Text | Lin Fujiko
In 2023, there were a lot of variety shows, including old IP such as Riding the Wind and Waves 2023 and China Rap Summit 2023, and new IP such as Stage 2023 and Let’s Go Now emerged in the market. At the same time, the industry is also actively innovating. There are new explorations in the mode of drama integration and derivative variety brand, and new incisions in the theme of physical variety and behind-the-scenes movies are also being explored.
The hot topic orientation of variety shows has also changed to some extent. In addition to common star entertainment, topics with social value are increasing. Recently, Weibo Hot Search # The most explosive 6 minutes and 32 seconds talk in the history of entertainment # originated from the feasibility of Tamia Liu and Hugh discussing specific environmental protection behaviors in "All the Way Forward", so the topic with practical significance comes from variety shows, which also shows that the social value concentration of variety shows is increasing.
However, under the appearance of the positive development of the variety industry, the situation of the variety traffic market is not optimistic. According to Yunhe data, in the first half of 2023, the effective broadcast of the cumulative feature film of the whole network variety increased by only 4% year-on-year, and the effective broadcast of the cumulative feature film of the Q3 network variety decreased by 7% year-on-year. Looking at the extended time, from 2020 to 2022, the cumulative feature films of the whole network were effectively broadcast by 37.2 billion, 32.2 billion and 27.6 billion respectively, and the traffic of the variety market was obviously declining year by year.
The decline in the traffic market directly affected the realization of variety shows. According to the data of Jirang Science and Technology, in 2023, the number of customers in the soft-wide market will increase, but the proportion of customers who only invest in online dramas will increase the most, and the trend of continuous old customers switching from variety shows to online dramas is obvious. Looking back at the brilliant period of variety show investment in 2016, more than 10 sponsorships for a program are close to the normal state, while 5 sponsorships are already at a good level.
The cold weather at both ends of the market and brand is mainly due to the changes in consumer behavior and demand of users, and the realization mode of variety shows can not meet the new requirements of the current market. Under the signal that the industry needs to be innovated, how to put the needs of users first and realize more yuan in the variety market has become the most important issue.
Under the background of users’ migration from TV terminal to network terminal and then to mobile terminal, the consumption path, consumption habits and planting methods of related content have all changed greatly, and the variety industry is facing a brand-new market environment, and some phenomena need to be paid enough attention.
The most obvious point is that users’ patience with long content has declined. As short video has become one of the main forms of people’s daily entertainment, users’ tolerance for long content is getting lower and lower. In other words, in the balance of users’ disposable entertainment time, if the variety shows watched for a long time can’t bring additional value, users’ choices will easily tilt to the side of fragmented entertainment.
Faced with this phenomenon, the drama side has come up with short plays to adapt to the environment. Although the variety side has put forward the concepts of "light variety" and "small fresh comprehensive", there are not many successful cases of these lightweight contents. In this year’s new IP of variety show, "Planting the Land" is more eye-catching. While grasping the documentary, it controls the length of the film. Although the content is lighter, it does not affect users’ love for the program. Perhaps the industry can change its thinking, do light-weight and long-term operation, and adjust the market share of "light" and "heavy" so that users can have variety shows all day to meet the various content needs of the market.
The second point is that the current mainstream variety forms are difficult to get close to the characteristics that young people love to share, love and interact. Nowadays, young users are more and more willing to express and share their love in various ways, just as barrage plays appear, beautiful dramas are created twice, and interesting videos are co-produced. Obviously, variety shows also need to find more ways to satisfy young users’ new habits of content consumption outside barrage.
From this point of view, a variety IP that combines multiple content forms may create more interactive space for users and enhance the link between variety IP and users. For example, the short, long and straight variety "Go All Out for Action" of Tik Tok, just outside the feature film, used short video challenge and variety live broadcast to enhance the interaction between the program and users, and users loved watching and playing together, which also made the program an explosion, with 11.71 billion official shakes and 53 hot searches in Weibo.
On the other hand, the user’s demand for "planting grass" is prominent, but the variety show has not been well accepted. In the era of information explosion, users need a "buyer" to screen and plant grass for them, and the video content is just the right person. A few years ago, the hot drama series The Longest Day In Chang’an promoted the popularity of "Shuipen Mutton" on the whole network, and the short video also promoted the development of regional cultural tourism, which all reflected the "planting grass" ability of video content. However, on the variety side, at present, the user consumption path of the long video platform is long, and it needs to jump or switch platforms frequently to complete the content-planting-consumption link. How to shorten the user’s path from content to purchase is also a challenge that the industry needs to face together.
If the variety show is regarded as a product, then the business model of this product is obviously not mature enough, and perhaps the single business model that relies heavily on investment promotion is not healthy enough.
The first is to combat the enthusiasm of industry innovation. In the past, projects with weak investment attraction would be stillborn, and how to improve the attractiveness of brands should always be considered when making content. Introducing traffic artists has become the most direct and effective means, which also makes the distribution of variety production expenses unreasonable. Now, although the platform has increased its support for new IP and potential tracks, it is just that the platform side and the content side share the high production pressure, which has not solved the situation that the program still depends on attracting investment.
Second, advertising investment has obvious ceiling. There are upper limits on the brand’s budget and the number of brands that can be accommodated in the program. Too many advertisements affect the user’s viewing experience, and the variety sponsorship also tends to the buyer’s market. The brand always expects to get higher returns with lower investment.
Third, the single business model has poor risk resistance. The most intuitive example is that the brand reduced its launch last year, which led to the naked broadcast of many variety shows, which brought a big blow to the industry. As mentioned above, it is even more bad news that the brand’s delivery tendency now flows from variety shows to online dramas.
In a word, relying heavily on investment promotion makes the variety industry quite a bit "looking at the sky to eat".
A few years ago, the industry was thinking about how to solve the problem of single business model. In 2020, the Youth Mango Festival created the offline IP theme park "Youth Mango City", giving play to the IP value of platforms such as "Star Detective" and "Escape from the Chamber of Secrets"; Iqiyi, on the other hand, tried to use the trend variety to bring goods to fashion e-commerce when developing the trend track.
Now, the commercial development of the link after the variety show has begun to get on the right track. "Nice to meet you" combined with the value of "planting grass" mentioned above, through operating the account on Tik Tok, and continuously outputting the related contents of the variety expression kernel, it completed the accumulation and precipitation of users of IP accounts, which increased by nearly one million in half a year, and the derivative short video programs achieved brand investment in the order of one million. The GMV of the official e-commerce live broadcast in helena rubinstein also exceeded 23 million.
According to the consulting data of the joint research industry, the overall market size of the variety show is basically stable between 55 billion and 60 billion yuan from 2017 to 2022, and the stagnant growth means that the industry urgently needs to find new amounts.
The new environment of user market and new channels of content flow may all be brought into the consideration of variety commercialization, and the possibility of realizing variety content can be re-explored from a new perspective.
coda
The existing problems in the variety industry are not formed overnight. The good news is that we have explored in the predicament and seen some new changes and new demands from the market.
We believe that content people who are good at innovation can find suitable solutions and complete the break of content and business model, so that variety shows can have a face closer to the characteristics of the new era and revitalize domestic variety shows.
* Original article, please indicate the source when reprinting.