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interface news reporter | hu yujing

interface news editor | zhang youfa

faced with drastic changes in content formats and public sentiment, streaming media, as a defensive side, is looking for ways to respond.

september 25th2024 iqiyiiJOYat the autumn enjoyment conference, the most noteworthy thing is iqiyi’s change in attitude towards short dramas. just less than a year ago, iqiyi founder gong yu stated that the platform would only serve as a traffic platform to handle the streaming needs of micro-short dramas, and would not enter the production and broadcast of micro-short dramas.

this time, iqiyi launched "short theater" and "micro theater"."micro theater" will launch two new works every week, with content types focusing on male and female videos and the silver-haired community, with mainly 1-5 minutes of vertical screen content; "short theater" plans to launch one new work every week, covering ancient novels, modern puppets , suspense and other genres, each episode is 5-20 minutes long, mainly horizontal screen content.

perhaps to pave the way for this change, gong yua timeline of "long and short changes" was pulled out on the spot - the average number of episodes of tv series that obtained distribution permission in 2016 was 44.6, which was the peak of long-form videos occupying the audience's attention. since then, the long plays have become shorter and shorter, and the "mist theater" that emerged during this period is essentially a short drama series, used to accommodate suspense dramas that resist water injection. by 2023, the market size of paid micro-short dramas will reach 37.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 268%, while the average number of episodes of tv dramas that received distribution permission in the same year was only 29.7.in response to this change, iqiyi once again entered the micro-short series.

in 2018, iqiyi launched the series of vertical screen short films "life has attacked me" and "the director has attacked me". however, as the main focus of the series shifted to short video platforms and mini programs, the content emphasized coolness and sinking. iqiyi has shown a prudent attitude towards short dramas in terms of content strategy.

a few years have passed, and with the rapid growth of the short drama market, among the long video platforms,youku has a short drama channel, tencent video has "shifen theater", mango tv has a mature "damang short drama" label, while iqiyi is still in a wait-and-see mode.

this action is an inevitable choice for iqiyi after the changes in the general environment. it can also be seen from this some basic ideas of streaming media when laying out short content.

the duration and themes of iqiyi’s micro theater are closer to those of mini-program short plays., not having to pay for a single episode to unlock, and all being included in the membership payment system, is its main highlight. the purpose of this is to stabilize the membership scale and at the same time occupy the fragmented time of long video users with short dramas.

at the same time, iqiyi is trying to differentiate its business model from mini-program dramas. gong yucheng,the business model in which more than 90% of the revenue of micro-short dramas is used for streaming is "very strange". "the business model designed by iqiyi is to distribute more than 70% of the revenue to content producers."

paying attention to content quality has always been a proactive strategy for streaming media to establish its own advantages. he emphasized,"iqiyi short dramas do not mean low-cost online dramas, and micro dramas do not mean low-quality mini program micro short dramas."

this view is also in line with the content evolution of the short drama industry since last year. the person in charge of a leading short drama production company told jiemian entertainment in july that high-quality products will be one of the most important trends in local short dramas in the second half of the year. "many peers are producing high-quality products." her company is also planning high-quality products. transform into short plays and try to "challenge more film-like operations". however, she believes that the current commercial returns of high-quality short dramas are not clear, "i think they are definitely not profitable."

reforming the "weird" investment model is another trend in the second half of the year.the person in charge of the above-mentioned short drama company said that the leading short drama companies in the industry can only get 7% of the payment scale of a short drama, while non-leading short drama companies can only get 5%-6%. this model is unreasonable and unsustainable.

according to him, 80% of the total revenue of the short drama industry last year was shared by douyin, 10% was shared by wechat mini programs, and of the remaining 10%, 30% went to the streamer and 70% to the producer, and these 70% still need to be paid. covers all content production costs.

iqiyi's attempt to merge long and short is not only reflected in "micro-short dramas", but also in deeper aspects such as production and broadcasting models and marketing. ,this is particularly evident in variety shows.

