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Avatar 2 has been released for 10 days, and the domestic box office has only exceeded 600 million. Originally, it was seen as a "lifeline" by the cinema chain, but the reality slapped it in the face. The audience's enthusiasm could not be aroused, and the industry's box office forecasts were reduced again and again, from 4 billion to around 900 million. Therefore, in the end, Avatar 2 may not only fail to save the domestic cinema chain, but even have difficulty in making its own money back - Maoyan data shows that as of December 24, Avatar 2's global box office has only exceeded 600 million US dollars. Offline theaters are having a hard time, and online film and television platforms are not doing well either. Cinemas can at least look forward to a "dark horse", but online platforms can only hold on to their membership users and keep "raising prices". Recently, the topic of iQiyi's price increase has become a hot topic again, and Weibo netizens are scolding it. Although it knows it will be criticized, iQiyi still wants to raise prices "with tears". If we don’t raise prices, next year’s financial statement data will hardly be “profitable” and we will not be able to live like this! 1. Membership price increases every year Since 2020, the price of iQiyi membership has increased for three consecutive times.
In November 2020, iQiyi announced that the membership price would be raised from 15 yuan per month to 19 yuan per month, a 26% increase. In December 2021, there was another round of increase, with the monthly subscription raised to 22 yuan, a 14% increase. Until this year's 25 yuan, compared with 15 yuan before 2020, the monthly subscription membership price has increased by 67% (the ordinary monthly membership is 30 yuan).
After 2020, driven by iQiyi, the membership of Youku and Tencent both increased.
Therefore, every time the long video platform raises its prices, iQiyi is forced to bear the users’ anger.
In fact, to be fair, for core paying users, a 3 yuan increase a month, or 36 yuan a year, is not a big deal. For some female users, this is the price of a cup of milk tea.
The reason why many users feel that it is "not worth it" is that, one thing you did was raise the price, but you also reduced my membership benefits?
For example, in order to prevent several people from using the same VIP account, iQiyi has enabled permissions to limit logins on multiple devices. An account is limited to logging in on two devices at the same time, and the same VIP account is allowed to log in on a maximum of five devices.
As for the "Zhou Yu vs. Huang Gai" issue of advanced on-demand, the basic membership rights of "skipping ads" have also been damaged. Even if you spend membership money, you still can't avoid the platform's ads - pause pages, unable to drag and jump parts, interrupting the plot, etc., are common.
All these factors make many users feel that it is not worth it.
The author interviewed a media friend who said that he had been a loyal user of iQiyi since 2018, and his membership was automatically renewed every month. However, after Joy of Life, the automatic renewal was stopped. Why?
Because, on the one hand, I don't have time to watch dramas, on the other hand, I think 25 a month is a bit too much, and the most important point is that I think iQiyi's content caters to women, with more ancient idol dramas, but I don't like to watch them as a boy. But Tencent membership is different, I like to watch anime, and Tencent also has the Tucao Conference and the Talk Show Conference, so I will continue to be a Tencent member.
But in fact, in the opinion of this media friend, every platform is similar, and there is no sustained popular content. Maybe a drama or variety show is particularly popular for a period of time, and you buy a membership for one or two months, but you don’t renew it after watching it.
By the way, this media friend also took advantage of iQiyi’s “Summer Student Discount” and got a lot of benefits from the platform.
Based on comments from netizens and friends around me, most people tend to think that a monthly subscription of 25 yuan is not expensive, but your platform cannot provide content that makes members feel "affordable".
Moreover, iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV all have their own exclusive content. If users want to watch all of them, do they have to get memberships on all platforms? Therefore, the sales of "weekly memberships" of major platforms on Xianyu have been rising.
Basically, users have no loyalty to the platform. They will vote with their feet based on which platform's content is more attractive.
The total number of iQiyi members now fluctuates around 100 million, and being able to reach 100 million is something worth bragging about.
Back to the issue of iQiyi's price increase, in fact, it was not just iQiyi that increased its prices. However, among the three companies, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, only iQiyi has been publicizing its profits and making money as soon as the financial reporting season arrived this year. 2 Profitable report made by “making” <br /> As we all know, long video platforms have been losing money for many years. Except for Mango TV which has a background in broadcasting and television, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video have basically been losing money continuously.
Among them, financial data showed that from 2017 to 2021, iQiyi’s cumulative net losses amounted to 30 billion, with losses of 3.7 billion, 9.1 billion, 10.3 billion, 7 billion, and 6.1 billion respectively.
This year, the wind has changed and iQiyi has become "profitable". At least according to the financial report data, iQiyi "made money" in the first quarter of this year.
