Rhino Entertainment Original
Text: Shen Wanting Editor: Pu Fang
2023 will be a year of "big reshuffle" for drama companies.
Looking back at the drama market in the past year, with the continuous promotion of supply-side reform, more and more high-quality content has been seen by the audience. Among the drama companies behind these top dramas, there are not only veteran film and television companies with deep qualifications, but also rising content rookies. By combing through the dramas that perform better in terms of popularity and word-of-mouth in 2023, it is not difficult to find that the ranking of drama companies has undergone new changes.
Top Labels: Breaking the Game and Falling Behind
Generally speaking, we Xi used to refer to Huace Film and Television, Noon Sunshine, Xinli Media, Ningmeng Pictures, Yaoke Media, and Ciwen Media as the "Big Six" drama companies. They often have rich production resources and experience, so they also have obvious advantages in terms of production capacity.
However, the performance of the "Big Six" in the past two years has not all been satisfactory, this year's "Big Six" has changed to "Big Four", no dramas have been broadcast at Noon and Ciwen, and the overall output of the other four has also decreased slightly compared with 2022.
Great Aim still wins by quantity. This year, a number of dramas such as "Going to a Windy Place", "Sanfenye", "All the Way to the Sun", "Spring Boudoir Dreamer", "Spring Warm Sun" and other dramas have been produced, covering themes such as pastoral, ancient puppets, modern puppets, and workplaces.
Among them, "Going to a Windy Place" at the beginning of the year brought a "pastoral**" wind to the drama market, and during the broadcast, the network popularity and ratings were among the best, and it won 8With a score of 7 points, it is the only hit film with good popularity and reputation this year.
"All the Way to the Sun" and "Three Points" also achieved good performance in terms of popularity, the former focuses on the depiction of the image of post-80s women and the portrayal of the cruel workplace, while the latter integrates the spirit of daring to work hard and going all out to pursue dreams in the relaxed urban love theme.
Ningmeng takes the boutique route. The three works handed over this year, "Love Only", "Ask the Heart" and "Yinian Guan Mountain", have an average score of nearly 8 points on Douban, which is unique among many drama companies.
Special mention here is the still popular costume drama "Yi Nian Guan Mountain", as the fifth drama on iQiyi station with a popularity of more than 10,000, the popularity has soared after the broadcast, although the current popularity trend is slowing down, but for Ningmeng, who has been deeply involved in the urban drama track, this attempt in the costume track should be successful.
"Asking the Heart" and "Love Only", which both belong to urban themes, are out of the circle with word-of-mouth, and the Douban scores are respectively. 2, especially "Ask the Heart", as Ningmeng's first realistic drama with medical treatment as the background, brings a wider range of realistic issues into the public eye by presenting complex medical cases, highlighting the power and social value of realistic themes.
In contrast, the overall quality and discussion of the dramas output by Xinli and Yaoke this year are not very outstanding. Xinli's four dramas "Ordinary Road", "The Wind Rises", "Stalker" and "Sun with Me" have fluctuating word of mouth, and the best performance is the spy war drama "Stalker". The average score of the three dramas "Hou Lang", "I Heard You Like Me" and "Plum Blossom and Red Heart" launched by Yaoke is below the passing line, and the popularity is also mediocre.
Among other top drama companies, Perfect Film and Television is a rare representative of an increase in production compared with 2022. According to statistics, the number of dramas that have been broadcast by Perfect in 2023 is 8, an increase of 2 over last year, and the themes involve medical, spy warfare, youth, emotion, Xianxia, martial arts and other diverse fields, among which the Douban scores of the two dramas "Chasing the Light" and "** Mission" have reached 8 points.
Huanrui Century, a big costume player, has a stable output, and this year, a martial arts drama "Lotus Tower" has exceeded 10,000 popularity in iQiyi Station, and has won nearly 560,000 people on DoubanA score of 5 points. Another current puppet "South Wind Knows My Mind", which is also starring Cheng Yi, does not have such a big response in terms of popularity and word-of-mouth.
In addition, Huanyu Film and Television and Straw Bear Pictures also have several works broadcast, but their influence is relatively limited, Huanyu's costume rebirth drama "For the Dark Fragrance" and Straw Bear's urban romance drama "Summer Flower" can be regarded as a small fire in the circle.
It can be seen that with the further improvement of the market's requirements for content, some leading companies have gradually fallen behind and lost their dominant position, and only by stably outputting high-quality content can veteran drama companies maintain their mainstay position and even succeed in breaking the game.
Rising Star: Breakthrough and Rise
Compared with traditional head companies, emerging production companies have limited annual production capacity, so they fluctuate more in content performance, and if a big drama does not get the expected return, it may affect the company's revenue for the whole yearOf course, if a certain drama becomes a hit, the company can also become an instant hit.
