After continuing to burn money and suffer losses year after year, video website companies have been in urgent need of a turning point to change the current extremely embarrassing profit and loss situation. Recently, iQiyi's annual self-made drama "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" was fully launched, and the number of hits exceeded 40 million within one hour of launch, and exceeded 100 million within 22 hours of launch. At present, the hit rate of more than 600 million has set new records for self-made dramas on video websites. In response, iQiyi announced that it will implement a differentiated broadcast mode from July 3, that is, non-members can watch weekly content, while paid members can enjoy all episodes. It was also three days after "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" was launched that iQiyi released its VIP membership strategy. Data shows that as of June 15, 2015, the number of iQiyi's monthly paid VIP members has reached 5.017 million, a year-on-year growth rate of 765%. A large amount of data has accumulated and shown that online self-made dramas represented by "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" are stimulating the arrival of the paid era in the domestic video website industry. But as the first shot in the video website industry's search for a "transformation" payment model and a turnaround, is "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" really that important to the industry of the entire video website? Or is it just a thunderbolt? Super IP is no longer super In the past two years, so-called super IP resources have begun to become the focus of competition in the film and television content industry. Whether it is film and television production companies, traditional TV stations, or even video website companies, they have begun to use content mining centered on IP resources as an important means to build the film and television content industry. According to data, by the end of 2014, 114 online novels had been purchased for film and television copyrights, of which 90 were planned to be made into TV series and 24 were planned to be made into large-screen movies. Among them, almost all online novels with good reputations are available, such as "Tiny Times", "Ghost Blowing Lights", "Grave Robbers' Chronicles", "Hourglass", "Left Ear", "Why Sheng Xiaomo", "Everything Grows", "Passing by Your World", etc. But so far, except for a small number of works that have won considerable box office revenue, the remakes in the form of film and television dramas have not only failed to enhance the emotional connotation of the novel itself, but have indirectly lowered the original charm of the entire work. The lack of Hollywood assembly line-style blockbuster production team standards has become an important reason why these super IPs are no longer super. For many film and television producers, popular IP resources are just a selling point to attract investors, and there are actually not many who really want to "carry forward" this work. At the same time, under the gimmick of super IP, the level of film and television works created has also dropped sharply. Take the popular iQiyi self-made drama "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" as an example. The cost of the entire drama is said to be over 10 million per episode, and the special effects investment is 80 million. However, in the four episodes currently aired, netizens have expressed their dissatisfaction with the "50-cent" special effects and the pain of tampering with the entire original plot. Although "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" has achieved more than 600 million hits on iQiyi with only four episodes, the drama's score on Douban is only 2.7 points, of which 81.7% of people give it one star. Word of mouth and box office, which is the core standard for evaluating a film and television work, is once again worth discussing. Fan economy is still applicable to a seemingly successful online self-made drama. In addition to the super IP resources that can build the industrial value of the entire work, the strong fan economy foundation should not be underestimated. Compared with other original scripts, the content of TV dramas adapted from online novels, etc., determines the basic number of viewers for this work from the moment the copyright of the entire TV drama is sold. As a super popular work of the famous online writer Nanpai Sanshu, "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" has been serialized since 2006. So far, 8 books with a total sales of more than 12 million copies have been published, and its fans are as high as tens of millions. It is not difficult to explain why "Grave Robbers' Chronicles", which even Nanpai Sanshu himself said was "completely different from the script I saw, I was stunned", can achieve such a dazzling click rate. In addition, in addition to the script itself having a strong fan economy foundation, the starring actors of the work, Li Yifeng, Yang Yang, Tang Yan, etc., have attracted a group of celebrity fans for the drama. The fans of these celebrity artists have stronger user stickiness than the fans of novels. Even the actors themselves complained that "for today's young Chinese actors, acting itself may no longer be important. They just need to look good and film a historical drama, and then suddenly become extremely popular. Many big movie directors look for them to act in their movies, and their purpose is to use the fan effect to guarantee box office revenue." Although the innuendo is a bit blunt, it actually speaks out some "truths."Paid model re-emerges? Yang Xianghua, senior vice president of iQiyi, once said, "In the Chinese market with a huge population base, video websites will inevitably develop a 'free content + advertising' business model first, but after the continuous layout of paid membership business and the formation of user consumption habits, the explosion of video paid business in China will become an irreversible trend." Previously, the lack of obviously differentiated video content resources and the long-term existence of the free advertising model have led to the delay in the content payment model opening the door to the Chinese video website industry. Similarly, video website companies that lack user stickiness have also shown a contradictory psychology of both eagerness and fear for the development of a paid business model. And this time, iQiyi has heavily marketed its self-made drama "Grave Robbers' Chronicles", presumably hoping to be able to "transform" to a paid model, rather than just relying on a single advertising model that is not enough to cope with fierce industry competition and elimination. Of course, in the process of transforming from a free advertising model to a paid membership model, being able to come up with one or two outstanding works that are eye-catching, persuasive and influential may be the key to achieving the transformation. But so far, the long-awaited "Grave Robbers' Chronicles" by fans has obviously not met this standard. More importantly, domestic TV series do not have the ability to develop a paid model, and cinema films cannot be synchronized, so the pursuit of better-made online dramas has become an important way out for the video website industry. The current problem is that after paying to watch all the episodes of "Grave Robbers' Chronicles", does iQiyi have other more eye-catching video content resources that will make users willing to pay again and become its truly loyal paying users. 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. |
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