Online drama competition: Will a Chinese version of "House of Cards" be born?

House of Cards, which appeared on the Internet film and television platform, has not yet subverted the US pay TV industry, but its equally popular Chinese market may see mass cases more quickly. In the summer of 2014, Internet film and television platforms launched a large number of "big production" dramas that they purchased and invested in. According to 21st Century Business Herald, the budget share of several competitors' self-produced dramas will also increase significantly in the future.

A week ago, the self-made drama "Fleeting Time" was launched, and as of August 13, the on-demand volume of the first episode exceeded 18 million. This online drama, which Sohu calls the "big production of the year", is the same scale as traditional TV dramas, with each episode lasting 45 minutes and 16 episodes broadcast in 8 weeks.

The producer told 21st Century Business Herald that the investment in the production of each episode of the drama exceeded 1 million yuan, which means that the cost of 1 minute is 20,000-30,000 yuan, which is equivalent to the budget cost of traditional first-line TV dramas. "All the money is basically spent on production." At the same time, Tencent 's self-produced drama "The Darker Side" ended in August. The length of each episode of this suspense film also reached 35 minutes, and the total number of views of the feature film was nearly 28 million. Many people believe that it borrowed the production methods of American dramas.

However, 20 hours after the release of "Back in Time", "Divorce Lawyers", known as the "king of dramas" this year, was released on four satellite TV stations, and Tencent Video purchased its exclusive online broadcast. As of August 13, "Divorce Lawyers", with an average cost of 3 million yuan per episode and a production investment of 130 million yuan, has had a total online broadcast volume of more than 30 million.

Some industry insiders believe that the policy that will be implemented in January 2015, which will allow a TV series to be broadcast on at most two satellite channels at the same time ("one series, two satellites"), will shrink the investment in a single TV series. The Internet video industry, which used to be known for its "low investment, fast output, bold and eye-catching", may enter a larger production scale as Internet capital becomes stronger, audience habits of overseas TV series mature, and Internet TV terminals become more popular.

Unlike Netflix, which pre-purchased the exclusive copyright of "House of Cards" for $200 million, China's current "big-budget" online dramas still lack a stable industry chain, especially content providers. Producing "self-made dramas" as an investor is likely to remain the main form, so there will be greater internal and external risks.

"The industry chain for big-budget online dramas on the Internet is certainly not as mature as that of TV stations, so the failure rate may be higher," said Shang Na, editor-in-chief of Sohu Video's content operations center. Video websites are beginning to enter the upstream production field and have to face greater competition. This "money-burning" battle has officially begun.

“If you don’t do this, you will be kicked out soon.”

Many years ago, the focus of competition among Internet film and television platforms has shifted from the copyright purchasing war to the self-production war. Since 2014, "large-scale", "high-cost" online dramas with specifications similar to traditional TV dramas have frequently emerged.

In 2014, Youku Tudou said it would invest at least RMB 300 million to participate in the production of 10-15 movies, 17 self-produced dramas, 20 micro-films and 50 variety shows as a co-producer, "with a number of self-produced dramas such as Sex and the City and House of Cards, and variety shows such as American Idol and The Voice of China."

Among them, "Tiny Times 1.0 Origami Era" (hereinafter referred to as "Tiny Times"), which was launched on July 10, invested 50 million yuan. It was directed by Taiwanese director Qu Youning, who has directed the popular idol dramas "It Started with a Kiss" and "Rose Love", and starred idol actors Peter Ho and Ivy Chen. The entire process was shot using film equipment and took half a year.

Since its launch a month ago, the number of views of this drama is far less than that of the TV series "Gu Jian Qi Tan" and "Love is Back" broadcast at the same time, and the response from netizens has been mediocre.

iQIYI launched a number of online self-produced dramas this year, such as Hello Alien, Soul Ferry,

"Waste Brothers", "Incredible Summer", etc., said that this year's investment in self-produced content will be no less than 300 million yuan, with no upper limit.

