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the rankings in the long video industry are quietly changing.

the 2024 summer drama season report just released by yunhe data shows that the first place is youku's "mo yu yun jian", and the second and third places are tencent video's "joy of life season 2" and "rose story" respectively.

as long videos reduce costs and increase efficiency, their content strategies are also adjusted accordingly, and ultimately transmitted to the content effectiveness.to some extent, the output of hit dramas determines the ranking of the platforms.this also means that opportunities are always there. this year, youku has caught up, demonstrated its outstanding content capabilities, and even started to take the lead.

facts have proved that hit dramas like "mo yu yun jian" have a strong ability to attract money. because it does not have a big ip fan base and top actors, the investment situation of "mo yu yun jian" was not optimistic before it was broadcast. but since the show was broadcast, its market share has soared. "the phone has been bombarded with advertisers who want to add more ads," said the person in charge of the investment of "mo yu yun jian". after 5 days of broadcasting, the advertising revenue and the number of advertisers of the show have increased by 3.5 times. it is reported that the advertising of general dramas is 70% before the broadcast and 30% after the broadcast, but "mo yu yun jian has reversed to a '30:70' ratio."

youku has fought a comeback, but challenges remain. how to continue to create hits is a topic it needs to face.

in the past six months, the outside world has seen the competition between long videos and short dramas and short videos. in fact, the long video industry is also turbulent.

"competition for long video supply was relatively fierce in the first half of the year," soochow securities pointed out in a recent research report. iqiyi, youku, tencent video, mango tv, and letv broadcast 4.5/6.5/7.5/1.0/0.5 dramas respectively, and the number of youku and tencent video increased year-on-year.

however, the fierce supply in the industry is not about quantity, but about the competition for big dramas. this year, all platforms have focused on making big dramas.

the dramatic effect is visible to the naked eye. a report by soochow securities pointed out thatthe top 20 dramas in the first half of the year accounted for 22.8% of the total market.among them, youku and tencent video each have 6, iqiyi has 5, and mango tv has 1 drama on the list. in terms of market share, youku and tencent video's market share increased year-on-year.

"tencent would rather not produce some mid-tier dramas, but concentrate resources on producing high-quality ones," ma huateng pointed out in january this year that the key to supporting the entire long-form video membership is a few big dramas, if not every month, at least one every quarter. "in the past, those small poles could not hold up, at most they could be used as telephone poles to post advertisements, and they were not valuable. now we need something that can hold up, and the best product is the channel."

in the second quarter of this year, youku and tencent video launched the hit dramas "mo yu yun jian" and "joy of life 2" respectively. among them, "mo yu yun jian" was certified by yunhe as a work with a playback volume of s+.

costume romance dramas have always been considered a must-win for top content on video platforms, and female users of such dramas usually account for 70-80%. however, high-quality suspense dramas such as "border water past" and "new life" are attracting young men back to the drama market, creating new user growth for video platforms. according to youku, male users of "border water past" account for more than 40%, which is more than 10 percentage points higher than the male users of costume romance dramas.

long videos have sparked a new round of competition, but the core of the competition has long been different.in the past, the conventional formula for the commercial value of a long drama was: super strong ip + top cast + advanced publicity and promotion standards. however, the formula has changed now. big ip and top streamers do not mean continuous victory.

"exploring certainty is no longer the only key to a hit product. platforms need to shift from the creative end to exploring more possibilities and finding emotional connection points and value-carrying points that are in sync with users," said xie ying, vice president of youku.

this is why long video platforms have been emphasizing the word "quality" in the past few years. a typical feature is that they focus on suspense dramas with high quality and profound expression.

quan xianglan, general manager of alibaba's shining studio, once used the first suspense drama "new life" co-produced by netflix and youku as an example to explain the characteristics of high-quality chinese dramas: concise volume, strict narrative structure, cinematic audio-visual style, exploring the complexity of human nature, and constructing multi-level plots.

