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Friday night is the happiest night for every worker.

On the last Friday of the first half of the year, Tencent Video launched a new program "A Pleasant and Wonderful Night" to support workers, and the main theme was "Friday Carnival Night".

As soon as the show started, many people smelled a familiar smell: the producer was Miwei Media, the host was Ma Dong, and the show was mainly about comedy performances. This team has always been the standard for iQiyi in previous years.

Before everyone could finish watching the show, the program team took the initiative to "make trouble". Guest Huang Bo turned into a viewer who "thought he had dialed the wrong channel" and asked Ma Dong directly:

“Why did you come to Tencent Video again this time?”

"I have already agreed with Party A that I will cooperate with Party A. After cooperating with Party A, I will also cooperate with Party A. Party A's cooperation will not hinder Party A's cooperation. We are all Party A!"

Ma Dong is indeed the "best talker". Behind this tongue-twister-like answer, it is actually very simple:

“There is no eternal client, only an eternal market.”

-Change Party A-

This is not the first time that Ma Dong has changed the client.

In 2012, Ma Dong, then assistant director of CCTV's Variety Channel, chose to resign. As a "quasi-division-level" cadre, he gave up the system and his identity, took up a new position at iQiyi, became the "chief content officer", and established the Ma Dong Studio. In short, Ma Dong has the final say on what iQiyi broadcasts.

In the year he took office, Ma Dong made a drastic revision to iQiyi's content, focusing on both purchasing content copyrights and producing content. At that time, iQiyi did not have the ability to produce original content, so Ma Dong suggested that CEO Gong Yu go to his "old employer" Hunan TV to purchase the online copyright of TV programs.

In 1998, after graduating from the Beijing Film Academy, Ma Dong was assigned to Hunan TV. At that time, Hunan TV had just been launched for two years and had shown its prowess through programs such as "Happy Camp". It was considered the leader among provincial TV stations at the time. Ma Dong hosted a talk show called "Good to Talk" on Hunan TV. Due to the rather explicit topics discussed, the show was stopped not long after it was launched.

In 2001, Ma Dong participated in the competition for the producer of CCTV's "Challenge Host" and successfully "changed jobs". After joining CCTV, in addition to "Challenge Host", he also hosted another program - "Cultural Interviews". In this program discussing the fate of Chinese culture, Ma Dong's words were sharp. He once accused Guo Jingming of having no sense of social responsibility and avoiding plagiarism. He also asked Chen Danqing with concern: "What do you think of this society?" He felt a bit like a traditional intellectual.

The experience of these two programs helped Ma Dong accumulate the skills of "speaking well" and "in-depth interviews". In the 2009 Spring Festival Gala, he became the director of CCTV's language programs, and he was in charge of all programs that involved speaking. Ma Dong's outstanding professional ability also made him, Cui Yongyuan, and Dou Wentao, known as the "three horses" of Chinese talk shows.

Let's get back to the topic of buying copyrights. Under Ma Dong's suggestion, Gong Yu finally spent 200 million to buy the exclusive online copyrights of the second season of "Where Are We Going, Dad?", "Day Day Up", "Happy Camp", "Variety Show" and "Let's Date". With these programs, Gong Yu made a lot of money through advertising. Ma Dong's value in iQiyi began to show.

In addition to purchasing copyrights, Ma Dong's other focus is to urge iQiyi to produce original content and develop self-made online variety shows and web dramas. One year after taking office, "The Rap of China" was born. As a talk show, "The Rap of China" has achieved great success.

Mou Di, the chief producer of "The Debaters", initially came to discuss the copyright of the variety show with Ma Dong as a representative of CCTV. Unexpectedly, he was successfully "turned against" by Ma Dong and led more than 20 people from CCTV to "collectively jump to iQiyi".

After graduating from Communication University of China in 2008, Mou Di joined CCTV as the director of "Happy China Tour". At the age of 22, he became the executive director of the "National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Mid-Autumn Festival Gala", the youngest director of CCTV at the time. During his 6 years at CCTV, Mou Di created many programs such as "Thank God You Are Here" and "Guinness China Night", and was a business backbone of CCTV. Mou Di led the team to collectively change jobs, which also caused the largest talent loss in CCTV at the time. After joining iQiyi, Mou Di became the director of Ma Dong's studio and created the first season of "U Can U Bibi" with Ma Dong.

There is a bit of drama behind the birth of "The Rap of China". One day, Ma Dong and Gao Xiaosong were having dinner. The two discussed a topic for several hours. At the end, Gao Xiaosong casually said: Why not make a debate show? The next day, when he came to the company, Ma Dong asked Mou Di to make a plan. A few days later, Mou Di came to Ma Dong with a few pages of PPT to report. The first season of "The Rap of China" was born.

