Hunan Satellite TV takes back the video broadcasting rights: digging a hole for itself?

On May 8, Hunan TV announced that it would no longer cooperate with other new media in the future, and all its programs would be broadcast by Mango TV itself, under the pretext of building its own video brand, protecting copyright, and not cooperating with new media without authorization! In this year's World Cup, CCTV did not open the live broadcast rights to any video website, but only broadcasted it online through its own CCTV. What is worrying is that Zhejiang TV, Jiangsu TV and many other branded TV stations may follow suit, and a stone stirs up a thousand waves, and various voices follow one after another, and more of them are pessimistic voices.

From the recent Internet cleaning campaign that took many American and domestic dramas offline, to Hunan TV’s announcement today that it will close its doors and fight alone, it seems that China’s domestic video websites have reached their darkest moment. In fact, it is not just the video websites that are affected, but also portal websites and all types of Internet platforms that may use radio and television videos, including mobile Internet platforms.

Who will win the battle? What will happen to Internet videos?

In addition to portal websites, video websites filled with a large number of video collections were the first to be affected. It felt like they had worked hard for decades and were back to the days before liberation. In fact, this is true. When strong programs such as Jiangsu Satellite TV's "If You Are the One", Zhejiang Satellite TV's "The Voice of China", Hunan Satellite TV's "Happy Camp", and TV series produced by various TV stations were released on various video websites, tens of millions of clicks gave the websites and TV stations a shot of strong hormones, burying deep hidden dangers.

If all satellite TV stations stop authorizing copyrights to video websites, the video websites will suffer huge losses without their program content. The consequences of not having TV station support can be clearly seen from the ranking channels of Youku Video:

1. TV series: There are no more domestic dramas. Although remakes of old movies and bubble dramas are popular now, fortunately we still have TVB and self-produced dramas. It is not ruled out that there will be self-produced dramas in cooperation with TV stations in the future. 2. Variety shows: People born in the 80s must have watched the online variety shows from the Wu Zongxian era. Most of the domestic variety shows that are good are produced by purchasing foreign copyrights, but video websites can also slowly create their own original columns. At present, except for the few golden columns of satellite TV, the ones that can enter this list are all original works of the website. 3. Information: For video websites with a strong emphasis on entertainment, news information is originally the icing on the cake. Although the future trend is video information, it still takes time, so the impact is not very large. 4. Movies are basically unaffected, and other content is almost all generated by UGC of netizens.

To sum up: after the decision of traditional broadcasting, even if all satellite TV stations follow suit and stop providing all videos, the days of video websites will not be particularly difficult. The most affected are the broadcasting rights of variety shows. Of course, the broadcasting rights of such programs have always been a hot commodity and sought after by many video websites in recent years. Faced with the ban of the administrative order, it is time for video websites to consider their own variety shows.

In the short term, domestic video websites with obvious entertainment attributes may pay more attention to the production and recommendation of UGC content, and invest more heavily in TV drama copyrights to maintain their last position.

How will the video websites of radio and television be operated after the network is exposed?

Golden Eagle Network is the official website channel of Hunan Satellite TV. It is currently ranked more than 1,200 on Alexa. According to the search keywords provided by Alexa, the keywords that netizens pay most attention to are: 1. Hunan Satellite TV 2. Where Are We Going, Dad? 3. 2014 New Year's Eve 4. I Am a Singer 5. Where Are We Going, Dad? Hunan Satellite TV.

It is not difficult to see from the search keywords that the major variety shows produced at each stage every year do bring considerable traffic to Hunan Satellite TV, but in terms of actual proportion, the traffic of directly visiting the official website to watch videos is far less than the total amount of videos broadcast of related programs on other video websites.

In the short term, banning the broadcasting of some programs can indeed seize the initiative in some columns and change the habits of netizens, but this traffic cannot be converted into long-term accurate traffic for the official website of the satellite TV station. If the habitual thinking regards traffic as the number of on-demand views, such ratings are spectacular, but they cannot be sustained, and the revenue conversion is smaller than that of other video websites. The reason is very simple: the traffic supported by individual columns can increase the advertising value of a single column, but cannot increase the brand value of the official website of Hunan Satellite TV. The influence of the official website of the satellite TV station is not completely equivalent to the influence of Hunan Satellite TV. On the contrary, it will bring trouble to the operation of the website. For example, the advertising income of popular columns is inverted with the overall income of the website, resulting in uneven hot and cold. And this practice of cherishing one's own possessions has greatly weakened its own influence, because it used to promote a single column through multiple channels, but now it only has its own official channels, so the advertising value has also declined accordingly.

In fact, such a ban has happened in traditional media before. In the early days of the Internet, the sudden impact caught traditional media off guard and forced them to choose to use joint bans to deal with the challenge. However, Internet products such as forums, blogs, and Weibo, through the UGC model, major Internet giants (led by the three major portals) have successfully differentiated multiple bans by leveraging their platform advantages. The ban on video websites is no exception. Similarly, the competition between satellite TV stations is also fierce. The homogeneity of various variety shows is the best evidence. In fact, there are only a few popular programs in a year. In other words, the content produced by traditional TV media does not completely represent high quality and meet market demand.

After the broadcasting rights of video websites were blocked, Hunan Satellite TV will also face many challenges. The first is to solve the UGC problem of its own Golden Eagle Network content. If it just becomes a one-way production program without UGC, it will regress to web2.0, and the traffic supported by a few gold medal columns will not be of much value. But if it becomes a video website operation mode, it will face competition in the Internet field, and will have to face competition from old rivals such as Jiangsu Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV, Anhui Satellite TV, and Dragon TV. At least they have not explicitly stated that they will follow this practice. Even if they do, they will face the same competition.

On the other hand, the aging of the TV audience is an indisputable fact, and the ban on broadcasting rights can be considered an attempt to transform traditional radio and television media. However, the development of the Internet teaches us that the Internet is a diverse virtual world. It is a general term for the activities formed by people working, studying, interacting, communicating, relaxing, and entertaining in this special world of the Internet, as well as the values ​​and social mentality they reflect, including people's psychological state, thinking mode, knowledge structure, moral cultivation, values, aesthetic tastes, and behavior. All these phenomena have created the current Internet ecology, especially various platforms for interaction and communication.

If Hunan Satellite TV wants to solve its own transformation problems by creating its own video website and avoiding being banned, this move is actually digging a hole for itself. As for how deep the hole is, you will know once you jump in.

The ban on broadcasting rights by satellite TV cannot prevent the normal development of the Internet, because the normal spiritual needs of netizens can be met through diversified channels in the Internet world, rather than relying on a few gold medal programs. In the long run, the development of online media and the flow of personnel after the decline of traditional media will continuously strengthen the media attributes, professionalism and service depth of video websites and other Internet forms. Internet media and new media are not simply pasting and copying, but also professional media platforms with more flexible operation methods and layouts than traditional media. Disregarding the Internet and short-sighted closing of channels will accelerate the decline of traditional media.

In addition to Hunan Satellite TV, we also need to see the current predicament of the third- and fourth-tier TV stations in more than 3,000 counties and cities across the country. Seeking medical help in a hurry is not the best solution. Traditional media should put aside their own superiority and focus more on Internet operations rather than some narrow and clever aspects. Facing the ban, it also puts forward higher requirements for domestic video websites and related industries to quickly catch up with the professionalism of traditional media. This ban is precisely to help speed up. This incident is really a blessing in disguise!

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.