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one day before the first round of the world cup qualifiers against japan, iqiyi sports posted a message saying, "we dare not think about getting all three points, but if we can grab one, it will be a great start for the chinese national team."

one day later, the match started and the japanese team took the lead in the 12th minute. at the end of the match, the japanese team defeated the chinese team 7:0, and the chinese team had only one shot on goal.

this match created many "shameful" records, including the biggest loss to japan in history, the most goals conceded in a single world cup qualifier, and the biggest loss in a world cup qualifier. next, the chinese national football team will play against saudi arabia and australia in succession, which will undoubtedly be tough battles.

after the game, social media and wechat moments were flooded with discussions about the 7:0 defeat. at the same time, iqiyi, the exclusive broadcaster of the game, was attacked for requiring 9 yuan to purchase the "i sports continuous monthly subscription" service.it is worth noting that after the game started, the topic "i paid to watch it on iqiyi" quickly became the number one trending search on weibo. some fans posted on social media that iqiyi sports, which had obtained the exclusive broadcast rights, was unable to watch the live broadcast after paying. the customer service phone number was also busy.

subsequently, iqiyi app announced on its customer service page that the number of consultations is currently at a peak, and in order to save time, it is recommended that consultations be made again at 16:00 the next day or at the same time the next day to avoid long queues.

01 the tragedy of copyright

in addition to tencent and iqiyi, other broadcasting platforms currently active in the field of sports copyright include cctv and migu video.

for iqiyi, whether it was its predecessor, new ying sports, or later, new ai sports (iqiyi sports), copyright distribution is the foundation of its business. for the european cup that ended in july, new ai sports, which has the exclusive broadcasting rights for all media, distributed the copyright to cctv and migu video.

the attention paid to the world cup qualifiers needs no further explanation. every match of the chinese national football team has attracted great attention. kuaima financial media learned that the afc had held discussions with cctv, migu video and other media platforms, but ultimately failed to reach a cooperation agreement due to copyright price issues.

on the evening of the 5th, cctv sports officially released a statement saying that the copyright of the world cup asian qualifiers round of 18 was held by the asian football group (afg), the agent of the asian football confederation, and cctv failed to reach a cooperation agreement with them because the other party's offer was extremely high. cctv5 was unable to broadcast the game live because it did not obtain the copyright.

industry insiders said that the copyright fee for a round of 18 in the world cup qualifiers may not be much different from the price of la liga's distribution rights this season. although la liga's copyright has fallen in recent years, with strong teams such as real madrid, barcelona and atletico madrid, and 38 rounds of matches, the price will definitely not be too cheap.

in other words, the price that cctv could not accept was finally accepted by iqiyi sports.on august 28, iqiyi sports announced that it would broadcast the top 18 matches exclusively on all media on the evening of september 5. afg also issued a statement that except for xin ai sports, no other organization in mainland china was authorized to broadcast the matches.

in other words, hundreds of millions of fans who want to watch the chinese national football team's games can only watch them through the iqiyi sports app and the new iqiyi sports douyin account, except for a small number of them who watch them through pirated broadcasts and private links.at present, the xin ai sports douyin account has started selling 99 diamonds (equivalent to 9.9 yuan) to watch the game.

in fact, with the increase in copyright fees, the price of live broadcasts has also risen in recent years. in the past few years, the price of a single football match was generally 6 yuan. this season, it costs 8 yuan to buy a single premier league and la liga match. the first round of the world cup qualifiers costs 9 yuan per match.

if the game is calculated based on the payment of tens of millions of people across all platforms, the membership income will be close to 100 million yuan. if advertising fees are added, the income should be considerable. this may be the biggest reason why iqiyi sports paid a high price for the exclusive broadcasting rights of all media.

on social media, fans have been furious about iqiyi sports' charging practices. "the games of clubs in the chinese super league, premier league and la liga are commercial activities in themselves, and paying to watch the games is understandable. but the national team level games also charge fees. iqiyi has no bottom line in making money."

02 first half performance crash

nowadays, if you want to watch the chinese national football team's games, you have to spend time and money. cctv used the word "extremely high" to describe the broadcast price, but iqiyi still bought it despite the high price. why?

kuaima financial media has a glimpse of the latest financial report released by iqiyi. data shows that iqiyi achieved revenue of 7.439 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year decrease of 5%. in terms of specific businesses, the main business membership revenue was 4.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9%; online advertising revenue decreased by 2% to 1.46 billion yuan; content distribution business increased by 2% year-on-year to 698 million yuan, and other businesses increased by 16% year-on-year to 784 million yuan.

at the same time, iqiyi achieved a net profit of 68.69 million yuan, a year-on-year drop of 81.2%.

in the view of "kuaima financial media", membership income needs hit dramas to attract. in 2023, iqiyi will truly achieve profitability by relying on the phenomenal popularity created by "kuangbi" at the beginning of the year. this year, iqiyi achieved revenue of 31.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%. among them, membership service revenue was 20.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%. the reason for the decline in revenue in the first half of 2024 is also due to the decrease in the number of hit dramas. there is money to be made if there are hits, and without hits, it will immediately fall into crisis.

creating a hit product requires more financial investment, but iqiyi started to "reduce costs and increase efficiency" in 2021.from the perspective of content costs, from 2021 to 2023, iqiyi's content costs will drop from 20.7 billion yuan to 16.2 billion yuan. in the 2024 semi-annual report, this indicator is only 4.1 billion yuan.

in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, iqiyi reduced its purchasing power and vigorously developed self-produced dramas. at present, iqiyi's self-produced dramas account for about 70%. however, the increase in the proportion of self-produced dramas has brought about an 81.25% decline in net profit in a single quarter. in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, excellent content creators have also chosen to leave. the most noteworthy one is that zijin chen, the author of "the hidden corner", left youku.

iqiyi, which saw both revenue and net profit decline, delivered a disappointing quarterly performance. after the results were released, the capital market also reacted quickly, with the stock closing down 15.58% that day and the total market value falling to us$2.5 billion.

during trading on september 5, iqiyi hit a 52-week low of $2.01 per share.throughout 2024, the stock price of iqiyi, which has few hit products, has fallen by more than 58%, and its current market value is only us$1.939 billion.if calculated based on the historical high of us$46.23 per share, iqiyi's stock price has fallen by 95.6% since its listing, and its market value has evaporated by more than us$42.45 billion (approximately rmb 301 billion).