From toB to toC, the Business of Dramas is Taking a Huge Transformation

The surface is as static as water, but the inside is turbulent. Any industry that has not played for too long, has no innovation, and has not changed for too long has huge opportunities.

Such as the episode of this “old” business. Since the online drama has subverted the order of the past “Post-Taiwan”, this field has not been new for a long time. Until this year, the platform began to gradually introduce a new episode policy, and the “sub-account drama” revived the drama market in an active manner.

· On April 18th, iQiyi announced a phased upgrade policy for the sub-accounting drama mode. The proportion of sub-ledgers changed from 5:5 to 3:7;

· On May 14th, Youku released a white paper on online drama cooperation, officially opening the split mode to the film side;

· On October 10th, Mango TV released the “Super Mans Plan” and announced that it will enter the online drama market. The net game revenue will be mainly composed of two parts: the share and the new reward.

Mango TV Networking Dividend Income Chart

Prior to this, online movies have verified the feasibility of the split mode.

As early as April 2013, iQiyi proposed a pay-for-sale model for the movie on the online platform, and launched a pay-period window for each movie for 7 months. During the window period, the platform determines the amount of the network big movie by the user’s on-demand volume. The “Taoist Downhill”, which was divided into 1,500,000 yuan at a cost of 280,000, was the benchmark for the early days of the Internet industry. This year, the division of the Internet has been repeatedly broken into the ceiling, “Grand Snake” with 68 days of 46 million results, currently the first score of the entire network.

Why can’t I apply Net Health’s health model to online drama? The platform can reduce the cost pressure, and the film can break the barrier of resource consolidation, and the audience has the most initiative. The sub-account drama has become the optimal solution for maximizing the interests of all participants.

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To C’s accounting mode ◆◆

In the past few months, “Dragonfly Raiders” such as “Biography” and other dramas have become a hot spot for the whole people, and the popularity of the drama is almost the first for the video platform members to pull new.

Tencent’s Q2 financial report this year wrote “Fujian”, and its solo drama “Fujian” ended with a total of 13.8 billion webcasts, ranking first in the first half of the year. Not only broke the record of the number of net broadcasts created by Tencent Video in the past five years, but also won the record of the members created by the “Ghost Blowing Lights of the Ancient City” at the end of 2016.

However, while the number of members is growing at a high speed, it is undeniable that video websites are difficult to make profits. Among them, high content cost is the biggest factor.

iQiyi’s third-quarter earnings report showed that the content cost for the quarter was 6 billion yuan, and the total cost in the third quarter was nearly 15 billion yuan. Some media have estimated Tencent and Ali Financial News. The content cost of Tencent Video for 18 years is either 25 billion yuan; the total content investment of Youku this year may be as high as 30 billion yuan.

With the development of the online drama market in the direction of quality, the cost of online dramas is getting higher and higher, and the traditional purchase price will only rise. The video platform pays attention to the type of segmentation, and attempts to break the loop series with small themes also make the purchase volume remain high. Moreover, the video platform not only needs to invest huge costs, but also bears the revenue pressure of click-through rate and pull-up rate. It’s not uncommon to spend a lot of money without getting the corresponding paying users and traffic.

In order to make a profit, the platform side must break through.

On the other side of the film, especially the production of the waist and the following content, there is also a hard time. Lack of big IP, big stars, most of the film has no bargaining space in the traditional trading mode.

Therefore, you will find that in the transaction of copyright drama, the price of the drama is separated from the commercial value.

Business value is determined by the audience, but the price is determined by the video site. On the balance of the market, the film and the video site are on both sides without being measured, which will be out of balance in the case of high probability: either the drama is greatly welcomed by the market, and the follow-up interests of the production team cannot be guaranteed; Either the show was frustrated and the video platform ate dumb.

Such a fragmented market has no benefit to the development of the online drama industry. The attention paid by the video website to the sub-network drama also reflects the platform’s desire to change.