When "The Debaters" was first launched, almost no one was optimistic about it, and no advertisers were willing to invest in it. However, as content talents cultivated by top media, Ma Dong and Mou Di have a keen sense of smell in terms of content. In 2013, the number of mobile phone users in China exceeded that of computer users for the first time. However, looking at the online platforms at that time, there was a serious lack of original content, and there were few programs that showed the collision of young people's views.

"We are looking for a group of brave people. We want to make a real online variety show that is authentic and diverse. We want the audience to know that all things can be viewed from various angles." Ma Dong frankly admitted his original intention of making "The Debaters".

In the end, the combination of Ma Dong and Mou Di found a group of "weird debaters" with different characteristics and styles across the country. "Bringing together a group of 'goblins' who can suffocate if they don't talk, they can argue for two hours over trivial matters, and in the end there is still no result..." The first season of "The Debaters" quickly became popular, with a total of over 100 million hits, and the number of Weibo topic readings easily exceeded 1 billion.

When the second season of "The Rap of China" was launched in 2015, the total number of views exceeded 600 million, with the highest number of views reaching an astonishing 161 million, breaking many industry records and ushering in the golden age of pure online variety shows. During Ma Dong's tenure, iQiyi also purchased the Korean drama "My Love from the Star" and the original "Running Man", and launched online dramas such as "Grave Robbers' Chronicles", leading iQiyi into the fast lane of development.

-Reset to zero-

The success of "The Debaters" has responded to the voices that questioned Ma Dong. He has demonstrated one thing with his strength: no matter where you are, good content is always king.

When the third season of "The Rap of China" was launched, everyone was surprised to find that Ma Dong was no longer the chief content officer of iQiyi, but appeared in a new identity as the CEO of Miwei Media. His relationship with iQiyi changed from an employment relationship to a cooperative relationship. Ma Dong led the core team of "The Rap of China" including Mou Di to start their own business.

Judging from the official announcement released by iQiyi, the two parties "parted peacefully". Whether leaving CCTV or leaving iQiyi, Ma Dong has always handled the relationship with Party A well. In addition to Ma Dong's high emotional intelligence, this is more of an economic account.

Five months after its establishment, Miwei Media announced that it had received Series A financing, with a valuation of 2 billion yuan. Innovation Works, led by Kai-Fu Lee, followed by Entertainment Works, and in 2018, it received strategic investment from Sequoia Capital. After going it alone, Ma Dong and iQiyi formed a "win-win" situation. The investment amount of the third season of "U Can U Bibi" exceeded 300 million yuan, once again breaking the investment record for Internet variety shows.

It is not difficult to understand why Ma Dong and iQiyi "parted peacefully". As the chief content officer, Ma Dong single-handedly built iQiyi's rich and diverse content ecology. At the same time, through original programs such as "The Rap of China", he has enhanced iQiyi's industry status and made an indelible contribution. Even if he "left" to start a business, he still locked the "exclusive broadcasting rights" of "The Rap of China" to iQiyi, which did not cause a linear generational break in the platform's content ecology. The seven seasons of the program have escorted iQiyi all the way, and it has also contributed to iQiyi's listing in the United States.

From the perspective of the media industry, Ma Dong's choice to start his own business is also a general trend. In 1999, when Ma Dong was still working at Hunan TV, a seminar on "separation of production and broadcasting" was held in Changsha. This was a high-level seminar on program innovation in China's television industry, co-hosted by the CCTV Research Office and Hunan TV. The seminar focused on the two practical models of "production within the system" and "production outside the system".

Ten years later, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television clearly stated that the main task of the reform of separation of production and broadcasting is to change the simple self-production and self-broadcasting model. In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee once again made it clear that "under the premise of upholding the franchise of publishing rights and broadcasting rights, it is allowed to separate production and publishing, production and broadcasting."

The separation of production and broadcasting has triggered a new round of cultural system reform in China's media industry, giving birth to mainstream media groups such as Shanghai Media Group and Hunan Radio and Television Group. But at the same time, with the iteration of Internet new media technology, a large number of traditional media people have entered the market, just like Ma Dong's choice.

