In the past year, under the environmental impact of the economic cycle and the general trend of high-quality development of the platform, the industry's attitude towards the account-sharing content market has tended to be calm. However, when carefully combing the development data of long dramas at the end of the year, there were some surprise discoveries about account-sharing dramas.
In 2023, the number of new account-sharing dramas will be 49, and the proportion of the number of dramas in the long drama market will increase from 16% to 18%, and the effective ** volume will also rise by 2%.
This achievement is based on the 23% year-on-year increase in the effective ** volume of account-sharing dramas in 2022, and it has risen again.
In 2023, account-sharing dramas will also have outstanding performance in terms of popularity value, Douban score, and account-sharing box office. Not only urban love and campus sweet pets, but also the two account-sharing dramas with strong theme tracks include "The Most Cannibal Fireworks" and "When I Fly to You", so that Douban has a score of 75+, works with a box office of 50 million to 60 million have emerged, and there are also suspense tracks like "Traces of Disappearance", iQiyi's popularity peak exceeded 7600, and the representative works with a share score of 45 million + ran out.
It has been seven years since the emergence of the account-sharing drama track in 2016.
In the past seven years, the account-sharing drama market has not only cultivated a mature content ecology with multiple themes going hand in hand, but also excavated and precipitated a large number of creators who are well versed in the audience's needs. The account-sharing drama track continues to roll healthily, and it also continues to attract new creative forces to join. If the account-sharing drama market is compared to the soil, these talents are saplings rooted in fertile soil and constantly growing joints, frequently bringing the audience to share surprises.
accounted for nearly one-fifth.
In 2023, there will be a total of 49 new account-sharing dramas (long dramas), accounting for 18% of the number of dramas on the whole network. Among them, the number of new parts on iQi is 39, with a market share of nearly 80% in the account-sharing drama market.
Although I know the underlying logic of "content = income" of account-sharing content, it is the general trend of the development of the online content market. However, seven years ago, when the first part of the account drama "Demon Out of Chang'an" was launched on iQiyi, it was hard to imagine that this "small but beautiful" track could develop stably to its current scale.
In 2023, the account-sharing drama market will rise against the trend, and the thrust will come from two aspects.
On the one hand, it is the adjustment of the overall format of the long drama market. Self-made dramas and customized dramas focus on the development of head projects or pioneering innovative themes, and objectively leave the creation of small and medium-sized drama markets and just-needed themes to account-sharing dramas.
Take the account sharing score in 2023 to exceed 35 million, and the Douban score is 72's costume romantic comedy "Protect Our City Lord" as an example.
This is a well-positioned small and medium-sized costume drama, the story volume is no longer upgraded at the level of "City Lord Dispute", and the scene makeup is also the pursuit of refinement within the controllable cost. But from the topicality of "female dressing" to "gender equality", to the funny "eating" ability of sand sculptures; From the emotional value provided by the smooth and natural happy ending, to the feelings of family and country in the world and harmony among all nations, "Protect Our City Lord" provides a pressure release that is in line with contemporary values, and is a simple and direct pleasant experience.
This kind of light expression is what small and medium-sized account-sharing dramas are good at, and when it is changed to the head drama, it will have to balance the concerns of all parties. Under the trend of self-made dramas and custom dramas concentrating on the head, as long as the positioning is accurate, account-sharing dramas have more room to display.
On the other hand, it is the mainstreaming of the theme of account-sharing dramas and the upgrading of production standards. In 2023, there will be outstanding account sharing results, not only traditional costume sweet pet dramas, urban love dramas, but also campus youth dramas, ** detective dramas, emotional suspense dramas and hardcore reasoning dramas.
Take iQiyi, which has the highest market share of account-sharing dramas, as an example. In 2023, the five dramas with the highest box office on iQIYI are 49 million+, "The Most Cannibal Fireworks+", "Disappearing Traces", "Dangerous to Me", "Protect Our City Lord", and 28 million+ "Cat Riding a Fish".