For a video site whose ultimate opponent is a sleep, in order to occupy more entertainment time for the user, more consideration must be given to the user’s preferences. As Yang Weidong, president of Youku Group, said, “With the development of video business model, ‘users’ have become the key words instead of ‘viewers’, and business models such as content marketing, data marketing, membership payment, and derivative development are all around. User portrait ‘expanded.’

The sub-accounting mode conforms to such a rule and is completely user-oriented.

For example, the first “explosion” in the sub-network drama “Demon Changan”, the producer of this series also wants to take the usual route at the beginning, accept the investment of the video website or sell the copyright to the video website. However, only one company was willing to buy at that time and only offered a bid of 2 million. After adopting the split-account mode, “Demon Changan” has received 15.7 million click-and-share income and more than 1 million advertisements.

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Yanxi mutual entertainment assistance

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The sub-accounting network drama is the trend of the times. The Yanxi Mutual Entertainment, which was established in June this year, is one of the first forward-looking people to see this trend. They are betting on the service and incubation of the sub-accounting drama.

Zhang Weiwei, CEO of Yanxi Mutual Entertainment, firmly believes that “the sub-account drama is a positive business model, and the market performance has become the biggest variable in the platform side and the chip side transaction. For both, the only pressure is whether the content can be obtained by the user. favorite.”

From the vice president of Fengxing.com to the general manager of today’s headline video cooperation, Zhang Weiwei has been immersed in the video industry for many years. “Make good content more valuable” was his original intention when he founded Yanxi.

When deciding on the orientation of entrepreneurship, the long-term effect of scale effect developed on the big platform made Zhang Weiwei finally choose to build a service platform. With a certain scale and relatively fast growth, this is his best choice. In terms of business, Zhang Weiwei hopes that Yanxi can help the development of sub-accounts from the analysis and evaluation of scripts, the promotion and distribution of online dramas, and the incubation and investment of projects.

Zhang Weiwei has long been deeply touched by the pain points of the platform side and the film side in the traditional drama cooperation mode.

“There are so many excellent creative talents in the film and television industry. The only way to promote the production of high-quality dramas is to use the sub-accounting model of the market.”

He believes that in the split-account mode, the tablet is no longer the platform side, but the entire C-end market. In the case that the performance of the play can fully demonstrate the commercial value of the show, the producer will try to consider the audience’s point of view as much as possible to obtain the greatest commercial benefit.

From the B to B trading model to the marketized form of to C, the sub-ledger will bring about a major change in the business model for the online drama industry. In fact, in the Internet era where users are kings, the C-market-oriented business model has already changed many segments, and the new media platform is one of the beneficiaries.

However, the sub-accounting model is still in its infancy, and it has also been questioned by many “can be profitable”.

After studying the business model of global video streaming media such as HBO and Netflix, the Yanxi team gave the answer: Yes.

“Membership income is the ultimate and most ideal business model for video platforms. The development of membership business can cultivate users’ payment habits for high-quality content and drive the scale application of the split-account model.”

Aiqiyi officially announced that the closure of the front-end broadcast volume display has once again verified Zhang Weiwei’s judgment on the member’s revenue business: the video platform is bidding farewell to the traffic-only era, weakening advertising revenue and strengthening member income.

In fact, Iqiyi’s financial report data is also displayed. In the third quarter of this year, iQiyi’s membership service revenue was 2.9 billion yuan, accounting for 41% of total revenue. More than advertising business has become the largest source of income. In the future, the sub-accounting model will develop rapidly with paying members.

The time window is another key point.

Liang Jie, general manager of the Youku Business Group Open Platform, said that “the current sub-account industry has not developed into a key time node of nature, and the commercial means that can be carried are still immature, but a mature day will surely come.”

When the sub-account drama came to the turning point of development, Yanxi, as the first film and television company in China to provide various services for the sub-accounts, is bound to make the quickest response to the market on the basis of the first-mover advantage.

Yanxi’s mission is very heavy.

