PPTV A three-year medical history of an "anemia" patient

There is a company that suffers from anemia. They were founded in the same year as Youtube and gained a lot of popularity in the early days with online TV live broadcasts. Although they were born with anemia, they were lucky to get hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from Masayoshi Son. After that, they began to squander money without restraint, not only wasting money and time, but also being gradually surpassed by competitors. Last year, they "sold themselves" to Suning, and the management team was replaced and the founding CEO was sidelined. I don't know if you have guessed it, the answer is PPTV.

$250 million, this is not money, it is blood

Due to the huge costs of video content, server bandwidth, and traffic acquisition, PPTV, which was born with anemia , faced a funding shortage in early 2011 despite three rounds of financing. Later, they were lucky enough to get $250 million in financing from Masayoshi Son in the fourth round, and their valuation soared to $700 million. But unfortunately, since they received this huge amount of money, they lost their minds as if they had been injected with chicken blood, and embarked on a road of self-expansion, completely forgetting that they were anemic patients who needed self-treatment.

First, they poached people almost crazily. After getting the financing, they started to look for headhunters to poach people all over Shanghai and even the whole country. A video technology team in Shanghai was poached by them at twice the salary. This incident even completely affected the labor cost of Shanghai's Internet industry that year. The rich PPTV was too willful. But the people poached were only for high salaries and generous benefits. They were not content at all. And poaching with twice the salary not only made enemies for themselves but also chilled the hearts of old employees.

Secondly, blindly setting up projects and recruiting so many technical talents must do something. I don’t know who came up with the idea at the time, but in the end they decided to develop a set-top box. You have to know that this thing has been strictly controlled until today. A few years ago, it was simply a treason for the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, so PPTV was soon stopped. But misfortunes never come alone. Later, they also encountered the rectification of radio and television qualifications. PPTV, which was caught in the crossfire, was forced to change its name to PPTV Juli. Those random tossing did not find the right way at all, and wasted time, manpower, material resources and financial resources. If PPTV had expanded its existing business and enhanced its own hematopoietic ability at the time, I am afraid it would not be the current situation.

Secondly, they purchase copyrights without distinguishing between good and bad, such as movies, TV series, entertainment programs, and sports events. They buy all of them if they have money. They spend millions or even tens of millions of dollars on copyrights, but the high copyright expenditures are not proportional to the returns. They don’t make good use of the high-quality resources after they get them. They can’t compete with Youku Tudou and LeTV in terms of popularity in the film and television industry, so they have to play “edge ball” to gain popularity. The problem with their own advantageous sports event resources is even more prominent, and Xiao Nei will talk about it in detail later.

Finally, people were restless. Xiao Nei found several examples that show how crazy they were at that time:

1. According to the Weibo of PPTV employees, at the annual meeting in 2012, they actually shouted the slogan "F*** PPS, Love PPTV". They are just like the middle school students with a second-year syndrome. They are unscrupulous when they have money. Seeing this, Xiao Nei immediately understood why PPTV wanted to play the trick of "non-coexistence" to fight PPS. They were so bold that they just kept their eyes on one opponent. As for the forest, who cares!

2. A netizen said that his previous company and PPTV were located in the same office building in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. PPTV was located on the top floor of the building, and their employees often parked all the elevators on the top floor to wait for the leaders to come in and out, or occupied all the parking spaces in front of the building to facilitate the leaders' cars to come in and out. They are not only second-year students, but also full of bureaucracy. This combination is too weird, and the condition is too complicated, so transfer to another hospital for treatment!

3. Another netizen who had business dealings with PPTV said that the entire company was in chaos, and the senior leaders acted independently and established their own factions. A vice president had been bragging about the speed of the company's development and the equity he owned. He also proudly revealed how he used resources to quickly earn several houses, and said that his goal was to retire in a few years. Another senior executive only spent very little time discussing specific cooperation, but went to high-consumption places for leisure several times. During most of the talks, he inexplicably attacked other senior executives in the company, even including the CEO.

It can be said that the precious $250 million not only failed to put PPTV on a healthy development path, but also made the entire company lose its rationality. The excessive squandering made PPTV, which already lacked the ability to generate revenue, even weaker. After two years of such a struggle, there was little money left, and the entire company was like a deflated ball. As a result, headhunters stopped looking for people because there was no money to hire or support more people; job hopping and resignation became a daily drama, and those who remained were basically just muddling through. The most indirect reflection of PPTV's depressed state was that an employee posted a picture on Weibo showing that the dinner at the annual meeting had become a 10-yuan box lunch, and even mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival were sold by lottery.