After Ma Dong, also joining iQiyi were Zheng Wei, the former head of CCTV Finance Channel (who later went to Toutiao, Youku and other companies), and Chen Wei, the former deputy director of Zhejiang Satellite TV Program Center; Wang Ping, the former deputy director of Hunan TV, went to Youku, and Long Danni, the former CEO of Tianyu Media, founded Wajijiwa; Tian Ming, the former director of Dragon TV, went to Canxing Entertainment, and deputy director Su Xiao founded Lemon Studios after resigning; Wang Peijie, the former deputy director of Jiangsu Satellite TV, founded Yuanjing Films after resigning, and Gong Libo, the former deputy director, founded Dadao Culture after resigning.

Whether in terms of company development or industry influence, Ma Dong can be regarded as a leader in the transformation of media professionals. After the establishment of Miwei Media, although it was deeply bound to iQiyi, the original team of "The Rap of China" cooperated with Tencent Video as early as 2016 to create the first celebrity werewolf killing interview variety show in China - "The Temptation of Dinner". The familiar "Kang Dong" combination, the iron-clad strange debaters, and different special guests in each episode. Although this show is completely different from "The Rap of China" in form, it feels like a change of soup but not medicine. After two seasons, there was no follow-up.

Compared with the cooperation with Tencent, Ma Dong's contribution to iQiyi is obviously greater. In addition to "Strange Talk", "Summer of the Band" launched in 2019 is also a phenomenal program. In 2021, with Mou Di's insistence, Mi Wei gave up the idea of ​​continuing the hit and chose to venture into the comedy track. In the end, "The Annual Comedy Competition" landed on iQiyi. The two seasons of the show gained comedy fans and brought a lot of members to iQiyi. According to the financial report released by iQiyi in 2022, it achieved full-year profitability for the first time, and these hit variety shows contributed greatly.

But, we still have to go our separate ways in the end.

In 2012, when Ma Dong chose to leave CCTV and join iQiyi, he said, "People should have the spirit of returning to zero. I am already in my 40s, and basically I have to return to zero completely every few years. I think this is the only way to live meaningfully."

For the market, moderate relaxation and returning to zero may be the only healthy competition.

-be yourself-

As for why Ma Dong "jumped" from iQiyi to Tencent Video, an industry insider revealed to "Entertainment Spring and Autumn" that the reason is actually very simple, that is - money. It is reported that iQiyi and Miwei have not reached an agreement on the commercial division - the latter's appetite is getting bigger and bigger. For iQiyi, which is also short of money, cultivating the next Miwei can maximize its own interests.

In recent years, as long video platforms have entered the stock market, the phenomenon of "using fans to switch platforms" is not uncommon. How to retain users, everyone has their own unique ways.

At the same time as "A Wonderful Night of Pleasure" was officially announced to be launched on Tencent Video, iQiyi also announced that it had invited Stephen Chow to be the initiator to launch "The King of Comedy Stand-up Season" - perhaps, this is also a killer move after the complete breakup with Ma Dong - but whether it can become a killer weapon remains to be seen.

There is nothing unpleasant about the breakup with iQiyi. An industry insider said that with Ma Dong's emotional intelligence, it is impossible for him to break up with iQiyi. But for Ma Dong, in addition to considering his own interests, he undoubtedly also bears a risk - although the programs are all broadcast online, he still has to adapt to the new rules of the new platform.

Before becoming a well-known media figure, Ma Dong's biggest label was "the son of crosstalk master Ma Ji." Unlike the rule of "sons inherit their father's business" in the crosstalk world, Ma Ji never intended to let Ma Dong eat this bowl of rice since he was a child.

Ma Dong was already 30 years old when he entered the television industry in 1998. Before that, he studied computer science in Australia and worked as an IT guy for nearly ten years. In the media circle where fame must be achieved as early as possible, Ma Dong is actually a late bloomer. He was 45 years old when he left CCTV and was almost 50 when he founded Miwei. But Ma Dong seems to have never encountered a mid-life crisis. Instead, people forget his age and only remember the hit programs he brought. For a content person, it is undoubtedly a success.

Although he did not develop in the crosstalk world, in essence, Ma Dong has actually inherited his father's true teachings in the field of language art. As a representative of "critical crosstalk", many of Ma Ji's works are ideological and ironic. From "Good to Say" to "Challenge the Host" to "U Can U Bibi", Ma Dong has actually spent a long time in "questioning and answering". This process of thinking and output has made him live more deeply and more transparent than his peers. Therefore, we can see that he always achieves a language effect that can achieve a great effect in the show.

Many people spend their entire lives "seeking stability", but at every important historical turning point in life, Ma Dong is always "struggling" and being the client of his own life.

Regarding the topic of "job hopping", I would like to borrow a sentence from Ma Dong in "A Wonderful Night":

"In our industry, there is only one party, the audience."

Written by | Xiaomo
Planning | Entertainment Spring and Autumn Editorial Department