On October 19, Eastern Time, the streaming media broadcasting platform Netflix (Netflix) announced its third quarter financial report, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings (Read Hastings) led a group of executives to attend the earnings conference and accepted media interviews, Netflix revenue in the third quarter of this year 7.48 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.3% over the same period last year, revenue growth has been narrowed for three consecutive quarters.
As for the number of paid members related to sustained profitability, the number of paid members was 214 million at the end of the third quarter, and the number of new users in the quarter was 4.4 million, of which the number of paid users in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 2.2 million, accounting for half of the total net increase in paid members, becoming the largest contributor to the growth of Netflix members for the second consecutive quarter. In stark contrast, the total number of paying users in the Americas, which accounts for more than 55% of revenue, has been quiet for several consecutive seasons.
With the main markets stagnating on one side and the growing Asia-Pacific market on the other (Netflix has not yet received permission to land in Chinese mainland), it is no wonder that Netflix has been impatient to boast about the new drama "Squid Game" that was only launched in South Korea 9/17 in the third quarterly report.
Moreover, the company's CEO Read Hastings personally "brought goods" and wore the green sportswear in "Squid Game" to attend the earnings interview.
According to the data of Netflix ranking statistics website Flex Patrol, this Korean survival game TV series directed by "The Melting Pot" director Hwang Dong Hyuk and starring Lee Jeong-jae, Park Hae-so and Kong You has won the first place in nearly 20 countries/regions such as Netflix Korea, North America, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Nor did it. It has become the highest-rated non-English original drama in history, "with a good chance of becoming the highest-rated of all episodes." "This will be another Korean film and television work after "Parasite" that has been widely recognized by Western audiences."
From the perspective of shooting skills, director Huang Donghe has achieved the ultimate. In the course of the game, various gods are reversed, which not only shows the complexity and changeability of human nature, the love and killing of the players, the trust and betrayal between friends, but also tries to reveal the bullying of the top rich in Korean society and the despair and helplessness of the people at the bottom.
From the perspective of episode type, "Squid Game" belongs to the classic Japanese drama "Battle Royale" twenty years ago.
(I remember when I first saw the film, my young mind was deeply shaken to the point of horror) and the survival game created by him. In terms of the rationality of the plot and the thriller of the game, it is similar to Canada's "Panic Party" (or translated as "Alien Killing").
Hollywood's "The Hunger Games" and Last year's Japan's Netflix's "Alice in the Land of the Dead"
In contrast, there is no brilliance, but the game process is slightly simple, and it does not reflect enough horror and excitement.
Of course, the reason why "Squid Game" can become a phenomenon-level blockbuster film and television work must have its superiority. For example, in the post-epidemic era, people have been destroyed due to long-term isolation of epidemic areas and the normal rhythm of life, and the generalized life pressure needs appropriately stimulating episode content to complete emotional catharsis, while the traditional zombie film theme in the West has shown an increasingly homogeneous trend to stimulate the adrenaline rush, so the survival game works have been re-put on the table by cold rice and hot fry, just like the popular elements of the fashion show, and a retro wave has been set off after several years. In addition, the relatively simple and popular game setting (the most representative of 123 wooden people and marbles) is more convenient to trigger people's psychological resonance and social discussion. The discussion of human nature in the play also enhances the depth of the work to a certain extent, especially in the game of marbles, the audience is easily replaced and lamented by the plot of how the male second betrays his friends in order to survive when faced with a life and death decision. Judging from the results, the success of the play is beyond doubt, whether it is the work itself or the pervasive propaganda offensive. But in terms of practical significance, although the male protagonist can be very arrogant and dismissive of the dying old rich man after winning, this is largely to cater to the resistance mentality of the people at the bottom against the chaebol and the powerful, and "Parasite" does not also kill the owner's rich couple under the guise of the male protagonist's hand? However, the social reality of class solidification and opposition is probably how many large-scale film and television dramas that expose reality, even if it is to win more N Oscars, the most typical is the fatal cycle of the "Blue House Curse" that will inevitably be counter-attacked after successive presidents step down.