Among them, there are urban love stories that integrate traditional culture into contemporary life and tell the urban love story of urban people's souls under the framework of "marriage first and love later"; There are also hardcore reasoning dramas that investigate clues and engage in criminal investigation in a down-to-earth manner under the structure of two heroines; There are also ...... emotional suspense stories that focus on urban life and shoot intimate relationships and step by step
The innovation of these stories is not inferior to custom dramas and self-made dramas. The production level and completion of these dramas are at the upper middle level no matter which track they are in.
It can be said that after seven years of development, through the accumulation of production experience and talent accumulation, the account-sharing drama has found the landing path that it is good at, and has formed a set of aesthetic language that can go side by side with the head drama.
In addition to the market share of long dramas 1 5, there are two exciting data worth mentioning in the account-sharing drama market in 2023.
One is that the box office champion "When I Fly to You" has a share score of 60 million+. This revenue is the revenue that the producer can get. This figure means that in the current market environment, the income brought by top account-sharing dramas to producers can even exceed that of head custom dramas.
Another number is a piece of information revealed at the seventh anniversary of iQiyi's account-sharing drama and the 2023 year-end ceremony. According to Li Li, general manager of iQIYI Drama Center, in 2023, among the account-sharing dramas launched by iQIYI, 1 4 will be able to achieve profitability, and 3 dramas with a box office of more than 40 million will be born, and the final box office is estimated to be higher according to the model.
If the success of a drama and the cliff-like lead at the box office cannot be copied from the ceiling of an industry. If there is a platform that can support 1 4 account dramas, so that good content of various genres will not sink and can make money, this is quite rare.
The entertainment content consumption market is the easiest to take all heads, why can iQiyi's account-sharing drama support 1 4 projects and provide such high certainty? This is related to the user base, user mentality and payment habits of the iQIYI platform, as well as the evolution of the account-sharing rules and the upgrading of the support plan of iQIYI's account-sharing drama.
From the perspective of the platform level, in recent years, iQIYI has not only been in a leading position in the field of users and paid members, but also cultivated the most mature users by virtue of the continuous output of episodes with a popularity value of more than 10,000 episodes.
They have stable audio-visual content consumption habits, and have a high appreciation and sensitivity to drama narrative innovation and image quality. It's a group of users who will pay for the quality of the content, not the gimmick, and a group of users who won't let good content sink in.
Nowadays, on the client, the difference between account-sharing dramas and self-made dramas and customized dramas is getting smaller and smaller, whether it is broadcast recommendation or quality and quality. The leading user base and mature user mentality can provide a higher starting line for good account-sharing content with diverse themes.
The evolution of the account-sharing rules and the upgrading of the support plan of iQIYI's account-sharing drama also provide resources and opportunities for the "qualification" of good content while improving the ecology.
In 2016, iQIYI's first account-sharing drama "Demon Out of Chang'an" was born, and the account-sharing drama track quickly took shape. During the market cultivation period from 2016 to 2021, the platform's account sharing rules were based on project grading.
At that time, both the platform and the producer were still in the process of understanding each other and exploring the market. In fact, the platform rating also plays a role in the evaluation of production forces and the planning and guidance of the theme.
At this stage, iQIYI has also launched incubation plans such as "Yunteng" and "Sky" to help from the source of the story, providing a stepping stone for producers with different backgrounds and experiences to enter the account-sharing drama market.
In 2021, iQIYI will further refine the account sharing rules, convert member clicks into member ** time account sharing, adjust the advertising account sharing ratio, and begin to link content revenue more directly with user market performance through rule adjustments.
Soon, the adjustment of the account-sharing rules gave birth to a phenomenal work - the account-sharing drama king "Twinkle Star", which will be launched in 2022.
This work with exquisite narrative, strong emotional value, and high story stickiness has achieved a share of more than 100 million yuan 9 months after it was launched, breaking the ceiling of the box office of account-sharing dramas, and also achieving excellent results in attracting new members. This also marks another advance in the account-sharing drama market.
So in October 2022, iQIYI canceled the platform's rating of account-sharing dramas for the first time, and at the same time added members to attract new accounts on the basis of members' ** time sharing.