In the online game splitting strategy launched by major video websites, the influencing factors are different. The first to launch the online play sub-account mode is based on the number of members’ effective play and the multiplier of each unit price; Tencent’s total chapter amount includes new members, CPM (cost per thousand), investment, The distribution channel is divided into four parts; Youku introduces the member to watch the total duration and the number of points reward coefficient to further improve the quality and duration of the sub-account.

The calculation method without a unified standard also attracted the concerns of the film side on the split mode.

The return distribution ratio is difficult to accurately determine, and the first-hand data is in the hands of the platform. In the relationship dominated by such a platform, will the interests of the film party be harmed?

This is also the reason why Yanxi is preparing to launch the list of sub-accounts. Yanxi hopes to break through the development obstacles of the sub-account industry first with open and transparent data. And this is only the bottom of the Yanxi business pyramid. After mastering certain data, Yanxi will provide evaluation services for the screen drama in combination with manual and AI technologies, including overall project evaluation, plot evaluation, and kernel architecture evaluation.

“The chain of drama production is very long, subject matter, IP, script, production, publicity and distribution, and investment. As long as there is a problem with one link, under 60 points, this project is basically impossible.” Zhang Weiwei said, In this multi-link process, there are too many points that can be standardized and improved by machines. Based on a data-based product system, Yanxi hopes to optimize this production line through services.

For the sub-accounts for the C-end market, the segmentation area is the most efficient entry point. In the face of different user layers, accurate correction and delivery by the user’s viewing behavior data, it is undoubted that the success rate of the sub-account can be improved.

At the same time, after a series of data analysis on platform information, production team, content evaluation, and circle user portraits, Yanxi can help producers to grasp market trends and platform demands, and add as many success factors as possible to the project.

For example, Yanxi will first communicate with the production team to understand which type of users they are focusing on, and guide the project according to platform experience and data. At the same time, in the case that the two or three episodes of the sub-account are free, Yanxi will modify the plot rhythm, emotional node setting and character relationship design according to the market. In the design of the relationship between characters, Yanxi once proposed a proposal to change the male to the male to the double male.

The favorable position for preemptive entry, the precise grasp of the online game market, and the development technology of the data system will become the three engines for the rapid development of Yanxi.

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The future of the sub-account

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2018 is the revolutionary year of the production of online drama. As of September, 5 of the TOP20 episodes of 2018 were online dramas, 2 of which were in the top 10; in 2017, only two online dramas were on the top 20 episodes.

As for the sub-account drama, about 80 have been launched this year. In the previous section, there were 17 newspapers that broke 100 million, and less than 10 last year. Among them, Youku’s first part of the online drama “Erlong Lake Love Story” won 350 million broadcasts with 13 episodes of content, and the account income exceeded 20 million, becoming the first online drama to achieve profitability through the split income on the Youku content open platform.

“The change in the sub-account industry is particularly fast, and it is a positive trouble. Our strategy needs to be replaced constantly. This is a happy trouble.” According to Zhang Weiwei, in the field of sub-accounts, the cost of 10 million last year was already an upper limit. However, after four or five months, the contact between Yanxi and Mushui is already a cost of 40 to 50 million.

In the rapid changes in the market, more and more players want to come in and get a piece of it. After the analysis of Yanxi, it is concluded that there will be three main types of people in the future sub-account industry. One is the team that used to rely on the sub-account drama to get the bonus, the second is the big company in the film and television industry, and the third is the small and medium-cost film. The latter two often do not have a good grasp of the production method of the sub-account due to lack of market understanding.

When the sub-account drama market develops to a certain extent, it is inevitable that the industry will be chaotic, such as imperfect platform rules. However, this depends on the attitude and original intention of the industry company. When a company sticks to the quality of its content, industry chaos does not affect it.

As for the ceiling of the sub-account, Zhang Weiwei believes that it is far from the stage of considering this issue. Only when the sub-accounts begin to have economies of scale, and the proportion of C-side-oriented episodes continues to increase even to 100%, we will see the upper limit of this field relatively clearly. At present, “the sub-account drama takes about 3 years, and the next qualitative inflection point will appear.”

Source: Yanxi Mutual Entertainment