In fact, Netflix entered South Korea as early as August 2016, when Asian audiences generally lacked the consumption habit of spending money to watch content, so the early market performance was not ideal. It first cooperated with traditional television media, bought the program copyright by throwing coins and then disseminated it on its own platform, because it could not obtain the content premiere right, it usually had to wait for the corresponding content to be broadcast on the TV station for a month before it could be launched on Netflix. In 2017, the success of Netflix's director Bong Joon-ho's film "Yuzi" slowly attracted the attention of the Korean people, and the number of Netflix users in South Korea increased from 90,000 to 200,000. After that, Netflix began to invest in the production of content, relying on deep pockets, and the investment usually required to account for up to 3/4. Slowly, the continuous output of content was finally shortened to one hour between the launch time of Netflix and the time of the TV premiere. In 2018, Netflix opened an office in South Korea, becoming the fifth Asian country office to be established after Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and India, and is ready to start its big fight. With the popularity of "Kingdom" in 2019, Netflix has finally launched a brand in the Korean market. In detail, Netflix has invested more than 770 billion won (about 700 million US dollars) in South Korea's content production between 2016 and 2020, creating more than 80 original film and television series. This year, as the fifth anniversary of the launch of South Korea's Netflix, Netflix announced that it will expand its investment in South Korea to more than 70% of the total investment in previous years.
At the same time, in addition to increasing investment in film and television dramas, Netflix also wants to share a piece of the variety market in South Korea. It is estimated that it was affected by the fire of China's "Star Detective" program (Note: In 2016, China Mango TV bought the copyright of Han Zong's "Crime Scene" and produced "Star Detective", because of its novel form, well-made set, the main coffee "Double North" combination IQ emotional intelligence online, has become a phenomenon-level popular variety show in China, the first season ended with 900 million plays, and the second season exceeded 2 billion in one fell swoop). In 2018, Netflix tested the waters for the first time to produce the first Han Zong of the same type , "The Prisoner Is You"
Not only invited "X-man" Jang Hyuk-jae PD, "Running Man" Cho Hyo-jin PD (the first cooperation between the two well-known PDs after leaving SBS), but also invited the national MC Liu Jae-seok, Lee Kwang-so, Park Min-young, Ahn Jae-wook, Kim Jong-min, Oh Se-hoon and so on as guests. Although it has been filmed for three seasons so far, its influence seems to be far less than that of "Star Detective". However, the original variety show launched by Netflix this year, "White Spirit/Paik's Spirit" by Oba, the idol of The White Seed,
It should be worth a look, Teacher Bai starred in "Street Food Fighter", "Bai Seed Yuan's Alley Restaurant", etc. are all personal favorite Korean variety shows, and this time also invited Luo Yingxi PD (that is, "New Journey to the West", "Ginger Canteen" and other popular Han Variety's Luo PD, wall crack recommended to see, super decompression laughter to choke hahahahaha), actor Lee Joon Ki, Kim Ai, singer Park Jae-bum, Korean women's volleyball player Kim Nguyen Kyung as guests, the program type is somewhat similar to the round table pie + Zhiyun rice bureau, it is worth looking forward to. It seems that Netflix is still increasing in the Korean variety show market, hoping to be able to dig up Luo PD as soon as possible, and then Bai Teacher will make a few more popular variety shows.
In summary, Netflix seems to have gained a foothold in South Korea and continues to exert efforts in film and television variety shows, while also eyeing this Chinese mainland this virgin land that has not yet been developed by it. Netflix's success is largely due to its crazy money-burning model comparable to Amazon.com, but its focus on original film and television for nearly a decade is more commendable, and to the more complicated, "Netflix economics" is also a business model success, that is, multinational companies use digital technology advantages to build links between artificial intelligence and paying users and carry out precision marketing for this exclusive connection.
Looks a bit awkward, right? Let's take a chestnut.