According to the data provided by LeTV to 21st Century Business Herald, its budget for self-produced dramas currently accounts for 10%-15% of the RMB 1 billion content investment each year, and the share will increase to about 1/3 next year. Among them, this year's major web drama projects include "The Queen's Quest" and "The Beautiful Detective Agency", and a super web drama with a good cast is about to be launched. The overall investment in "big production" web dramas this year is twice that of last year. In terms of traffic, the task of self-produced content this year is to account for 15%, 20%-25% next year, and 30% within three years.

Sohu Video's investment in self-produced content will be twice that of 2013, accounting for 10%-20% of the total content cost, and the investment in "big productions" will be 3-4 times that of last year. Self-produced dramas will become Sohu Video's first content product line to achieve profitability.

In addition to production costs, "big productions" will also attract more investment. Promotional posters for "Fleeting Time" were posted on many bus stop advertising spots; five days before the official broadcast, Sohu held a ceremony in a movie theater that was no different from a movie premiere. In the past three months, at least three similar press conferences have been held.

Different from "Diaosi Nanzi" which was "first see if it becomes popular, then promote it vigorously", Sohu has a desperate attitude towards "Fleet of Time", "If you don't do this, you will be kicked out soon."

Entgroup previously predicted that major video websites will invest 100 million yuan in online dramas in 2014, and the number of dramas will double that of 2012. This estimate is almost certain to be broken. The agency believes that the number of Chinese online dramas will reach about 1,700 in 2014 and 3,000 in 2015.

Among TV series, micro-movies, and variety shows, LeTV's chief producer Hao Feng is most optimistic about self-made online dramas. "Variety shows cannot compete directly with traditional TV in terms of volume. This does not depend on whether the video website has money, but on the customer's investment mentality. Customers who spend hundreds of millions of yuan a year on programs have not quickly switched to Internet platforms. So the decisive battlefield in the past two years is online dramas."

“Control your own destiny”

Shangna feels that major video websites have invested in self-made content on a large scale and are producing products in order to gain greater market voice. At the same time, for a video website, if it simply purchases copyrights, there is only one additional income model, which is interstitial advertising. "But if more "Diaosi Nanzi" are produced, it is possible to create value for Sohu in all aspects."

First of all, in terms of advertising revenue, more possibilities have been expanded, including product placement, sponsorship, and daily patches and inserts.

For example, before the LeTV self-produced drama "My Name is Hao Congming" was released, it earned millions of dollars per carat of product placement revenue. After the show was aired, all the revenue generated by clicks belonged to LeTV. "This is equivalent to me not spending a penny and earning millions," Hao Fang said. "It's not like buying and selling TV drama copyrights before. Although I spent money to buy the content, I saw the TV station earn money from product placement, but I didn't get a share."

For example, with the development of technology, the service of providing product information has matured in LeTV. After its launch, users can directly click to purchase, which is something that traditional TV stations cannot accomplish.

There are many people in LeEco who are very optimistic about the prospects. "In two to three years, LeEco's self-made products can generate hundreds of millions of yuan in advertising revenue, which can easily exceed the annual advertising revenue of a second-tier satellite TV station."

Shangna also firmly believes that "the bigger the project, the more money you will make." If she invests tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan in a content that will be broadcast on a TV station, as long as the team is strong, "the social impact will not be lower than that of the TV station."

The second possibility is that video websites, with their own content, can distribute their exclusive content copyrights like TV stations. In addition, a user-charge model can be added. Shangna saw that when people relied on Didi taxi services and World Cup betting was popular, "the problem of simple payment on the user's mobile phone has been solved."

In addition, Youku has begun to explore possibilities in self-produced content derivatives, such as attracting users to give virtual gifts to their favorite characters on the pages of popular self-produced dramas.

Although all models are in the early stages of development and their scale is not mature or stable, video websites are willing to believe in the market prospects, move upstream, and strive for content production resources like TV dramas.

