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Text / Li Lili
Source: New Entropy (ID: baoliaohui)
After the advance on demand was stopped, the long video platforms that could not reasonably grab “money” began to grab “people”.
Youku is immune to the industry’s “price increases” round after round to save itself, but it has racked its brains again and again in “old jobs and new reorganizations”.
Following the advanced on-demand and paid tidbits, Youku has recently followed up with Pinduoduo. In the solo drama “My Name is Zhao Jiadi”, it has opened a new experience of “invite five friends and unlock the plot in advance” for VIP users, and Each invitee can only contribute once during the event.
After causing public controversy, the official customer service replied: “Invite friends to help” is limited to episodes 23 and 24, and other episodes have not yet launched corresponding activities.
Youku seems to be going the wrong way when it comes to relying on a hit TV series to increase its user base.
In the interactive area of episode 23, which was “unlocked” by friends, the number of discussions surged, one-sided negative comments, and even some netizens took advantage of the excited atmosphere to launch a drama viewing group called “straight through to the finale”.
“Breaking content to attract viewers” has become a routine operation of long video websites, but the same logic is expressed in different forms. Some rely on price increases, while others can only rely on the whole job.
iQIYI and Tencent Video have more than 100 million members, and hot dramas continue; Mango TV has an obvious style and a relatively fixed circle; and Youku relies on Ali ecology, the user growth is slow, and the content is tepid. The dynamic Youku can only make a fuss about short-lived popular dramas.
With “Zhao Jiadi”, there will be “Zhao Yidi” and “Zhao Bingdi”. Youku, which can’t go up in price, wants to continue its life, and it lacks more than “five friends”.
PART.01 More than one slash to VIP
“The previous VIP user experience was freewheeling, but the current experience is meat and fish on the chopping board.”
As soon as it was announced that VIPs would also need to “cut a knife” for watching dramas, on the social platform, Youku members sighed that “the depth of a member is like the ocean”.
“My name is Zhao Jiadi, and my grandfather looked it up in Kangxi’s dictionary overnight.” When they learned that they had to invite friends to watch the new episodes after charging the money, the VIPs’ hearts probably only popped up ” My name is Leek, and I want to cut it off after a few days on the platform.” This kind of thinking. Compared with the proud and proud look of the hero Zhao Jiadi in the play, the faces of Youku members may not look good.
In the past, when long video platforms raised their sickles, they often said, “Let the sky fall first and let the high one try”, but Youku chose to test the waters this time. Although the popularity ranks higher, the actors and directors themselves have nothing to do. “My Name is Zhao Jiadi” with natural traffic.
Lighthouse data shows that among the dramas recently launched on Youku, the most popular one is “The Story of the Shark” starring Dilireba and Ren Jialun, which is also the platform’s first drama with over 10,000 hits this year. However, Youku did not choose the top-ranked drama series, nor did it choose “Mountains, Rivers and Moonlight” under the banner of a serious drama, and only won the “Zhao Jiadi” on the platform, which was inferior to the same period.
“Zhao Jiadi”, whose director and cast are not outstanding, the biggest halo is that the original work came from the “Fenghuo Opera Princes”, the male-frequency network tycoon. OK”.
The production of “My Name is Zhao Jiadi” was completed three years ago, and it did not appear in the audience’s field of vision until today. The rough shooting techniques, the chronological scene layout, and the old-fashioned plot all remind the audience of the ancient times of this drama.
It is such a local drama. The current online drama ranks fourth on the entire network, and it ranks second among Youku’s exclusive online dramas. The highest real-time broadcast rate in history once reached 9.57%. It can only be said that Shuangwen still has a market, and Youku’s new experience of “slashing a knife” is not a whim for such a drama with obvious characteristics of the audience.
The platform customer service responded that the event was limited to the 23rd and 24th episodes of the show, and other episodes have not yet launched corresponding activities. It’s enough to see Youku’s cautiousness.
But from the current point of view, what Youku wants, Zhao Jiadi may not be able to give back.
On the content track, users’ social pressure is far heavier than on the e-commerce track. Youku chose a “slashing a knife” similar to Pinduoduo, forcing users to surrender social value in exchange for the convenience of watching dramas, which is a dangerous move and a foolish move.
In fact, Youku’s attack on VIPs is not only this one. However, the knife was aimed at the VIP, and the knife failed to do so.
In January last year, Youku placed the expectation of “advanced on-demand” on Zhang Ziyi’s first TV series “Fu to the Sun”. Maybe I was too eager for “Qiantu”. The 68-episode drama has just aired to the 25th episode, and the official has opened the advance on-demand. Each episode costs 3 yuan. Based on this price, you need to pay 132 yuan to watch the entire TV series in advance.
No matter how high the attitude is at the beginning, how hard it is to discount it later. It took only a week to unlock 3 yuan, and Youku launched a discount promotion. When the advance on-demand opened to 31 episodes, Youku announced that the price was reduced to 1 yuan per episode.
And Youku never let go of any wool. At that time, the fans of “Ling of Mountains and Rivers” were attacked by the platform one after another. Youku tasted the sweetness and launched the “advance on-demand” mode when it was just halfway through the full play. In addition, Youku also specially made two versions of the finale, one is a sad feature film, and the other is a successful “3 yuan payment” chapter.
After the finale, the actors of “Lands of Mountains and Rivers” expressed their reluctance on social platforms and kept shouting “bye bye rivers and lakes”. Subsequently, Youku launched an exclusive and unpublished tidbits “Lang Ji” Jianghu series, which is updated every day, one episode a day.
