Per reporter: Du Wei Per editor: Dong Xingsheng
In an era when everything is on the clouds, the way the public works, lives and plays has shifted from offline to online. Among them, network audio, which is rich in content and good at robbing users of fragmented time, has increased significantly in use this year and has won the favor of more users to pay.
The newly released "2020 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") shows that in the past year, head programs and high-quality content have promoted a significant increase in the paid income of online audio users. With the advent of the 5G era, where are the new growth opportunities for the audio industry?
Every reporter interviewed Xiao Yi, vice president of Cool Me Music of Tencent Music Entertainment Group
From October 13 to 19, the 8th China Network Audiovisual Conference, known as the "annual weather vane", was held in Chengdu, and the "ear economy" attracted much attention. On October 14, Xiao Yi, vice president of Kuwo Music of Tencent Music Entertainment Group, delivered a keynote speech around "Breaking the Circle to Grow - On the New Possibility of the Development of the Audio Industry" at the conference site, and his "visual and interactive" plan from solving the slow growth of industry penetration rate caused great concern to the outside world. After the meeting, the daily economic news reporter interviewed Xiao Yi and listened to him talk about the reasons why Tencent Music Entertainment Group has developed long audio, how the audio is visualized, and what kind of imagination space there is in the future.
<h2>This year, giants have broken into the audio industry and there are more people who eat</h2>
From the perspective of the current audio market pattern, the Report shows that Himalaya, Dragonfly FM and Lychee occupy a total of 92% of the market share, and the third echelon such as Cat Ear FM and Penguin FM have entered the shuffling stage. However, every reporter noticed that this year's audio industry has also broken into some new players backed by big capital and large platforms, not only Tencent Music Entertainment Group, but also giants such as ByteDance and NetEase Cloud Music have entered the field of long audio, trying to use popular IP to pry new traffic pools, which is bound to aggravate the fight of long audio outlets.
Image source: Screenshot of the 2020 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report
"The audio market has changed a bit this year, and as you can see, it's moving from the traditional audio market to a more complex state of competition." Xiao Yi told every reporter bluntly that the players in the previous audio market, such as Himalaya and Dragonfly FM, were very similar, but now the new players have an obvious feature, "Everyone's main battlefield is no longer audio, but from a business related to audio to penetrate and expand in." Like we come in through music and audio linkage, NetEase is similar to us, and ByteDance comes in with a combination of listening and reading. Next, some short video platforms will also try long audio."
Xiao Yi believes that in the era of integrated media, the industry boundary is no longer clear, and players can enter from their respective areas of expertise, which also stirs up the audio market. "Since this year, more people have broken into the audio industry to share meals, and the traditional audio giant faction and the extended player faction of the new big platform are two distinctive characteristics, and the two factions may intertwine and compete in the future." But there is no doubt that the cost of competition will increase. ”
It is worth mentioning that the new and old players of audio compete for traffic, is the current stock of the audio industry enough? "New entrants will bring new blood to the audio industry, and these new blood will stimulate the penetration rate of the industry." Xiao Yi said.
Image source: Photo by reporter Zhang Jian
Every time the reporter learns that adding long audio, audio programs, etc. to the music platform, there may be a high amount of natural conversion. In this regard, Xiao Yi said, "It not only has the ability to incubate native traffic, but also can rob the stock users of other players in the audio field." ”
<h2>Most IP film and television is not easy Audio visualization can dilute risk</h2>
At the event site, Xiao Yi took the lead in the industry to propose audio "visualization and interactivity", which set off a hot discussion. What has attracted much attention is that so far, audio has existed in the public's memory with the characteristics of companionship, and the cost of interactive behavior is very high, especially through the completion of interactive content through mobile phones. If audio also has to take the "visual" road, will it conflict with long and short videos?
"I like innovation and want to make more changes and breakthroughs. The audio industry can't always give users a state of the same, everyone thinks of audio is crosstalk, book reviews, audio novels and so on. From the perspective of audiovisual works, it is necessary not only to improve the audiovisual experience, but also to diversify its forms of expression. I think that making a thing that is used to listen to it is an essential breakthrough. Xiao Yi told every reporter that most users like interaction, and the experience of one-way communication and interactive communication is completely different.
Talking about the shackles of the audio industry for many years, Xiao Yi said: "It is a long-term label of comfort, companionship and concentration on himself, so the growth rate of the industry has not been broken for so many years. Because it only touches the needs of some people, such as insomnia people want to listen to sleep content before going to bed, but do all people have insomnia? After satisfying the insomniac, what about the rest? ”
Xiao Yi Image source: Per reporter Zhang Jian
In this regard, Xiao Yi further told every reporter that text is the source of all IP, whether it is an online novel or an original script, but most of the IP wants to be filmed and television, and it is very difficult. "Take a comic website with hundreds of thousands of works, because the conversion cost is too high, all the IP that can be filmed and television in a year is only single digits."
Subject to issues such as the main creative team and actor remuneration, the process and cycle of IP film and television are very long, xiao Yi believes that the industry should pay more attention to those IP and authors who have not been selected. "Is there anyone who can go through a round of low-cost trial and error for them to help the high-cost selectors behind them to strengthen their confidence?" So we do audio visualization. ”
"Our cost is much lower than that of film and television, and we can also produce in large quantities." Whether it is a drama, a movie, or an anime, if there is a problem in the middle, it can only be redone, which invisibly increases a lot of expenditure. But audio visualization, we use fusion playback technology, can always modify any frame of the picture, a line online, and take effect in the next second. In Xiao Yi's view, audio visualization is essentially different from long and short videos, and the works of the audio industry are the lowest level threshold for the entire audiovisual industry, "We can use it to trial and error, and select excellent works through actual operation, diluting the risk for film and television works with a better sense of experience." ”
"I always think that industrialization is the transmission and cooperation of links and links, through audio visualization, more literary IP and creators can have one more opportunity to contact audiovisual works, and also provide further selection opportunities for producers, investors and platforms who are willing to invest more and deepen film and television." Xiao Yi said.
With the cross-border influx of giants such as Tencent, Byte Challenge, and NetEase into the audio track, the traditional audio market pattern is expected to be reshaped. "Before this year, capital may think that the outbreak of the audio industry should rely on scene intelligence or equipment intelligence to promote. But starting this year, capital will see some peripheral or adjacent industries enter the audio, allowing the industry and the industry to merge, which may become a possibility to drive the penetration rate of the audio industry. Innovation is particularly important, and the audio industry needs to constantly break through. Xiao Yi said.