Written by / AI Finance and Economics Agency Zhou Xiangyue He Chang
Editor / Dong Yuqing
If it were not for a sudden news that "Tencent video producer Zhang Meng was taken away by relevant departments for investigation", the outside world's cognition of the name "Zhang Meng" may still stay on the female star Zhang Meng, who also has the identity of a producer.
Of course, this Zhang Meng is not "Zhang Meng", but a senior producer who has worked in Tencent for 7 years, this year's summer blockbuster drama "You Are My Glory", 2020's "Skyscraper", 2019's "Chen Qingling", and Tencent Video's 2016 hit drama "Ghost Blowing Lights of the Essence of the Ancient City", he is one of the producers.
The incident occurred on October 25, the evening of the same day, there was news that Tencent video producer Zhang Mou was investigated for being involved in the "Yin and Yang Contract" case of the legacy drama "Qiannu Ghost" starring Zheng Shuang (now renamed "Only Ask About the Vicissitudes of Love in This Life"), and its direct leader Fang Mou was also involved.
Subsequently, public opinion quickly fermented, and Tencent had to respond urgently the next morning: Recently, Tencent found in the anti-fraud investigation that Zhang Mou, the producer of Tencent Video Film and Television Project, violated the company's "high-voltage line" and was suspected of violating the law, and has now been handed over to the judicial organs for handling; at present, the police have filed a case for investigation; the internet has spread that we are involved in yin and yang contracts, etc., which are false rumors.
As for the specific reasons for Zhang Meng's removal for investigation, Tencent did not disclose more information. However, some insiders revealed to the media that Zhang Meng was reported for "Ghost of Qiannu", and Tencent found that it was illegal in the process of investigation.
In fact, behind the arrest of Tencent video producers, there are still many problems worth pondering.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > a prominent producer who fell</h1>
On the evening of October 28, 2020, hundreds of Chinese film and television industry practitioners, including screenwriters, directors and producers, gathered at the Beijing Convention Center near the North Fifth Ring Road in Beijing.
Zhang Meng, who was a senior producer at Penguin Pictures at the time, was also among them. At the third chuxin list awards ceremony that evening where the elite gathered, Zhang Meng, as one of the winners of the "2020 Outstanding Platform Producer" award, took the stage to receive the award and delivered the acceptance speech as usual. The representative work that made him win this award was the two web dramas "Skyscraper" and "Listen to the Phoenix" broadcast at the same time in August 2020.
It's an exciting time. In the award-receiving picture that was later circulated, Zhang Meng, dressed in a black shirt, held a golden trophy in his hand, talking and talking, and the expression on his face was accurately fixed in the mouth because the smile grinned to the corner of the mouth.
"Chu Xin Award, what is the most important original heart?" In the face of a group of peers in the audience, Zhang Meng asked such a question and quickly explained: "When I first stepped into Chinese drama in 2002, I had a very clear idea that I would do the film and television industry in this life. This original intention is that I have been insisting on doing film and television. ”
Of course, he did not forget to thank the current owner Tencent, "joined Tencent for the sixth year, very honored to follow the development of Tencent, I hope to maintain my own creative mentality, I hope that in the future, when everyone mentions the producer, I think Zhang Meng is a producer of content, which is the biggest recognition for me." ”
According to public information, Zhang Meng is a senior project producer of Tencent Video, working in the canopy studio of the film and television content production department. In an interview in August 2021, he also appeared as the head of canopy studio in Tencent's online video film and television content production department. Penguin Film and Television, which makes self-made content under Tencent, has a number of studios, such as Tianxuan Studio, which is mainly responsible for the research and development of customized dramas and its own IP, Tiantong Studio, which is responsible for its own IP projects, and Tianji Studio, which is responsible for PGC (professional production content) content production.
Although Zhang Meng's canopy studio does not belong to the most famous one, combing its resume can be found that its road to being a producer in Tencent is still relatively smooth.
As early as March 2016, the second year zhang meng joined Tencent, he had already followed Fang Fang, who was the general manager of Penguin Film and Television Tianxuan Studio at the time, and participated in the production of "The Spirit of the Ghost Blowing Lantern", of which Fang Fang was the chief producer and Zhang Meng was the producer. Fang Fang is the "Fang Mou" who is involved in the rumor of "Zhang Meng being investigated", is the direct leader of Zhang Meng, and is also the current vice president of Penguin Film and Television, the deputy general manager of Tencent's online video film and television content production department, mainly responsible for the project development of film and television dramas.
