With the refinancing, LeTV will continue to lead the content market by raising copyright barriers

The largest financing case on the GEM has been born! Recently, LeTV announced a refinancing plan, saying that it plans to issue 129 million shares to five institutions at a price of 34.76 yuan per share to raise 4.5 billion yuan. For this reason, LeTV has set a record for the highest refinancing amount on the GEM, which also means that the biggest shortcoming in LeTV's development process - the problem of capital shortage has been solved. Given that LeTV's financing amount has reached the top of the GEM, the industry is also very concerned about the use of its funds. As far as the reporter knows, strengthening the upstream and downstream production and procurement of content will be one of the main flows of this refinancing funds. LeTV's drama copyrights and long videos have always been ahead of other video websites. In this financing, LeTV will definitely increase its investment in upstream and downstream content production to consolidate its copyright advantage and continue to lead.

LeTV is making frequent moves in content development with full-channel efforts

According to the plan for the use of funds in this refinancing announcement, LeTV clearly stated that in the future the company will adopt a strategy of covering all content categories such as film and television dramas, animation, music, variety shows, sports, etc., combining external procurement with internal self-production, to continuously consolidate and strengthen the company's dominant position in the content field. Once the funds are invested in the content end, it will undoubtedly continue to consolidate LeTV's position as the king of content.

In fact, LeTV's current achievements in content are obvious to all in the market. Let's take a look at LeTV's recent major moves:

On July 2, at LeTV's "Vision Unstoppable" Summer Show, big news came out again: Wu Zongxian, Su Mang, Tian Pujun and Korean director Guo Jingze became the first four studios to sign contracts with LeTV's self-produced products, and jointly established the "Disruptor Alliance" to jointly create a new self-produced program based on the "Internet product manager thinking".

In early July, data showed that the passionate campus drama "STB Super Teacher", which is hailed as the Chinese version of "Hot Teacher", had a total broadcast volume of over 200 million, and has long occupied the throne of major online self-produced drama broadcast lists. It also defeated many first-line satellite TV dramas of the same period and entered the Baidu TV Drama Ranking TOP10, becoming the dark horse king of online self-produced dramas in the first half of this year.

On July 27, at the Shanghai International Circuit, LeTV Sports and Shanghai Jiushi International Event Management Co., Ltd. signed a contract for the broadcast of F1. In the next four years, LeTV Sports will broadcast all F1 races around the world. This means that all Chinese fans can finally watch F1 events through a national platform.

On August 2, LeTV Music teamed up with Wang Feng to hold an online paid live show. Data showed that by the end of the broadcast on August 4, more than 75,000 live tickets had been purchased, which means that the door to the online paid model of LeTV Music's live shows has been opened.

On August 5, relevant executives of LeTV Pictures brought good news that the cumulative box office of the "Tiny Times" series exceeded 1.3 billion. As the producer of the Tiny Times series, LeTV Pictures is undoubtedly ahead of the curve. It is understood that "Tiny Times 3" is a successful case of Internet IP + fan economy + cinema social + 020 marketing.

From the above cases, it is not difficult to see LeTV's ambition in the content sector. LeTV has increased its investment in music, sports, movies, and self-production to establish its leading position in the industry. It is understood that LeTV has established the most comprehensive film and television copyright library in the industry, with online copyrights of 100,000 TV series and 5,000 movies, and has created "LeTV Self-Production", the first self-production brand of video websites. The production resources of LeTV's brother company LeTV Pictures provide content guarantee for the LeTV ecosystem, producing and distributing nearly 30 blockbusters every year, providing LeTV with rich content support, and promoting LeTV's brand to the big screen of theaters, such as the huge box office success of "The Expendables 2" and "Tiny Times", which greatly enriched LeTV's differentiated content.

Differentiated development, exclusive blockbuster TV series and movies

Competition among video websites is fierce, and differentiated content is the focus of development for each video website. LeTV has made preparations in advance and will launch dozens of exclusive blockbuster films and TV series, such as "Empress Wu Zetian" in which Fan Bingbing plays the role of an empress after a six-year absence from the screen; "Red Sorghum", Zhou Xun's comeback work after a 10-year absence from the screen; "Legend of Miyue", created by the original team of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and starring Sun Li, etc.

As for LeTV Pictures, after "Coming Home" and "Tiny Times 3", "Tiny Times 4", "The Expendables 3", "Anti-Corruption Storm 2014", "Robot Army", "The Crossing" and other films will become LeTV's focus in the film field in the second half of the year.

