necessity of variety shows in recent years, "Happy Comedians" has been held for seven consecutive seasons, and "Spit Conference" has been held for five consecutive seasons... The speed of the birth of comedy variety shows is faster than the birth of a comedy work, and the excessive consumption is also "devouring" the creative ability of actors.
In the tenth episode of "Talk Show Conference 4" broadcast on October 12, Li Zhi mentioned Zhou Qimo and said, "It should be said that our "Talk Show Conference" has created a miracle and exhausted the people with the largest reserve of Chinese strips. Zhou Qimo, who is known for his "observational talk shows", must show his "surprise" and "observation" when necessary.
"If a good talk show actor can produce half an hour of high-quality content a year, I think he can be called China's top talk show actor, but the consumption of the show is six or seven minutes a month, which is equivalent to a month of recording, and all the high-quality products in a year have been squeezed dry." In the video of the B station UP main @ current channel, Yang Mengen said that the manuscript could not be written and the creation cycle was short, which was the main source of pressure for him to participate in the third season of "Talk Show Conference".
Image source: Screenshot of Station B
According to the "Finance and Economics National Weekly", when Jia Ling participated in "Comedy Story", she needed to produce 2 works every 10 days, and she also had to make props in advance. Sun Jibin, the screenwriter of Jia Ling's team, complained to her, "Originally, when we wrote a sketch, we had to constantly 'press the scene' and listen to the opinions of the audience, at least for a month, and now we have violated the law of creation." ”
High-frequency output and creation lead to comedians "nothing to write", which is a pain point that comedy variety shows have to face.
One solution is brainstorming collaboration. The solution given by Talk Show Conference is a reading session. Li wrote in the "Talk Show Work Manual" that his most important work is "the culture and system of the reading meeting established within the laughing fruit culture, the atmosphere and method of the reading meeting and the spiritual temperament of everyone working together in it." ”
Zhou Qimo, the champion of the fourth season talk show conference, mentioned in the first round of the finals that many of the contents were modified with the help of Jianguo, Chen Lu and director Tan Xiaohong. He Guangzhi's first round of the final "I am ugly with Xu Gong in the north of the city" is from Pang Bo, and in the second round of Pang Bo's final draft, "You may not know ... You may have forgotten... You may remember..." The structure is the gap between the two rounds of competition, zhou Qimo in the background to help think.
The Annual Comedy Contest is achieved through collaborations that "empower" works. Each work is co-created by the screenwriter and the contestants, and in the show, after the contestants perform, Ma Dong will ask the screenwriters to talk about the creative ideas and stories.
More great creators are already in the pipeline. According to the "First Financial Weekly", as early as the end of the first season of "Spit Conference", Xiaoguo has already held the first talk show training camp. In the view of He Xiaoxi, co-founder and CEO of Xiaoguo Culture, training new people is a pure investment, but without it, there is no "Spit Conference".
According to the "2018 China Young Comedy Audience Consumption Big Data Report", in 2017, 40,000 people in China began to learn talk shows, of which 600 became practitioners from the audience, and more than 50 became full-time talk show actors or screenwriters of Xiaoguo Culture in 2018.
Wang Mian, the winner of the third season of "Talk Show Conference", is one of them. When watching the pub school performance, Wang Mian thought that the actors on the stage were not funny themselves, so he went on stage to speak for a while. After graduating in 2018, he signed a contract with Laughing Fruit Culture to become an official stand-up comedian.
In December 2020, Deyun She enrolled students in the Douyin Live Dragon Character Section; during the eleventh period of 2021, the Xiaoguo Training Camp campus plan opened for the first time, opening comedy training for students, and 100 students from major universities in China were selected. The "Yue Yunpeng" and "Li Birthday" that the comedy industry needs may be among these people.
It is unhealthy for any industry to rely too much on individuals. The vigorous development of the industry is inseparable from the steady flow of fresh blood and the mechanism that can maintain its operation.
When the comedy variety show "leaves" Li's birthday, it may be the beginning of the entire comedy industry to go up.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="160" > reference:</h1>
1. After "Spit Conference 5", what is the end of the talk show variety show? Tencent PCG, April 13, 2021
2. Can talk shows say goodbye to the niche? 36Kr & Entrepreneurship Frontline, Fu Yancui, April 8, 2021
3. Why is it difficult to "copy" the talk show sought after by 200 million young people? Tech Planet, Yuanyuan Zhai, September 29, 2021
4, minutes become "awkward" drama, domestic comedy variety show what is wrong? Finance & Economics National Weekly, Feng Yu, May 30, 2017
5. How difficult is it for China's "talk show" to recreate a Li birthday? YIMagazine, Zheng Jingmin, May 9, 2018