In the same year that "Ghost Blowing Lantern Essence of the Ancient City" was filmed, Zhang Meng also followed Fang Fang again and participated in the production of "Acts 2". "Apostle Walker 2" is the first work in Tencent Video's three-year strategic layout to expand the Hong Kong drama market, and it is also a police gangster Hong Kong drama jointly created by Penguin Film and Television and TVB, and its predecessor "Apostle Walker" was all the rage in 2014, not only won the TVB annual ratings championship, but also unexpectedly achieved a network broadcast of more than 2 billion in Chinese mainland, and the Douban score also reached a high score of 8.4.
Relying on many film and television dramas such as "The Spirit of the Ghost Blowing Lights", "Apostle Walker 2" and so on, in 2017, Zhang Meng's title when participating in various activities held in the industry has been upgraded to "Penguin Film and Television Senior Producer".
Zhang Meng and Fang Fang have also begun a long-term partnership, and the two have appeared in the same work many times, including "Chen Qingling" in 2019, "Skyscraper" in 2020, "You Are My Glory" in 2021, and "Ru Yue" that has just started.
Since the beginning of 2019, Zhang Meng's career has entered a period of rapid rise. The most obvious embodiment is that in November of this year, Zhang Meng successfully won the title of "Annual Topic Concern Figure" at the "2019 Golden Seagull Annual Person" activity by virtue of her status as a producer of "Chen Qingling" and "Full-time Master". In October 2020 and January 2021, Zhang Meng won the awards of "2020 Outstanding Platform Producer" and "Annual Quality Short Drama" at the 3rd Chuxin List Awards Ceremony and the 5th Golden Bone Duo Network Film and Television Festival.
In the summer of 2021, "You Are My Glory" became a blockbuster drama, Zhang Meng once again sucked in a wave of heat, in August this year, when the series ended, he and the chief producer Fang Fang appeared in a number of media reports, telling the story behind "You Are My Glory".
At this time, Zhang Meng would not have thought that after just over two months, he would be concerned by the public in such a way, and his goal of working in the film and television industry for a lifetime also increased a lot of uncertainty, and it was likely that he would say goodbye to Tencent.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="139" > corruption cases are frequent</h1>
The Zhang Meng incident is not an isolated case, and it should be known that Tencent has always been "not soft" in its internal anti-corruption.
A person close to Tencent told AI Finance and Economics that Tencent released an internal email on October 25, informing 28 anti-fraud-related cases in the third quarter of 2021, including an employee who belongs to the film and television content production department with Zhang Meng. AI Finance and Economics found that the employee had served with Zhang Meng as a producer of a penguin film and television co-production and Tencent Video's exclusive series. The notice said that it "appropriated the props and costumes used by the crew for filming as its own" and that the case has been transferred to the public security organs for handling. The employee himself had previously left, and Tencent's treatment of him was to be blacklisted and never hired.
But what the outside world remembers most deeply should be the "thousand-mile pursuit" of Tencent's former online video department general manager Liu Chunning, who was regarded as Ma Huateng's former love and confidant in 2015.
In August 2013, Liu Chunning, the former general manager of Tencent's online video department, had already left his job and subsequently joined Alibaba. However, during Tencent's internal audit the following year, it was found that the video team headed by Liu Chunning had suspicions of corruption. Tencent then officially reported the case to the public security organs in 2015, and soon, Liu Chunning was taken away from ali's vice president position by the Shenzhen police, and the reason for the investigation was because of the commercial bribery case involving the former owner Tencent, suspected of using the right to purchase TV dramas to accept huge bribes during Tencent's tenure.
Zhang Jun, who was Tencent's public relations director at the time, also mentioned: "What we reported was the corruption incident in the video department in the previous two years, and Liu was involved in the police investigation process. ”
In April 2016, Liu Chunning's case of accepting bribes went to trial. The prosecution raised two charges, one is that it is suspected of manipulating tencent's procurement of the rating of the drama "Heroes from Ancient Times" and accepting a bribe of 1.43 million yuan; the other is that it accepted a bribe of 700,000 yuan from Yaoke Media when purchasing two dramas, "Baby" and "Lanling King".
AI Finance and Economics failed to find the first-instance judgment of the case. However, in May 2020, the Nanshan District People's Court of Shenzhen Issued an Enforcement Ruling, which mentioned that on October 15, 2018, because it was not found that the person subject to enforcement, that is, Liu Chunning, had property available for enforcement, it ruled to terminate the enforcement procedure, and then after the national network enforcement inspection and control system inquired and feedback, the bank account under his name was frozen in accordance with the law, and the amount of 10435.48 yuan was withheld and handed over to the state treasury. On April 20, 2020, Liu Chunning took the initiative to pay the remaining amount of 2042938.98 yuan. At this point, the case was closed. However, since then, Liu Chunning's judgment has not been found in the judgment document network.