Soap opera-like “selling out” financing

As a result, PPTV, which was at the bottom of the blood tank, could only hope for financing to transfuse blood, and Masayoshi Son just wanted to invite Alibaba to take over PPTV. PPTV expected a valuation of 1 billion US dollars, but Jack Ma thought the price was too high, and the initial contact failed. Not long after, Baidu and iQiyi acquired PPS for 370 million US dollars. As a similar company, PPTV's valuation suddenly shrank to less than 500 million. At this time, Masayoshi Son once again made connections between the two parties, but Alibaba still felt that the price was too high, and it was even better to create a small company to specialize in video. In this way, PPTV missed Alibaba and lost what may now be the best chance to turn things around.

Fate is so unpredictable that the most suitable people often cannot come together. After two rounds of negotiations with Alibaba failed to produce any results, several other companies also entered PPTV's field of vision, including Sohu , which wanted to strengthen its video business , and Hunan Satellite TV, which was eager to achieve a breakthrough in the Internet. However, the price offered by the arrogant PPTV still did not lower. Alibaba, which is so rich, felt that the price was a little expensive and did not make a decision, let alone these companies with slightly weaker strength. The rumors about PPTV's financing continued to fly, and the company continued to lose money under the unstable morale. The total loss in the first three quarters of that year was nearly 100 million yuan.

Just when everyone was wondering whether PPTV, which was about to lose money, could survive, the suspenseful financing case finally had an answer - Suning.com and Hony Capital jointly invested 420 million US dollars in PPTV. In fact, this is very close to the psychological price of the previous three companies, but Alibaba, which has money, is very cautious, and Sohu and Hunan Satellite TV, which have their own video resources, are also careful in calculations. They did not take over even if there was a little more. After Suning and Hony took over PPTV, the Lenovo system introduced by Hony began to dominate the management of PPTV, and Lu Yan replaced the founder Tao Chuang as CEO. From then on, PPTV, which "sold itself", could no longer control its own destiny.

With the entry of new investors, it seems that PPTV, which has successfully replenished its capital, will be saved. However, neither Suning nor the Lenovo system brought by Hony have experience in the video field. Although PPTV has obtained funds, it still has to find its own way out. Sports event resources, as the foundation of PPTV's survival, have been highly expected at this time. However, in the more than two years of loss, although PPTV has also invested a lot of money in sports, it is only a quantitative increase. Can the bloated PPTV No. 1 Sports drive the entire company forward?

Relying on sports to make a comeback? Just relying on those commentators?

With their years of accumulation and heavy investments in event copyrights, PPTV No. 1 Sports, LeTV and Portal Group are the three major players in this field. Among PPTV's many businesses, sports resources have always been the most profitable. PPTV initially became popular with its rich sports live broadcast resources. They have a large and stable number of users, which is the biggest guarantee for PPTV to obtain revenue. In recent years, PPTV has spent a lot of money to buy broadcasting rights, and even tried to charge for broadcasting with exclusive copyrights. In addition to mainstream events, they also provide broadcasts of many unpopular and niche events, and have gained many users in new vertical segments. It seems that with the breakthrough in sports resources, PPTV, which has always been anemic, will embark on a path of strength and health.

I don’t know if PPTV spent all its money on copyright or if there are other reasons. Except for the former ESPN ace commentator Zhan Jun who was brought in with a large sum of money last year, the other commentators are really… Even if the limited budget should be spent on copyright first, Xiao Nei thinks that the commentary should not be ignored. If copyright is the dish, the commentary is the cook. Good dishes need good cooks. Bad cooks can only ruin good dishes, and people will not continue to pay for them. Let’s put aside the female commentators who are mostly vase attributes. PPTV has several male commentators who are called ace, which is really unpleasant. Some of them are not only poor in professional standards, but also have worrying personalities.

Xiao Nei first takes Zhou Liang, the director of sports events at PPTV, as an example. The "Subei Dog" incident during the commentary of the FA Cup this year brought this director Zhou to ruin his reputation and he was eventually fired by PPTV. Zhou Liang has always been arrogant and domineering. This time, not only did his gaffe damage the company's image, but his gaffe even insulted the sponsor Suning. According to netizens, he had a dispute with his neighbors over parking spaces in his own community. Afterwards, he smashed other people's cars and poured oil, which was simply a "scumbag style". If a director is like this, then his subordinates will naturally follow suit. Another commentator, Tang Hui, recently publicly cursed with netizens on Weibo, and the spit flew everywhere, which was really "much higher" than the director's level of cursing in the air while sitting in the broadcast seat. With the existence of these "ace commentators" who do not care about the company's reputation at all, the reputation that PPTV has spent real money to build up will be shattered, and the ultimate victim is PPTV's image and even its hematopoietic ability.

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.