"short-term and high-quality tracks are a major direction we are exploring."xie ying believes that it is a blue ocean of the future that can open up the market size between movies and long dramas. at the same time, because the episodes are short and condensed, it can focus on the core story and try some themes and techniques that were not possible in long dramas before.

in this way, high-quality dramas can not only gain a place in the long video industry, but also cope with the challenges of the short drama industry.

the direction is determined, but the methodologies of each platform are different. iqiyi focuses on self-made content; tencent is building a collaborative ecosystem with yuewen, new classics media, and tencent video; youku is betting on dark horses and meticulous development.

“good content + good creators + suitable actors are the only formula to increase the probability of a hit.it guides our layout of new quality content," xie ying pointed out.

in the past, good content was often limited to big ips. the advantage of big ips is that they already have a fan base, the content quality is also guaranteed, and there is a higher degree of certainty, but correspondingly, the copyright costs that the platform needs to pay are also higher. at the same time, there are only a few dramas that can become big hits. under this model, the platform will undoubtedly bear higher cost pressure.

choosing a big ip or a non-big ip work may seem like an economic calculation, but it actually tests the platform's accurate judgment of the content. after all, non-ip works, although with small copyright investments, also face a greater probability of failure and do not have absolute cost-effectiveness.

the optimistic side is that non-big ip works have already shown their potential.ancient idol dramas such as "sito", "chang yue jin ming", "xi hua zhi" and "mo yu yun jian" are all the first successful film and television works of the novel authors.

it is only the first step for youku to salvage these growth ips from the content pool. the next step is to find the right creative team to incubate them.

in the suspense track, youku pays more attention to original scripts, and uses film directors as the creative team, giving film directors and main creators creative freedom. for example, youku invited shen ao, the director of "new life", cao baoping, the director of "waterside past", and zhang yimou, the director of "snow labyrinth", and lv xing.

"the past by the water" tells the story of what happened in the virtual country of sanbianpo. zhang yuanhuan, general manager of alibaba entertainment yitian studio and producer of "the past by the water", believes that such adventurous projects can be realized because the platform and the creators' ideas are highly compatible.

in the formula of "good content + good creators + actor adaptation", once the content and creators are determined, the next step is the actors. youku believes in "actors rather than traffic", for example, "mo yu yun jian" chose wu jinyan and wang xingyue to pair up.

not a big ip, young creators, not popular actors, not top investment...if we count the better-performing dramas produced by youku in the first half of this year, most of them have these characteristics, and this methodology has been successfully verified.

platforms that have successfully launched high-quality dramas have received positive feedback from the market.

in 2023, "kuang da" created new records for iqiyi in terms of platform content popularity and membership revenue; "fang hua" broadcast on tencent showed 286 advertisements in 30 episodes.

this summer, the wind and water also flowed to youku. the popularity of "mo yu yun jian" exceeded 10,000 in 3 days after its launch, and the cloud data continued to rise, with the highest market share reaching 28.1%, which also led to a surge in youku app downloads and commercial growth.

according to data released by youku, "mo yu yun jian" has cooperated with more than 40 brands, creating many commercial records for youku. previously, xie ying said that in addition to the considerable membership income, "new life" has created diversified income in advertising and overseas distribution.

under the strategy of high-quality production, youku has also successfully obtained a number of well-received dramas this year.

judging from douban's ratings, youku white night theater's "waterside past", "pale fire" and "rebirth" ranked first, second and fifth in douban's ratings of suspense dramas this year, occupying three seats in the top 5. in addition, iqiyi's misty theater and tencent video's x theater each occupied one seat.

compared with other types of dramas such as ancient costume dramas, suspense dramas have a relatively small audience, but once they enter the mass circle, they will also achieve a double harvest of ratings and word of mouth. previous examples include iqiyi's "the hidden corner" and tencent video's "the long season".

in the non-standard content industry, constantly verifying methodology is a lifelong task for long video creators.

this summer, youku has fought a comeback. in the past few years, youku was often jokingly said to rely on dramas such as "the legend of zhen huan" and "do you know?" for retirement, but now the situation is very different. according to kuyun's "2024h1 tv series full-end playback report", in the first half of this year, youku's tv series playback volume rose to second in the industry, and the increase in traffic levels is obviously due to the new dramas.