This means that all account-sharing dramas compete fairly at the starting point of the rules, and at the same time, the filmmakers can also share the income of the series with the platform.
In the past year, iQIYI's account sharing policy has not been greatly adjusted, but there has been a big upgrade in resource matching.
For example, last year's summer hit urban sweet pet drama "Exclusive Fairy Tale", not only was launched in China for 8 days, but the account sharing score exceeded 10 million, and it was also favored by the audience in the overseas market, and topped the list of overseas mainland dramas in the first week of broadcast on iQiyi International Station, and was successfully distributed to the Americas, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East, India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and other countries and regions.
The reason why this drama was able to quickly open up the situation overseas is related to the cross-cultural universality of urban love stories on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also benefits from the advance publicity layout of the platform.
It is understood that considering the overseas popularity of the leading actors Wen Junhui and Zhang Miaoyi and the production quality of "Exclusive Fairy Tale", iQiyi has facilitated overseas publicity of the same magnitude as the head drama in the early stage of launch.
At the 7th anniversary of iQIYI's account-sharing drama and the 2023 year-end ceremony, Yang Haitao, senior vice president of iQIYI, said that iQIYI should "provide good services to the producers of account-sharing dramas without an upper limit". This service not only refers to the matching of publicity and promotion resources, but also includes the assistance during the script incubation period, the editing suggestions in the later stage, the docking of film and television city resources during the filming period, and the provision of intelligent production products and services.
From the continuous adjustment of the account-sharing rules, to the continuous upgrading of the support plan, to the matching of systematic services, iQIYI, as a platform party, has been supporting the development of account-sharing dramas for seven years, cultivating the track ecology and providing a better soil for the development of account-sharing dramas.
Although the industry generally believes that there is no separation of large online audiovisual creations, when it comes to specific categories, we will find that what kind of micro creation ecology will attract and cultivate what kind of creators, and what kind of production company will grow together.
Specific to the account-sharing drama track, in the past year, a total of 51 companies continued to produce account-sharing dramas, of which 30 also carried out micro-short drama business.
Recently, at the 7th anniversary of iQIYI's account-sharing drama and the 2023 year-end ceremony, two lists of "iQIYI's 7th Anniversary Honor Full List" and "iQIYI's 2023 Honor List of Account-sharing Dramas" were released, which made an overall review of the account-sharing drama track from the level of works, screenwriters, directors, actors, producers and companies, from which we can also get a glimpse of the talent and production company ecology of the account-sharing drama track.
Among these dozens of companies, there are leading companies like Qishu Youyu and Yingmei Media, which are making efforts in the dual tracks of online movies and account-sharing dramas. Through the signing of cooperation and the producer studio system, they have gathered a group of the most active creative forces in the account-sharing market, and have the most advantages in the exploration of multiple themes.
For example, the two suspenseful crime dramas "Traces of Disappearance" and "The Depths of the Murder", which are popular this year, were both developed by Qishu Youyu. Both dramas have won the 2023 iQIYI account-sharing drama annual original content honor, and Qishu Youyu has also appeared on the list of "Partner of the Year" and the seventh anniversary honor of iQIYI's account-sharing drama "Industry Contribution Company".
Of course, the more innovative the subject matter, the more courage it requires to make decisions. Tian Xue, vice president of Qishu Youyu, shared the darkest moment experienced after the company's decision to develop a suspenseful crime drama at the seventh anniversary of iQiyi's account-sharing drama and the 2023 year-end ceremony.
Tian Xue's "Disappearing Traces" project was promoted by Tian Xue under the pressure of the failure of the previous "Paternity Tester" project. Under the market conditions at that time, it was difficult to raise funds for the development of suspenseful crime dramas. But out of confidence in the script and trust in producer Huang Qiushi and young director Li Yutong, she opened an invitation for Qishu Youyu to be the main director of "Traces of Vanishing".
During the filming, the company bears great pressure to delay payment and support the completion of the series. During the waiting period of "Disappearing Traces", she boldly used Li Yutong's filming company to prepare "The Depths of the Murder" for three years.
