Why has the radio and television industry fallen to a state of decline even worse than Chinese football?

I know that the following words will certainly lead to a group attack from people in the industry. But as a veteran TV person, I cannot remain silent due to my feelings and responsibilities. Dear readers, please just treat it as bitter medicine and honest advice.

1. In 2003, IT people uploaded videos online. However, we were immersed in the vanity of being the first media, but we didn't know that the situation had changed.

2. In 2006, Youku Tudou was launched as a professional video platform. We laughed at their poor picture quality and closed the door to promote one-way digital pay TV. This extremely inappropriate project not only did not bring effective incremental income, but also drained our family assets.

3. The number of viewers on video websites has exceeded 100 million. We say, don’t worry, there are still so many viewers in China who cannot access the Internet.

4. Others use capital leverage to buy copyrights wantonly, and hype up TV series and other high-quality content by a hundred times, instantly forming a huge siege firepower. We are so stupid that we laugh out loud: "Look, look, content is king. These contents are all from us TV people." But we don't understand that "content is king" is a relative and dynamic concept. Among the four media elements of content, channel, medium, and audience, only when the latter three are in a saturated and stable state can content be king. Now, the latter three are already in drastic changes.

5. After tasting the meat of content and knowing the high cost of buying meat, others began to make their own programs. We laughed foolishly again, laughing at the immaturity of other people's programs and laughing at ourselves as the experts in making programs. However, we did not expect that our colleagues who were not successful in our own camp and the experts who saw the trend of the times would jump ship and leave the team.

6. Their audience has reached hundreds of millions, which directly diverted a large number of our young audiences, causing the start-up rate to drop sharply. The initial undercurrent has turned into a torrent, but we said, don’t be afraid, whoever wins the elderly wins the world, and invited experts to shout: The decline in the start-up rate is a rumor and a bad omen!

7. People have moved content to mobile phones and started to popularize it on a large scale. We disdain that mobile phone screens are too small and we have to watch videos on large TV screens. TV is still the number one media. Little do we know that human visual distance is proportional to the square root of the screen. At a viewing distance of one foot, a larger mobile phone screen is not small, but at this distance, the TV screen seems too big.

8. People have occupied PCs, mobile phones, and Pads, and are beginning to covet our TV screens. We simply act arrogantly: I have a license, so I make HD. But we don’t know that while the license is still a feasible shield, HD will definitely not be able to repel the troops that are already at the gates. Because for most video content, people want the main body of the information, and too high a definition is a thankless information redundancy.

9. Others failed to seize the TV screen and were blocked by the license. They changed to focus on the video industry chain and layout of the ecosystem. We just remembered the living room that originally belonged to us, and we want to bring the family back to the living room. What kind of ignorance can have such a perverse idea! ? In human nature, everyone has different needs for information. When there are sufficient sources of information, it is difficult to gather a group of people to share the same information. This is also the reason why everyone at the dinner table is holding their mobile phones and laughing, and it is also the reason why the living room culture in China has actually disintegrated today (Europeans and Americans rarely put TVs in the living room, and the whole family watching TV in the living room does not have a universal human basis. It is a typical product of China's poor economy). If you can rebuild the living room culture through television, then you can also make the stage in rural China prosperous again.

10. People have already started to use the Internet to penetrate into the "strong relationships" within the industrial process, and move the information transmission parts of various industrial chains of mankind to the Internet. Premier Li Keqiang also defined this as "Internet +". But we are actually imitating others and doing "TV +"! Television media's reports on society are a description or summary of "shallow relationships", which can't be "+"ed. If it could be +ed, it would have been +ed in the nearly 100 years since the birth of television.

11. Others have already achieved intelligence beyond human "brain power" in information collection, classification, and distribution. A few hundred people can complete the information dissemination work of hundreds of millions of people through the Internet. However, we regard the capital concepts and marketing gimmicks left over by "Jobs" as models, so that the entire industry has invested in the mass production of low-priced smart TVs, a kind of electronic waste. Can the paid income of your smart TVs promoted at cost price in three years be enough to cover the interest on the funds? After three years, the small computer in the belly of the smart TV should also be eliminated. Of course, we also have big data, but can we tell which family member's behavior our big data based on the TV is? You mixed sesame, soybeans, millet, and sand together and cooked them. Can you still tell them apart?

12. Others have already used their own transmission platforms and interactive systems to try two-way interactive program formats. However, apart from shallow interactions such as scanning codes and shaking, we can only force directors to innovate the content of linear programs that have been developed for nearly 80 years and are in a mature state. You know, except for major technological breakthroughs, it is very difficult for humans to innovate in mature industries, and it is even impossible to have breakthroughs. In other words, in emerging fields, farting is innovation, while in traditional fields, even laying a golden egg is accidental. Any cultural form has its peak. Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and Peking opera all have their peaks, and the same is true for television.

13. This year, their programs have gradually matured, and even started to export to television. We finally realized that this means that the last foundation of traditional television has been shaken. To make matters worse, our industry is facing an overall decline in revenue, so much so that some people joked that they have to draw lots to resign. So some people sat on the ground and started to act like a spoiled child: I am the mouthpiece of the party, the party’s own son, and the party will not ignore me! Be good, get up quickly. For the party and the government, where the masses are, there is the position. What he wants is the country, not radio and television; and for radio and television, you are just a social institution in the process of human society. When you can’t perform social functions, you will inevitably be abolished. You know, China once had an institution that has existed for thousands of years, called the Salt Administration, which has been the basis of taxation for many dynasties. He Long started the revolution because of this salt tax, but today it is gone!

…

I can't write anymore. There are too many embarrassing things to write about. For more than a decade, our radio and television industry has been losing one battle after another, and it has been declining even more than Chinese football. During this period, it's not that no one reminded us, but the problem is that even if we shouted at the top of our lungs, it still didn't work. Moreover, we are arrogant and self-confident without reason, and regard other people's kindness as a curse.

For those who cannot be awakened, I am too lazy to wake them up. Just go to sleep peacefully. For those born in the 1960s like me, you don’t have to wake up. If you wake up, it’s time to retire. And for the younger generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, you must wake up. Either save the TV or save yourself.

Perhaps there are still TV people who can be awakened and save the children.

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.