"House of Cards", which began filming in 2013, is the first original series invested by Netflix, and its appearance subverts the traditional TV industry from many levels, the first to decide to start filming without seeing any samples, and the first time in the absence of ratings data, it has booked two seasons of shooting at once... So why did Netflix dare to take huge risks and dare to do so? In fact, as early as a decade ago, when Netflix was a traditional company renting DVDs, it knew that obtaining and analyzing users' preferences was the core asset of its survival, and it concentrated on accumulating big data of user preferences, allowing each tenant to score movies while sending back DVDs. After entering the era of streaming media, it has taken advantage of the technical advantages of online video platforms to further strengthen the collection and collation of user behavior data. It is through the cross-comparison analysis of the massive user viewing content and habits that it found that many people love to watch the BBC version of "House of Cards"
The audience also likes to watch the movies starring actor Kevin Spacey, and the same kind of crowd also pays attention to director David Finch. The reason why Netflix can glimpse the leopard from the user behavior data collected is that its meticulous and "outrageous" data granularity is indispensable. Every day, it collects tens of millions of user behavior data, including but not limited to the time, place, length, and device on which users watch the video, and each user's behavior of watching the video is also marked in detail, such as when to pause, fast-forward or replay, of course, including everyone's rating of the episode, search history, and comments, reviews and interactive replies on social networks (Note: The first thing that comes to mind after learning from the mainstream domestic platform is how to accurately place ads to maximize short-term benefits).
It is also based on the integration of big data and algorithms to produce widely recognized scripts, actors and directors, Netflix executives feel that the TV series packaged up by the three is worth a gamble, and once it recognizes a shot, it is a "show hand" type gamble. The commercial and artistic success of "House of Cards" verified the feasibility of Netflix's investment model, with Netflix's revenue reaching a record $638 million in the season when the series was launched, and almost all of the 2.03 million new subscribers in the quarter came to "House of Cards". At the same time, the series was nominated for four Emmy Awards for drama, male and female protagonists, and directors in the year of its launch, and finally won the Emmy Award for Best Drama Director, creating a precedent for online dramas to win emmy awards.
When it comes to the success of Netflix's business model, it is necessary to mention the important role played by financial analysis and support. The transformation of traditional accounting to the combination of industry and finance is not a problem for enterprises to do, but a problem that should be considered how to do well! Only in this way can we break the self-limitation of accounting finance relatively conservative, return to the original intention of "creating value for customers" by clinging to the historical cost model of whether it is profitable at present, look back at the existing business with a longer-term development vision, and continuously optimize the existing business model through continuous iteration. From another point of view, measured by Netflix's steady stream of new subscribers and the resulting revenue growth prospects of at least a year or more in the future, the so-called "big gamble" is actually not crazy.
By the way, recently there are domestic online entertainment companies to launch a suspected variety show of the same name, in order to traffic willing to risk being plagiarized by South Korea's shame, is it Liang Jingru's "courage" to you? How can this face be said to be lost? Look at the official outflow of the program promotional posters, which means "borrowing"? The core elements are as good as a dime!
It seems that Youku has not had any popular variety shows to support the scene recently, and for 3 consecutive months, it has reluctantly brushed its presence in the mainland network variety top 10 by relying on a street dance program.
In fact, as early as last June, the online video App user data released by Aurora Big Data has begun to appear, and the monthly active users of iQiyi and Tencent Video platforms have exceeded 500 million, which is a big gap with the 260 million of youku, the third place, and the three-legged pattern has long ceased. This year's solo blockbuster delay drama "Mountain and River Order" was forced to take down due to the male protagonist's visit to the ghost society, Youku was frustrated in the double line of variety shows and dramas, and then did not create some topics to brush a wave of existence, I am afraid that there is a risk of being followed by Mango TV and Bilibili App. Not only that, in the face of a strong opponent who sharpens his knife under the city, the head Internet entertainment company has accumulated popularity for many years (Note: According to the latest financial report, the total number of iQiyi subscription members is 105.2 million, and the number of Paid Tencent Video members is 125 million) still has a battle, and Youku, which has not published paid user data for many years after Ali privatization, is still willing to accept the customer acquisition model that is attached to the Taobao 88vip system.
This time, the wolf is really coming, and there is not much time left for the industry leaders who are committed to the production of domestic original film and television dramas.