The advantages of LeEco's vertical integration will be more fully reflected in the content side. The sister series of "Empresses in the Palace" "Legend of Miyue" produced by Huaer Films, which was acquired by LeEco, has not yet been completed, but it has already attracted the attention of the industry. "Coming Home" launched by LeEco Pictures has achieved a box office record of more than 300 million yuan for art films in theaters, and was exclusively launched on LeEco for the first time, bringing LeEco considerable traffic, brand and advertising effects.

LeTV's full-chain business model, which covers the entire upstream and downstream of content production and distribution and broadcasting on all platforms, has achieved both brand and commercial success, and is also becoming a target of plagiarism for various Internet giants in their development of the video field.

Excellent content drives strong growth in traffic and advertising

Thanks to LeTV's high-quality content, LeTV's traffic growth is obvious to all. According to iResearch data, compared with the same period last year, the average daily UV of the first-tier mainstream video media has increased significantly year-on-year. As of the first half of 2014, LeTV's UV increased by 72% year-on-year, ranking first among mainstream video media, nearly 30 percentage points higher than the second place. iQiyi, Tencent, and Sohu ranked second to fourth respectively.

Driven by the same content, LeTV's advertising growth has also made a big breakthrough. According to data, in the first quarter of this year, LeTV achieved 360 million in China's online advertising market revenue, jumping from 15th place in the first quarter of 2013 to 12th place, with a year-on-year growth rate of 143.2%, surpassing old portals such as NetEase and Phoenix, becoming the fastest growing Internet company.

In addition, based on LeTV's content, LeTV has also developed derivative businesses such as the LeTV Ecosystem Official Flagship Store. For example, derivative products related to "Girls' Gang", "Coming Home", and "The Expendables" will be sold on the LeTV Ecosystem Official Flagship Store, and an O2O model for movie and sports ticketing has been developed. This model not only reflects the LeTV Ecosystem's vertical industry chain integration operating philosophy, but also improves the LeTV Ecosystem model, which is now nearly perfect, and promotes LeTV's transformation from a single advertising income of "traditional Internet media" to diversified industry income.

LeEco's overseas strategy achieves breakthrough with all-round investment

At the shareholders' meeting held at LeTV at the beginning of the year, Jia Yueting officially announced his overseas strategy. Recent announcements from LeTV also stated that Jia Yueting's main task when traveling abroad recently is to implement and execute LeTV's overseas strategy, including the establishment of subsidiaries, the formation of overseas teams, and business negotiations with relevant partners and potential partners.

In this regard, a person familiar with LeTV said that the in-depth content cooperation with overseas film and television production agencies is one of Jia Yueting’s main tasks overseas this time, such as the purchase and production of overseas film and television dramas, etc. According to the reporter, of the two LeTV subsidiaries in the United States, the Los Angeles subsidiary will focus on content production and copyright procurement, including top cooperation with Hollywood.

There are also reports that Jia Yueting, chairman of LeEco, attended the premiere of The Expendables 3 in Los Angeles on the 11th. It is understood that although LeEco has produced a series of film and television works, it is the first time for it to attend the premiere of a film and television drama, which is enough to show that Jia Yueting attaches great importance to the overseas market.

In addition, LeTV's massive 4K content will also provide LeTV with sufficient confidence to go overseas. It is understood that this year all LeTV content will be fully 4K, and LeTV's self-made content will occupy more than 70% of the domestic 4K content market share, and it is in a monopoly position of domestic self-made 4K content. LeTV Pictures has launched nearly 10 4K blockbusters such as "Coming Home" directed by Zhang Yimou; LeTV's Huaer Films will also launch "The Legend of Miyue", the sister film of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", which will also be broadcast in 4K. At the same time, LeTV also plans to introduce a total of about 300 episodes of 4K TV series. I believe that in the future, LeTV will also use or produce more 4K sources for the upcoming Hollywood movies and other popular overseas film and television works.

From the perspective of the industry, Youku Group has Alibaba as its backer, iQiyi has Baidu behind it, and Tencent Video is even more of a second-generation rich man. LeTV, which previously did not have the support of a rich dad, has been able to develop to this day in the video industry, which is famous for burning money. Assuming that this refinancing is successful, the shortcomings in the development of LeTV's ecosystem will be solved, and LeTV's content side will also be more competitive due to the replenishment of funds. In the future, it is even conceivable that LeTV is likely to adopt a new model of one-stop service for film and television drama scripts, production, shooting, distribution, and promotion, and then LeTV's entire content side will be revitalized. Undoubtedly, if this refinancing is successful, LeTV is likely to use its content side as a breakthrough to achieve a more rapid development of the entire LeTV ecosystem and open up its path to overseas expansion.

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.