Shooter.com is shut down: Behind the small subtitles, the radio and television industry is playing a big game

Let me explain why Renren Video and Shooter Network were shut down. It was not just a matter of cracking down on piracy, but a matter of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television implementing ideological directives from above, and more importantly, a matter of competing for power with telecom operators in the era of the integration of three networks.

Fighting piracy is indeed the first thing that comes to mind, and you can definitely think of it directly. I won’t talk about its various lofty benefits.

I won’t talk about ideology. This is a consistent situation. Many actions of the radio and television have this feature. If they don’t do it well, it will be very troublesome for them. After the officials of the Central Propaganda Department completed the task of the first Internet Conference in Wuzhen, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, which also has ideological tasks, must have been embarrassed to sit idle and must show off.

But I think the game between radio and television and operators is what is behind the door.

Is a subtitle really that logical? Yes. It is a lever, with a small movement and a big effect.

Subtitles are not something that simply exists. You wouldn't be so stupid as to not watch movies or TV shows and just appreciate the subtitles. Of course there will be such weirdos. Texts do have charm.

The content of foreign films and TV series that matches the subtitles is what the radio and television authorities are paying attention to. This is the key to the implementation of supervision by the radio and television authorities in the era of the integration of three networks.

In the past, the supervision of radio and television was mainly focused on the two major terminals of cinemas and televisions. The supervision of cinemas is very easy to implement because the market entities are transparent, the coverage is limited, and the actual focus is on televisions.

In the past few years, you should have seen a series of actions taken by the Radio and Television Administration in terms of TV regulation. In particular, the rectification of Internet TV terminals in the past year has left a deep impression, enough to be written into the history of Chinese radio and television communication. Under Document No. 181 and Document No. 43, China has made one move after another in the fields of TV boxes, TVs, and TV operating systems.

This is nothing more than the process of it penetrating into the entire three-network integration through OTT standardization.

However, no matter how much the radio and television industry regulates the Internet TV field, it is difficult to shake the penetration of telecom operators into Chinese households with the help of backbone networks. The TV field is the specialty of radio and television, and the operators have no way to complain, but its technical features are enough to continue to undermine the power of radio and television in multi-screen terminals. Yes, the TV-on rate of ordinary people is not high, and they watch most of the time on mobile phones, tablets, and computers.

Mobile phones, tablets, and computers, in addition to business functions, are mostly used for entertainment, especially watching videos, playing games, reading messages, and chatting. Watching videos is not only a hobby for the public, but also for operators, and it brings a large proportion of traffic.

At the technical level, radio and television can only affect TVs and box terminals, and cannot affect mobile phones, PCs, and PADs. However, its supervision of content can penetrate into them, thus having a means of supervision beyond the screen. Therefore, you can see that radio and television have been attacking them in the past few years. In terms of form, the speed is not fast, because it cannot be too straightforward, and it is unpleasant to arouse the anger of the people.

That is to say, in the past, the radio and television industry had two different strategies for regulating terminals and content: in the field of television, it was very tough, straightforward, and integrated; in the field of telecommunications, which is a multi-screen turf, it could only be regulated at the content level. This led to many passive regulatory strategies. Ordinary people don't care so much, they only care about the cultural consumption experience, and the regulation of television makes them feel uncomfortable, so they rely more on other screens for consumption.

After the establishment of the State Grid, the actions of radio and television began to be cautious. In September this year, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued Document No. 204 of New Radio and Television (2014), which began to restrict and comprehensively manage the introduction of foreign films and TV series by video websites. In the past, Document No. 43 and Document No. 181 focused on terminals and also involved content, but mainly in the field of television. Now Document No. 204 has unified all content into one plate, and the supervision has become a chess game. The infiltration process of telecom operators with the help of technical capabilities has begun to be restricted.

That is to say, the radio and television cannot control the hardware or technology, but they can use the content to target you across screens.

Over the past few years, the openness of telecommunications and Internet network technologies has indeed led to many irregularities in content. Piracy has become a stubborn disease. Piracy while criticizing piracy is even more serious, haha.

Subtitles are integrated with the content and cannot be used alone for experience and appreciation. The closure of Shooter.com is actually a countermeasure by the radio and television to the content distribution and dissemination on the territory of telecommunications.

Subtitles are a small thing, but they do have a huge leverage effect. Starting with them, you can kill many birds with one stone: combat piracy, standardize film and television subtitle management, implement ideological work, and counter operator infiltration.

Of course, the crackdown on subtitle groups like Shooter.com will not really work. This is because the radio and television cannot control the penetration of overseas content sources from a technical level. Services like Shooter.com can be restarted in other places. In fact, there are many small subtitle service organizations in the market. However, in the short term, this action will inhibit the spread of many newly introduced overseas content.

A subtitle reflects a power situation. I think that in this round of game, the actions of the radio and television are a bit crude and crude. It does not fully realize that there are many spontaneous forces in the industry chain. Although subtitles are mostly related to many pirated contents, there are also quite a few Internet practitioners who work purely out of passion. The radio and television should consider it more from the market perspective and use market means to guide, recruit and regulate.

In the game between radio, television and telecommunications, more market elements should be introduced to divert traffic and use it for their own benefit, rather than shutting it down and letting it fend for itself. In fact, shutting it down will not work, and it will definitely pop up again after a while. For such a big country, there is no truly open subtitle and compilation platform, and it only relies on the several major film groups and studios within the system. Not only is it inefficient, but there will also be no enthusiasm.

Subtitles also reflect the weak competitiveness of China's film and television content industry in the world. If the game of radio and television cannot benefit the development of Chinese local content, fundamentally speaking, it will only have the meaning of administrative directives. In fact, Chinese original content is also slowly entering overseas, and there will definitely be a boom in the future. However, local subtitles have not yet formed an industrial chain. At this time, simple and crude management will weaken its growth.

A joke is that the SARFT's move is not without value. It should improve the Chinese people's foreign language proficiency, especially listening. After the reduction of foreign language class hours in middle schools across the country, students have more motivation to learn foreign languages ​​well. Their future test ability should be very strong, haha.

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.