The plot is not the plot, but the rules are still the rules, one episode per episode. Unlike the main drama, the extras are only 6 minutes long, with a total of seven episodes. But the audience may not have thought that goodbye is easy, just need to pay.
Yunhe data shows that in the first half of 2021, Youku launched 24 advanced on-demand dramas, with an on-demand ratio of 34%, ranking first among all platforms. But the good times did not last long. In August 2021, the Shanghai Consumer Protection Committee and the China Consumers Association issued a document stating that the advanced on-demand model was suspected of bundling sales, ignoring consumers’ right to choose, harming consumers’ rights and interests, and ultimately leading to “no way.”
The user’s freedom of watching dramas has not been realized. Youku has been changing the pattern of “paid on demand”, and its own launch of “slashing a knife” should be out of optimism for “My Name is Zhao Jiadi”, and placed “pull new” on it. ”, but judging from the reactions of the members, not only did it fail to arouse the users’ desire to watch, but it also received a lot of infamy.
At present, the growth of users of long video platforms has peaked, and the growth of new users has slowed down. How to win over the minds of old users has become the top priority. At this time, it is even more sensitive. If you don’t pay attention, once you use too much force, it will cause complaints at light level, and user loyalty may be eroded at worst, which is not worth the loss.
Despite the twists and turns in his life, Zhao Jiadi has always adhered to the belief that “people must be persistent in order to achieve something”, and finally succeeded in transformation. For Youku, the same should be true. More sincerity, less routine.
PART.02 Long videos are too poor, Youku panics
It is not the first day that the long video platform is poor. After the industry lost more than 100 billion yuan, someone finally put “cost reduction and efficiency increase” on the agenda.
Starting from the reduction of the drama project, iQiyi laid off staff, Tencent Youku executives sighed in a circle of friends that “passing will be difficult”, and the remaining eight production crews in Hengdian started work… All the dark and unclear news points to the same fact: no burning, no money .
The Internet as a whole ebbs, and youku is not the only one who swim naked in the deep water. But the problem with Youku is that it is not only short of money, but also of users.
It is not easy for variety shows to get ahead when the talent show is stopped; it is even more difficult for the content of the drama to break through after the change is suspended. The incremental market cost is high, and it can only compete in the user inventory, and this is the position that Youku has been unable to conquer for a long time.
According to the “2021 China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report”, as of December 2021, the monthly active users of iQiyi, Tencent, and Youku were 500 million, 490 million, and 170 million, respectively. 190 million, 180 million. Among the top five video platforms in the industry, Youku has come to the rear of the crane.
The number of members is basically proportional to the number of monthly active users. iQiyi and Tencent have exceeded 100 million successively, followed by Mango TV and Station B. Youku has not disclosed the specific number of members in the past three years. According to the shallow logic of “people follow the drama”, Youku, which is hard to sell, has a high probability of not having dazzling data.
The problem of user growth cannot find a clear direction, and the competition in the long video format has come to the second half. The “twenty-eight effect” of the content industry determines that the situation of players who are left behind will be even more difficult.
The copyrighted dramas that burn money are becoming more and more unaffordable on the platform, and homemade dramas have become a new way out. Compared with iQIYI and the wealthy Tencent, which are supported by sky-high content costs, there are not many production companies that are deeply bound to Youku, and there are even fewer heads.
iQIYI burned money to burn out the well-known Misty Theater. Although some episodes were not satisfactory, there were still a large number of audiences who bought it. In the variety show label, Miwei Media is still an explosion-proof machine-like existence.
Among the six leading film and television companies in China, Tencent has invested in Xinli Media and Yaoke Media. Xinli Media has sold itself to China Literature Group in 2018.
In recent years, emerging film and television/variety show production companies have more or less Tencent’s presence. According to statistics from IT Juzi, as of March this year, Tencent has invested in nearly 20 film/variety show production companies, including senior producer He Chen who left Mango TV, and director Guan Hu’s company Seven Impressions.
Lehua, who has a close relationship with Youku, is good at business and is an artist broker. When talent shows were popular, they sent a large number of talents to Youku, and now only Wang Yibo can support it. Neikan Entertainment, which hit the IPO of Hong Kong stocks, is backed by Ali. The most well-known investment case is “Hello, Li Huanying”. The production focus is on low-cost online dramas, and it is difficult to take on the heavy responsibility of Youku.
The aftershocks of the high-level turmoil three years ago are still there, and Youku has few elite soldiers. At the beginning of the year, there were rumors that Alibaba Entertainment would abolish the production team, which means that the underlying reason for Youku’s narrowing losses may not be the self-proclaimed “efficient investment and production of high-quality content and improvement of operational efficiency”, but more likely to be a choice. In order to reduce the investment in batches, the next policy is to abandon the car and protect the handsome.
What is the significance of narrowing losses in exchange for reducing investment?
The first is the massive loss of manpower. In the film and television industry that emphasizes talent density, it is not all those who need to get off the bus who need to get off the brakes; the second is the inefficient cycle brought about by conservative strategies. The incremental market basically abandons forward-looking investment, focusing on stable stock, and content production sailing against the current. , Youku will retreat if you don’t advance.
On the other hand, the pursuit and interception of short videos treats all content ecology equally. Advertisers follow users. The financial reports of several video sites show that advertising revenue has declined to varying degrees. The popular love drama “Half-familiar Lovers” did not receive a brand sponsorship until the end of the broadcast. It will only be more sad.
In the vertical and horizontal long video ecosystem, Youku still has a long way to go to get rid of its embarrassing position.
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