Interpreting Mango TV's unique advancement path from three key words

Mango TV has always been regarded by industry insiders as a "lone ranger" among video websites and an "outlier" in the radio and television system. From exclusive broadcasting to uniqueness, Mango TV has taken a path that is difficult to replicate in the past year. Recently, at the 3rd China Internet Audiovisual Conference, Lu Huanbin, Party Secretary and Director of Hunan Radio and Television Station, proposed the three key words of "platformization, engineization, and capitalization", summarizing the future actions and thoughts of Mango TV in the context of "Internet +".

Combining speeches and interviews with senior executives of Mango TV, this paper analyzes the advancement of Mango TV in 2016 under three key words.

Platformization——Building an all-round Internet entertainment platform

In 2014, Mango TV, the new media platform of Hunan Satellite TV, launched the PC client Mango TV player. Since then, Mango TV, which has made full efforts in the Internet, has launched all its products on PC, mobile, Internet TV and IPTV platforms, building Mango TV's "one cloud, multiple screens" platform.

So far, Mango TV has more than 35 million independent users, more than 200 million mobile APP downloads and installations, and more than 16 million activated Internet TV terminal users. Mango TV has made full efforts in OTT, PC and mobile terminals, occupying a relatively advanced market advantage. In 2016, Mango TV put forward the slogan of "full screen acceleration". While continuing to adhere to the "exclusive broadcast" strategy, seamlessly linking Hunan Satellite TV's classic ace columns and three major theaters, it also created self-made dramas and interactive online variety shows in an effort to create a three-dimensional Internet entertainment platform.

Lu Huanbin first used the experience of "swimming in the water" for the first time to describe Mango TV's media integration journey in the past year. He said that in the future all-media landscape, Hunan Radio and Television will be positioned as a platform builder, integrating all its new media businesses, using the Internet to build its own platform, creating a new media with Mango TV as its brand, and engaging in head-on competition with Internet companies.

Engine-based – exporting products to Hunan Satellite TV

At the meeting, Lu Huanbin proposed for the first time that "the ultimate expression of Mango TV is not to be an online store, but to accelerate its development into an engine", which immediately became a hot topic.

For a long time, Mango TV has been jokingly called the "porter" of Hunan Satellite TV by the industry. How to get rid of this title has become the focus of Mango TV's layout in the future.

In an exclusive interview, Nie Mei, chairman of Mango TV, said that Mango TV's "de-Hunan TVization" should not be understood out of context. Mango TV will gradually reduce its dependence on Hunan TV, but there will still be a certain degree of connection between the two. In the future, it will strengthen the procurement and production of content from non-Hunan TV stations.

She believes that "in the face of new media integration and market demand, we must diversify. It is dangerous for radio and television to rely on a single organization, a single product, a single method, or a single channel for its main income. Therefore, Mango TV must become an engine for future radio and television content innovation, efficiency growth, and ecological aggregation. Now, through some of our practices, the role of this engine is playing out."

Mango TV will also play a greater role in supplementing the content of satellite TV stations. For example, in terms of games, according to Nie Mei, Mango TV will open a game channel in the future to fully tap the IP value of film and television dramas and achieve more diversified development across the entire platform.

Capitalization: Media controls capital, capital strengthens media

The outside world has always maintained a high level of attention to the listing of Mango TV. As we all know, capitalization is relatively difficult to break through within the system. At present, Mango TV has achieved restructuring and completed the first round of financing. It has now started the B round of financing, with a valuation of about 12 billion yuan. Lv Huanbin believes that in the era of integration, the core competitiveness of Hunan Radio and Television is to have both media and capital capabilities, so as to achieve the effect of media controlling capital and capital strengthening media.

Nie Mei revealed that Mango TV is currently operating at the pace of listing, but there are still many factors to consider, such as timing, conditions, etc. It is also necessary to fully consider the returns to investors and users to make the use of funds more efficient.

This month, Jack Ma appeared inside Mango TV. It is rumored that this may be related to Mango TV's second round of financing. Nie Mei said, "Mango TV has always cooperated with Alibaba in business and products. As for capital, we are a media platform and need to comply with some regulations on media financing, such as state-owned and state-controlled."

Overall, the success of Mango TV is partly accidental and partly a general trend, but the Mango model is not necessarily suitable for all video websites and satellite TV stations. In the future, whether the radio and television system chooses to be a product-based company or a platform-based company should be judged based on the actual situation of each media. Mango's path to advancement will be worth learning from and studying for a long 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.