The latest third-quarter financial report data shows that iQiyi's revenue was 7.5 billion yuan, down 2% year-on-year and up 12% month-on-month; its net loss was 395.6 million yuan, compared with a net loss of 1.7 billion yuan in the same period last year; its net profit attributable to shareholders based on non-GAAP financial indicators was 187 million yuan, compared with a loss of 1.4 billion yuan in the same period last year.
Here, iQiyi played a "word game".
The so-called "operating profit" for three consecutive quarters is a different concept from the net profit attributable to the parent company.
Tencent's Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell once said, "Achieving a break-even in a quarter is not a difficult task for the video industry." You can choose not to purchase high-priced content, or not play it after purchase, to achieve a break-even on the income statement. You can also exclude profitable content in a certain quarter, report a loss for that quarter, and then include it in the next quarter to increase traffic and revenue and improve profit margins.
Therefore, if we look at the net profit attributable to the parent company, it is actually not as iQiyi emphasized, that it has been profitable for three consecutive quarters, but only one quarter was positive.
Moreover, even the profits in the first quarter came at the cost of layoffs and business contraction.
Needless to say, iQiyi carried out large-scale layoffs at the end of last year. The layoff rate in many departments ranged from 20% to 40%, involving multiple business lines such as games, content, short video Moments, iQiyi Intelligence, etc.
In some departments, all employees were even laid off, including many middle-level managers. It has to be said that this "cost reduction and efficiency improvement" strategy is a bit cruel.
However, if we look at the long term, the most important resource for Internet companies is talent. If you lay off people, who will work for you? Although your financial report data shows a profit in the short term, in the long term, where will you find growth?
The author can only say that the cost of iQiyi's "profit" is too high.
In addition to layoffs and business contraction, iQiyi's content costs were 12.627 billion, 21.061 billion, 22.2 billion, and 20.9 billion from 2017 to 2020, respectively.
The latest data, according to the third quarter financial report, shows that the content cost expenditure in the quarter was 4.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 19%. Combined with the 4.4 billion yuan and 3.9 billion yuan in the first and second quarters, it is roughly estimated that iQiyi's content cost in the first three quarters of this year was 12.6 billion yuan - the fourth quarter is also expected to be much lower than the same period.
The most direct consequence of reducing content costs is a reduction in the richness of content.
According to Yunhe data, iQiyi released 39 new dramas in the third quarter, 7 fewer than the same period last year, and 25 new variety shows, 6 fewer than the same period last year.
In response to this question, iQiyi explained that reducing quantity is to improve quality, but for members, it means that if you want to raise the price of my membership and then you don’t produce more content for me to watch, I will lose money.
In fact, it is understandable why iQiyi is so obsessed with making its financial statements "positive". After all, as a listed company, it is really hard to lose investors' money every day. Therefore, making the financial statements "profitable" in the first quarter can indeed make the market excited, but this enthusiasm may not last too long.
Because long video platforms are essentially content platforms, and content platforms still depend on content. 3 Trapped in the “Misty Theater”
In the past, long video platforms went through a long period of "land grabbing" stage.
It is said that at that time, no matter whether you understood the industry or not, as long as you had connections and knew how to organize a group, you could thrive, organize projects, and reap the benefits.
It's like using an assembly line to produce projects, such as a sweet pet drama project, with a script outline set and one episode released every two days. At that speed, making a drama is the same as making a short video. The result is of course a sharp drop in word of mouth, and Douban's score is terrible.
The situation is better now. Firstly, because of changes in market and policy orientations, there are restrictions on actors' salaries, which has squeezed out a lot of water from the industry. Secondly, users are fed up with shoddy assembly-line products and are no longer willing to pay for them.
Therefore, after "paying the tuition", the long video platform has already made a basic judgment on good content and popular content.
For example, iQiyi has indeed reached a certain level in producing popular content.
In 2022, iQiyi has 5 dramas with over 10,000 viewers, namely "The World", "Cang Lan Jue", "Punishment", "Daily Life of Your Lady" and "Wind Blows in Pinellia".
However, the sustainability of this ability to create hits remains to be seen. After all, even Netflix, the world's number one streaming media company, cannot ensure a stable and continuous output of hit content, which is why Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1 and 970,000 subscribers in Q2.
In addition, there is a very important point, iQiyi's hits are at the expense of quantity. According to media reports, iQiyi's senior vice president Yang Bei once revealed that this year's hit drama "Cang Lan Jue" went through 19 evaluations and 8 script meetings.
In this way, iQiyi is reducing content costs and over-promoting projects while reducing project reserves. Once existing projects are exhausted in the future, there will be no one to take over.
So how will iQiyi increase its prices next?
Moreover, for Internet platforms, users are the foundation, but now long video platforms are experiencing a severe loss of users. Everyone is running to short video platforms and is increasingly impatient to watch TV series on their phones for hours.
As a result, iQiyi's future will be trapped in a "fog theater", waiting for the arrival of a "savior" who may appear at an unknown time.
As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