For example, Liubai Film and Television, the three dramas broadcast last year had a mediocre response, and this year it successfully broke through with the biggest hit drama "Hurricane". From the ratings to the popularity of the whole network to word of mouth, the popularity of "Hurricane" has even exceeded the expectations of the platform and the producer, and has become a rare popular and popular drama in 2023. In addition, this year's works include the urban drama "Mature Years" and the costume suspense drama "The Silk Case of the Ming Dynasty under the Microscope".
Also standing out is Xixi Films, which has only been established for 3 years. Last year's "Let's Try the World" failed in word-of-mouth, and this year launched three works of different types "Good Things Come in Pairs", "The Sea in My Dreams" and "Shen Yin", of which the first two were more than 30,000 in Tencent** station, and won a city in terms of national attention and discussion;The just-launched costume fairy drama "Shen Yin" has also topped the Maoyan popularity list, and the popularity is rising rapidly, which is expected to draw a successful end to 2023 for Xixi Films.
It is worth noting that many "hot" dramas have emerged in the field of ancient puppets and modern puppets this year, which has also led to the rise of many new forces in the production company.
For example, Xinglian Film and Television, the production company of the hit drama "Sauvignon Blanc" broadcast on Tencent in the summer, was established in 2019, and one of the major shareholders is Tong Hua, the original author of "Sauvignon Blanc".
iQIYI's second popular drama "Changfeng Crossing" this year, its production company Agni Pictures has been involved in the field of dramas since 2018, and it was not until this year that it began to emerge through this drama and "Love as a Camp".
Youku's "Long Moon Embers" and "Can't Hide Secretly" have made otter culture and wow haw wow emerge in the field of dramas.
As a new label under Quantum Pan Entertainment, Otter Culture focuses on the theme of ancient costumes, and "Hao Yi Xing", which could not be broadcast for various reasons, is its first work, and this year it finally came to the front of the stage through the circle of "Long Moon Embers".
And Wow Haw Haw Wow, who has been committed to making stars in the field of variety shows, won a share of the top drama track with "Secretly Can't Hide", and in line with its consistent style of variety shows, the show is also a youth idol style, harvesting many young fans. In addition, another youth campus drama "Minglong Boy" produced by Wow Haw Haw Wow was also launched on Youku recently, the difference is that the play focuses on the educational proposition of "college entrance examination".
At the same time, high-quality dramas such as "The Long Season", "Three-Body Problem" and "The Glory of the Fathers" that rely on word-of-mouth have also made drama companies such as *** Pictures, Linghe Culture, and Xinpai Media become this year's "dark horses".
Although there are not many works in the film industry, most of them have won a good reputation, and the popular suspense drama "The Hidden Corner" produced in 2020 has a Douban score of 88 points, this year's "The Long Season" is rated with 910,000 people, 9With a score of 4 points, it won the first highest-scoring domestic drama on Douban in 2023, and was highly recognized in the market and the industry.
Founded in 2016, Linghe Culture has previously focused on producing IP adaptations of suspense, adventure, and detective themes, and has also launched high-reputation dramas such as "Ultimate Notes" and "Royal Gift" in recent years, but they are only out of the circle in a small area. This year's "Three-Body Problem" is its first adaptation of a sci-fi IP, and it ended with 8The Douban score of 8 points has received widespread attention.
After the fire of "Chen Qingling" in 2019, Xinpai Media has basically not broadcast works with too much volume in the past two years, and this year with "The Glory of the Fathers" transformed into a period drama track, although the performance of the network side is average, but the TV ratings have a bright performance, and the Douban score is 83 points, it is the highest-rated period drama so far this year.
In addition to the drama companies that have risen with the head drama, we have also noticed that Xinguang Pictures and Stellar Gravity, which came out of the circle last year with the two dramas "Splendid Stars: The Moon Rises in the Sea" and "Canglan Jue", are slightly bleak this year.
Xinguang launched the ancient puppet drama "Le Youyuan" and the current puppet drama "I miss you very much" this year, although the former has a high-value lineup like Xu Kai and Jing Tian, but it still failed to make too many splashes;The latter is still in the hot broadcast period, and the popularity of Tencent has exceeded 26,000, but judging from the current trend, it is unlikely that it will explode.
Stellar Gravity also launched two dramas this year, namely "Seven O'clock Auspicious" and "I Want to Go Against the Wind". As another Xianxia drama after "Canglan Jue", Stellar intends to reproduce last year's explosive logic in "Seven O'clock Auspicious" but it was unsuccessful, and there is a certain gap in data and quality. I don't know if the next "Fox Demon Little Red Lady" series can make it continue its glory in 2022.
In general, the drama market in 2023 continues the "cost reduction and efficiency increase" in 2022, and the competition and cards in the industry are still continuing. For drama companies, under the general trend of reducing quantity and improving quality, only by cultivating the ability to improve quality content can they survive stably and durably.