the "long video" enabled by iqiyi in "farming bar"+ short video+the broadcast mode of "live broadcast" will be reused in programs such as "burning moon" and "my home page". che che, who returned to "china new rap" as the chief director, said on the spot,“for the understanding of short video content, forvlog, regarding content interaction, account incubation, second creation extension, talent development, and what is the live broadcast sales culture, our experience is gained from practical operations, notPPTgot it. "

in addition to entering short content, overseas has once again become the focus of iqiyi’s discussion. gong yu cited google search data and said that korean dramas are cooling down globally, while chinese dramas are heating up.in the southeast asian market, chinese dramas have overtaken korean dramas in popularity and market share, becoming the preferred entertainment content for local users.

against this background, the overseas expansion of chinese dramas seems to be reaching a turning point.gong yu said, “the value of mainland content in overseas marketing has significantly increased, and it is worthwhile for content creators to start investing their energy and focus on producing content for overseas markets.”

ai is the third major variable in the video industry according to gong yu. gong yucheng,at this stageAIthe development trend of "large model" intelligent agents is to gain in-depth insight into content and user needs and provide users with emotional companionship. to this end, iqiyi will launch "peach 2.0".

this summer's hit dramas "sauvignon blanc season 1" and "tang dynasty strange stories from the west" have successively launched virtual characters, such as ai xiang liu, ai lu lingfeng, etc., but at present, the value of this interaction mainly lies in extending the user's stay time. , it is difficult to provide tangible content and commercial increments in the short term.

in terms of content strategy, iqiyi chief content officer wang xiaohui divides works into two categories: "forward deconstruction" and "reverse construction." the former deconstructs family, marriage, and workplace, and its representative work is "the king of comedy stand-up season"; the latter aims to rekindle the audience's confidence, and its representative works are "my altay" and "flowers".

from this, it can be deduced that comedy, love and suspense correspond to each other.xiaodou theatre, love theater, and mist theater are responsible for the task of deconstruction. among them, love theater "is the most powerful in deconstructing the current relationship between women and society." the task of construction is completed by the "everyone theater", a serious literary adaptation theater, and the "mote theater", which specializes in innovative miniseries.

the content of this iqiyi enjoyment conference can be seen as the long-term video response to the declining mood of the times and the long-term struggle of short videos to reshape content consumption. whether it is micro theater and short theater, or the general trend of deconstruction at the content level, they all point to "downward compatibility" and search for identity and psychological positioning with the grassroots public.

amid the great changes and trends, iqiyi's "drawing ground as a prison" is reflected in its past emphasis on the evolution of reality-themed dramas, genres and audio-visual aesthetics, and its desire to lead the development of the long-form video industry.

at the beginning of this year, gong yu stated that iqiyi is currently only involved in the micro-short drama market in an advertising model and does not produce short dramas. the main reason is“the aesthetics of this business are very different from the aesthetics, talent types, and business ecology of iqiyi’s current main film and television business.”。

at the iqiyi world conference in april this year, wang xiaohui realized thata drastic change in the mentality of content consumers, but he stillemphasize"empathize downwards and create upwards" and "open the ceiling of creation upwards", and continue to increase the emphasis on realistic themes, launching "everyone theater" and "mote theater", the former is a literary adaptation, and the latter is an aesthetic short series of audiovisual innovations.

but faced with the harsh reality, iqiyi had to choose to "sink". wang xiaohui mentioned, “except for the rigid demand industries of food, clothing, housing and transportation, most industries are non-rigid demand industries. the foundation of non-rigid demand industries is based on having money, leisure, and mood, but the problem we are facing now is no money, no leisure, and no mood. ”

at the end of his speech, he mentioned that iqiyi loses to bookishness and wins from bookishness, and sometimes bookishness may not be able to defeat charlatanism.

the decline of iqiyi may also be due to considerations of maintaining profitability and returning to growth. at present, iqiyi no longer discloses the scale of paid membership. in its second quarter financial report,iqiyi's revenue and net profit both dropped. at the same time, the broadcast of dramas such as "fox fairy matchmaker: moon red" and "harbin 1944" did not meet expectations. the industry's confidence in iqiyi will not be until the summer release of " "tang dynasty strange stories: journey west" and "the king of comedy stand-up season", which was launched in august, have been gradually restored.

five months have passed, and iqiyi has chosen to move closer to the "jianghu spirit". whether this attempt by creators to collude with the public can be transformed into works and commercial dividends, allowing iqiyi to remain "unique", requires long-term verification.