In fact, Tencent has long set up an "Audit Supervision Anti-Fraud Investigation Team", also known as the "Anti-Fraud Investigation Department", and launched the "Sunshine Tencent" public account in the second half of 2016, which is responsible for introducing Tencent's anti-corruption policies, fraud case publicity and reporting channels.
So far, the public account has only sent 15 tweets, in addition to the copy published every new year's holiday, the two most important are its two anti-fraud notices at the end of December 2019 and February 2021.
According to the circular, in the first three quarters of 2019 alone, Tencent's anti-fraud investigation department investigated and dealt with more than 40 cases of violations of the "high voltage line", of which more than 60 people were dismissed for violating the "high voltage line", more than 10 people were transferred to the public security judicial organs for suspected violations and crimes, and at the same time, the partners involved were blocked and never cooperated. From the fourth quarter of 2019 to the beginning of February 2021, Tencent's anti-fraud investigation department once again found that more than 60 cases of violations of the "Tencent high-voltage line" were investigated and handled, more than 100 people were dismissed for violating the "Tencent high-voltage line", and more than 40 people were transferred to the public security organs for handling for suspected crimes.
As for the so-called "high-voltage line", it mainly refers to the boundaries of behavior that Tencent's culture and values cannot tolerate, including six, namely: fraud, bribery, confidential disclosure, unfair competition, conflict of interest, and other violations of laws and regulations.
Specifically, among the typical cases disclosed by Tencent in the past, PCG (platform and content business group) is the department that has been notified the most. Of the 22 typical cases in the February 2021 circular, 14 were reported, and 26 employees were notified for reasons such as "seeking benefits for suppliers/external companies/external personnel and collecting benefit fees", involving PCG businesses including short video, information operation, mobile application receipts, mobile business products, browsing platform products and other business departments.
Zhang Meng, who has attracted attention this time, is also a subordinate department of PCG.
According to the latest news, in addition to Zhang Meng, in the third quarter of this year, Tencent also dealt with 59 people in the anti-fraud investigation. Among them, 13 people were dismissed or blacklisted for violating the "high-voltage line", 3 of the 13 people were transferred to the public security organs for handling for suspected illegal acts, and 4 outsiders involved in the case were also dealt with by the public security organs. 6 suppliers were blacklisted and never cooperated.
In fact, not only Tencent, but also people involved in the TV drama industry have been investigated and punished in recent years. In June last year, after being investigated for more than half a year, Tao Yan, former director of the Zhejiang Satellite TV Editor-in-Chief Office of Zhejiang Radio and Television Group, was sentenced to five years in prison and fined 500,000 yuan in the first instance. The judgment mentioned that Tao Yan illegally collected 4.88 million yuan when investing in the TV series "Spring Wind Ten Miles Is Not as Good as You".
In similar corruption cases in the past, there is another well-known name - Yang Weidong, who served as the president of Youku and the rotating president of Alibaba Entertainment.
In December 2018, Yang Weidong was exposed to cooperate with the police investigation due to economic problems. Two years later, the first-instance judgment released by the Yuhang District People's Court of Hangzhou City shows that from 2016 to 2018, when Yang Weidong was the president of Youku, he took advantage of his position in the comprehensive operation and management of a related platform to accept and solicit bribes totaling more than 8.55 million yuan from business cooperation units and seek benefits for others. The court held that his conduct constituted the crime of accepting bribes from non-state workers and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment and confiscation of property of RMB2 million.
In fact, both Yang Weidong and Liu Chunning have a golden resume. Take Yang Weidong as an example, he is a state-owned enterprise civilian background, in Lenovo transformed into public relations, after joining Nokia and then from marketing specialist to greater China marketing and event marketing director. After entering the video field, he was the first rotating president of Alibaba Entertainment and concurrently the president of The Youku Business Group.
"I am afraid when others are greedy, and I am greedy when others are afraid." Yang Weidong once borrowed Buffett's words to encourage practitioners, but unexpectedly a word became a slur, just said himself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="142" what breeds corruption >? </h1>
For many years, the drama industry has been a hard-hit area for corruption.
In 2006, the TV drama project establishment system was changed to the filing system for the first time. Since then, the number of TV series filings has increased year by year, reaching its peak in 2015, and the number of annual TV drama episodes filed is around 40,000 episodes.
The number of episodes shot has been on the rise, but the number of episodes that the platform can buy and broadcast is limited.
In the end, it caused a situation of overcapacity of domestic dramas and formed a typical buyer's market. And in order to sell the show, the drama company will try its best. A drama industry practitioner told AI Finance and Economics, "In the past, in order to sell dramas, tightly hugged the thighs of TV stations, and in recent years, the focus has completely shifted to the video platform, and most of the dramas have been sold to Tencent, iQiyi and Youku." ”
But the question also comes, how to sell?