At the same time, she has to admit that big investments are forced by greater market risks. "If one day the policy prohibits broadcasting American, Japanese and Korean dramas, and Hunan Satellite TV doesn't sell the programs to me, how can I survive?" Shangna said, "What all video websites are doing is that I want to control my own destiny."

“The failure rate is still 90%”?

In the foreseeable market, video websites are boldly placing bigger bets in the battleground of "self-produced dramas". They are trying to abandon the workshop-style production method of makeshift teams and pursue professionalism and scale in the production field, while exploring ways of cooperation.

Over the past three years, Hao Fang and others have been summing up experiences and lessons learned in their exploration of self-produced dramas. For example, the most important point is "never to produce shoddy products again" and to seek the best content production partners.

Starting with hoarding popular online novels, Hao Feng applied LeTV's product manager and user thinking to cooperation with traditional film and television producers. For example, he kept a close eye on the data every day, including Weibo comments, dissemination volume, changes in various indexes, BBS dissemination replies, etc., and used his own experience in making online dramas to determine whether a project was likely to succeed.

In Hao Fang's view, more and more traditional production companies are panicking. On the one hand, they see that the Internet market is booming and their own products may be threatened. At the same time, when facing Internet audiences, their own works are not as popular as those of young screenwriters with Internet thinking. "As operators, they will also think about where their next step will be."

However, traditional content production talents also need to adapt to the methods and risks of cooperating with video websites.

Zhu Zhenguang, the producer of Fleet of Time, was an internal employee of Sohu Video two years ago. At that time, the project of Fleet of Time was just beginning to be incubated, and the cooperation of long dramas required contact with larger external production industries.

Zhu Zhenguang felt that he was more suitable for a pure content production team, so he resigned and began to serve as the producer of "Fleet of Time".

But he found that cooperation with video websites was different from that with TV stations. His identity as a "producer" was more like a "product manager". He could not just think about "setting up a good team and choosing good actors". He needed to focus more on the product itself. He needed to calculate based on his own experience how many clicks he could bring to the video website, come up with a plan, and give a budget. However, "the failure rate is still 90%. This is the pressure of the Internet. Maybe only one or two dramas will become popular in a year."

However, in the traditional TV series sales chain, Zhu Zhenguang may have to bear less pressure. "There are professional distribution companies, management companies, advertising agencies, etc. who can help me calculate the account, and perhaps the risk is less."

But Zhu Zhenguang also admitted that the huge prospects of the Internet model are very attractive. "An online drama may have billions of views, and it is very likely that ancillary products can be sold in the future with brand benefits. The additional benefits brought by an online drama may not be worse than those of a movie." "For the production team, although there are risks, they are first and foremost businessmen and operators," said Shang Na.

Like all online dramas, "Fleeting Time" includes KPIs such as clicks and playbacks as clauses in the contract.

But at present, video websites and production companies still feel that the scale of online drama novels is far from enough compared with TV dramas, and even talent resources have not yet flowed in on a large scale.

"If the output of online dramas could reach one-third of that of TV dramas, it would be possible to change the industry, but it is far from that now," said Hao Feng. "The money invested in all online dramas now is probably the same as that invested in 10 major TV dramas, and the transfer of top talents to online dramas has not happened on a large scale."

Correspondingly, advertisers have not yet entered the video website production industry on a large scale.

However, Hao Fang believes that if each video website can produce 2-3 large-scale super web dramas every year, "it won't take too long to replace TV dramas on the online platform."

Sohu is equally optimistic. In this battle against TV dramas, with more investment and the same resources, the website can also produce dramas of the standard of "Empresses in the Palace" and "Legend of the Crescent Moon".

However, in the market for large-scale online dramas, video websites are still in the early stages of development. They are moving forward boldly but cautiously based on their own judgment and experience in making low-budget online dramas.

Before "Fleet of Time" was launched, Sohu spent a lot of effort to create this seed, "and at the moment, there is no problem in recovering the cost."

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.