In this way, Qishu Youyu was able to set off the "double cannon" on the suspense crime track last year.
There are also companies like Hangzhou Yisi and Zhejiang Film Little Blacksmith, which grow together with their deep cultivation of specific themes and account-sharing tracks.
Taking Hangzhou Yisi as an example, this company takes the director's cat tree as the core of creation, attracting a group of creative talents who are good at campus youth dramas and urban romantic dramas.
There are also cutting-edge companies such as Three Magpies, Give Me Productions, and Shanghai Jingzhuo Culture, all of which are account-sharing drama companies that have only risen in the past two years, and the core production team is also quite young. But the openness of the account-sharing drama market provides opportunities for these potential companies.
"Exclusive Fairy Tale" is the second work of the three magpies, and it has achieved a score of 25 million+.
I started with the "Demolition Case" series, and has accumulated nearly 100 million yuan in income with this series.
Not long after the establishment of Shanghai Jingzhuo Culture, it launched the annual box office champion with a box office of 49 million+ such as "The Most Cannibal Fireworks".
Screenwriter Wang Xiaocui said frankly in her sharing that "The Most Cannibal Fireworks" is a project that sprouted during the epidemic, and the combination of stories and traditional culture, as well as the sweet tone with a bit of humanity, all come from her personal experience and emotional value needs.
In her opinion, this drama can only follow the mode of account sharing. Because of doing account-sharing dramas, you can strive for the greatest creative freedom and get the greatest assistance from the platform. This drama is the most difficult and enjoyable project she has done. It is precisely because it is an account-sharing drama that she and her team can polish the content of 80 points into a score of 100 points.
These dozens of players who are deeply involved in account-sharing dramas have a similar development curve that starts from the end of the micro and finds the content key by virtue of the short-term contact with the audience. These companies have also accumulated a group of artists who have strong artistic landing ability, are well versed in the psychology of the audience, and have strong market vision and creative tenacity. These advantages of theirs are uniquely competitive in the content era of "audience voting with their feet".
Looking forward to the development of the account-sharing drama market in 2024, the rapid rise of micro-short dramas has brought the biggest variables to the account-sharing drama market.
However, it is worth noting that after the implementation of high-quality policy guidance and standardized supervision, a single episode of 5-15 minute micro-short dramas is also a track worth trying for account-sharing drama companies. In the past year, leaving aside the foam of the "virtual fire" of mini program dramas, we have seen that the long-term ** platform is also making steady progress in the branch of innovative high-quality micro-short dramas.
Take iQIYI's word-of-mouth short drama "Wholly Owned into the Group" as an example, this drama tells the story of the male protagonist who is a producer and joins the group as an actor in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a big male protagonist. In the process of acting, he constantly asked for "anti-routines", "guided" the director and screenwriter to change the script, and finally filmed a "divine drama" in which a male protagonist and ten female protagonists took turns to play a scene, and various costume types such as house fighting, suspense, Xianxia, martial arts, court, and time travel.
With the blessing of the "spitting" skill, this drama has achieved a deep level of resonance at the same frequency with the audience of senior drama fans. If it weren't for a platform like iQiyi, which has a high user mentality and a good atmosphere for watching dramas, it may be difficult for "Wholly Owned Group" to achieve today's popularity results.
Finally, there is another question of the magnitude of "elephant in the room": has the account-sharing drama market reached the ceiling?
In today's big economic cycle, many people may come to the judgment that it has arrived. However, from a more systematic perspective, the more similar the economic and cultural situation, the more entertainment products are needed to relieve stress and provide emotional value. In the long-form drama track, self-made dramas and customized dramas have given up the small and medium-sized drama market, and the account-sharing micro-short drama market can provide an opportunity for the production of account-sharing dramas.
More importantly, the account-sharing drama track has gathered a group of artists who have faith in content, belief in the audience, and trust in the platform. As long as they can find the right positioning, this group of waveriders will definitely be able to lift the ceiling of the account-sharing drama to a higher level.
Text: Tin Sheet Drum].