Unlike movies, which require viewers to pay for them, the distribution of episodes is mainly aimed at the platform, and the drama company is responsible for producing content and then selling it to the broadcast platform, and the platform will purchase according to its own scheduling plan.
At present, in addition to the platform self-made drama, the drama produced by the drama company is also divided into copyright drama and custom drama, the former is only for the sale and purchase of copyright, pre-planning and production are independently completed by the drama company, such episodes are currently produced by the noonday sun and other head enterprises, such as "Dajiang Dahe", "Qingping Le", etc.; and the custom drama is almost tailor-made for the platform, often the drama company first proposes, the platform funds and supervises production, and even participates in all aspects of script writing, actor screening and publicity. Youku's hit "Si Teng" and "Mountain and River Order" in the first half of this year are custom dramas.
For copyright dramas, because there is no clear standard provision in itself, there are no clear rules for review, and whether to purchase is completely decided by the copyright purchaser, and in recent years, corruption has also been particularly prone. At present, the single version of copyright dramas is generally between 5 million yuan and 8 million yuan. That is to say, a series of 20 episodes or more, the purchase of copyright fees alone will reach hundreds of millions of yuan.
In fact, a video platform industry practitioner said that the content of episodes is often an important support for major video platforms to pull members. According to public data, the content cost of iQiyi platforms has remained high, with content costs of 20.8 billion yuan, 22.2 billion yuan and 20.9 billion yuan respectively in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The content cost of the three years disclosed by Tencent Video itself is a total of more than 50 billion yuan.
What is the concept of investment at this scale?
According to public information, Alibaba's net profit in fiscal 2020 is 149.2 billion yuan, Tencent's net profit in 2020 is 159.8 billion yuan, JD.com's net profit in 2020 is 49.4 billion yuan, and ByteDance's net profit in 2020 is 45 billion yuan.
Tencent Video's three-year investment is basically equivalent to the profit of JD.com and Byte in one year.
Under the huge investment, the cost reduction has long become the industry theme in recent years.
According to AI Finance, since the beginning of 2019, iQIYI and Tencent Video have been implementing cost control strategies, and by the beginning of 2020, iQIYI has further strengthened its content production management and refined its cost control work.
In terms of Tencent, after the establishment of the Tencent Platform and Content Division, Tencent COO Ren Yuxin integrated and adjusted personnel and business internally, and a general direction was to improve quality and efficiency, and also put forward clear compression loss indicators for Tencent Video. Since then, in the 2020 financial report, Tencent has disclosed that the loss of Tencent Video in 2019 is only 3 billion yuan, far lower than the level of the industry's loss of 10 billion yuan.
"At that time, the cost savings of Tencent Video were mainly in terms of technology, through the establishment of a technology middle office, this part of the cost was borne by Tencent Group, in addition, this year's blockbuster "Chen Qing Ling" contributed a lot of revenue." A person close to Tencent told AI Finance.
Ali, according to people familiar with the matter, since 2020, Ali has said that the group will no longer give Ali Entertainment a blood transfusion.
But for the industry, cost reduction also means that the battle for online video is far from over. After 2020, among the major video websites, Tencent Video is the most generous. The industry remembers Tencent Vice President Sun Zhonghuai's speech at the 2021 Tencent Video V Vision Conference, he said that in the next three years, Tencent Video will invest hundreds of billions of dollars in content, "We, nothing else, there is a true heart", and then he added, "No, in fact, there is something else, there is money, there is also 100 billion yuan of money, but there is also a sincerity." ”
100 billion yuan, a direct double compared with the previous three years.
However, in 2021, Tencent Video is unfavorable, and it has encountered a number of black swan events. First of all, the large-scale production drama "Qingqiu Xing" scheduled for the summer was completely sunk by the Wu Yifan incident, which means that the investment of hundreds of millions of yuan is almost difficult to recover the cost.
Since then, "Please Give More Advice for the Rest of Your Life", which was originally scheduled to be broadcast in September, starring Xiao Zhan and Yang Zi, has also been hastily withdrawn. Tencent Video has lost two major blockbusters. A drama industry practitioner said that Tencent Video has indeed been conducting a large-scale self-examination recently.
"This reflects the dismal situation of the film and television industry, and self-examination is on the agenda." A practitioner sighed, but some insiders said that this is actually a good thing, "The film and television industry in recent years is really too chaotic, all kinds of chaos, corruption is only one of the epitome, the cost is so rising, it should have been a whole atmosphere long ago." ”
Another video site practitioner said, "I have never had such confidence in the video industry in the past two or three years, and I believe that everything will be fine." ”
This article is originally produced by AI Finance and Economics, an account of Caijing Tianxia Weekly, without permission, please do not reprint it on any channel or platform. Violators will be prosecuted
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