Written by Erdong Chen.
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Routine inventory at the end of the year and the beginning of the year.
In 2023, the drama market and the entire entertainment industry have experienced a difficult recovery and are beginning to get back on track. Cost reduction and efficiency increase have been further implemented, quantity reduction and quality improvement are still continuing, and the degree of quality has been significantly improved.
The audience's active participation in the "second creation" has become a part of the content production, and the protagonists and supporting roles "all on the table" mark the changes in the audience's aesthetics, and the "pre-sales and post-sales services" of the platform and the filmmaker have rolled up, from the viewing group to the concert, continuing the popularity of the series, and also opening up new ideas for marketing.
Under the grand scene, the undercurrent is surging. The words of praise are overwhelming, and there should be careful reflection.
2023 is the first year of "crazy drama".
The story is anti-genre, the people have different conventions, and the plot direction is different from the past, which may be called a "crazy drama" by the audience. If "madness" is understood as "abnormal" in a superficial and neutral manner, looking at the entire drama market, there are many things that are "crazy".
1. "Crazy" inflation
According to the latest "2023 Drama Market Report" released by Lighthouse Professional Edition, 294 domestic TV dramas will be broadcast in 2023, a decrease of 10 from 329 in 20226%。
One of the manifestations of "madness" is the declining production and rising heat and ratings. In KK's view, it is difficult to say that there is an inevitable connection between the decrease in the total number of broadcasts and the increase in word-of-mouth popularity, and the overall improvement of the drama market.
There are many lists, and the core reason is that the evaluation system is scattered. In addition, it is also affected by the differences in the broadcast platform of the drama (Taiwan online drama, pure online drama), and it has nothing to do with the drama, and the audience's judgment of the drama is affected by external factors (fan scuffle, social public opinion, water army) and so on.
Let's look at the popularity of the platform first.
iQIYI has a total of 5 popular dramas with more than 10,000 hits, namely "Hurricane", "Changfeng Crossing", "Lotus Tower", "Ning An Like a Dream" and "Yi Nian Guan Mountain". Youku has a total of 11 popular dramas, namely "Youth Song Xing", "Stars Fall into Sugar", "Who Is He", "Long Moon Embers", "Hou Lang", "Protecting the Heart", "Secretly Can't Hide", "The Day of Chasing the Light", "An Le Biography", "Under the Alien", "The South Wind Knows My Mind". Tencent has 3 dramas that break 30,000, namely "The Sea in My Dreams", "Sauvignon Blanc", "Good Things Come in Pairs", and if you count the "Flowers" broadcast on New Year's Eve, it is 4.
Look at the popularity of TV stations again.
According to China's audiovisual big data, the top 3 single-channel ratings of the TV series at the end of CCTV's ** period in 2023 are "This Peace of Mind is My Hometown", "Pearl River People" and "Hurricane"; The top 3 ratings of the single channel of the TV series at the end of the local satellite TV ** period are "Infernal", "Hurricane" and "Imperfect Victim" (Dragon TV takes the top three).
Then look at the average statistics of the popular period of the whole end.
According to the list of Kuyun data, there are 14 dramas with an average volume of 40 million in 2023, namely "Hurricane", "Sauvignon Blanc 1", "Long Moon Ember Ming", "Changfeng Crossing", "Lotus Tower", "Tranquility Like a Dream", "Yi Nian Guan Mountain", "Secretly Can't Hide", "Who Is He", "Cloud Feather", "Walking to the Wind", "Homecoming", "Daming under the Microscope", "Return to the South China Sea".
Finally, looking at the Douban score, 23 dramas scored more than 8 points, and the highest score was 9 for "The Long Season".4，8.The repertoire with a score of more than 5 is "The Three-Body Problem", "Going to a Windy Place", "Broken Things Elite 2", "When I Was a Teenager", "Hurricane", "Lotus Building", "Under the Prosperous City", and "I Have a Friend".
There are many evaluation systems, and the repertoire that has entered the forefront of different evaluation systems has also increased month-on-month in their respective dimensions.
2. "Madness" differentiation
As mentioned earlier, the fragmentation of the evaluation system confirms the fact that the audience is divided in the large market environment. Among the major lists, the overlap of the repertoire on the list is low, and "Hurricane" is the only seedling that can become a "national hit".
The richness and diversity of drama content is one of the important manifestations of the "differentiation" of the drama market in 2023.
"Hurricane" "Rush", changing the content pattern of the big hit dramas in previous years must start from costume dramas. The rise of realistic themes has been like a bamboo since the popularity of "The World" last year, and "Hurricane" has reproduced the national landscape brought by "In the Name of the People". Living, daring to shoot, "related to me", representing public opinion.
On the focus track, "Three-Body Problem" opened the door to sci-fi dramas as a super IP, and at the same time laid a high starting point; "The Long Season" injects life-like expression into the suspense genre; "Lotus Tower" re-established martial arts; "Under the Inhuman" is a comic reform that breaks the wall and crosses the dimension; What is more difficult to define is "Huan Yan", the spy war genre integrates road elements, plus the legendary background of the era, and the "alternative" attempt is new; "Ancient Acacia" is a victory of "small but beautiful", the hero does not ask the source, and the content is the king.
There is a type of drama worth talking about in the Focus Track - professional dramas. In 2023, we will see a richer professional group portrait on the screen than before, in addition to doctors, lawyers, policemen, teachers and other old things, news people, firefighters, and captains appear in the audience's field of vision. "News Queen" made the audience sigh that TVB's sword is not old, "He Came from the Fire" is professional and reliable, and the life is interesting, and it has picked up the face of the industry that has been created; "Walking to the Wind" jumps out of the path of professional idols and has a relatively solid industry background.
Medical dramas have ushered in a rare centralized output in recent years, and "White Castle", "Asking the Heart", "The Extraordinary Healer" and "Welcome to McNugget Village" have their own characteristics in terms of the themes of care. A common problem is that there must be a "thorn" in the team of doctors who challenge the rules, and without such a person, the creators will not know how to create conflicts.
There are also several dramas with distinctive characteristics worth mentioning: "Under the Prosperous City" finds a balance between history and drama, asks for drama from history, and the creative ideas of reality and fiction are worth learning; Although "*Mission" is the background of contemporary national security, the addition of cyberpunk game elements opens up traditional differences; "Broken Things Elite 2", "The Legend of Magpie Knife Gate" and "I Have a Friend" jointly support the comedy row.
The polarization of audience evaluation is the second important manifestation of the "differentiation" of the drama market in 2023.
"Hurricane" and "Flowers" are listed at the beginning and end of 2023, which are rare works that are oriented to the whole people and phenomenal, and polarized comments also appear in these two dramas at the same time.
The arrival of the "villain" of "Hurricane" on the table sparked creative controversy and academic speculation. Villains steal the limelight, not only about the drama, but also related to value guidance and social influence. "Flowers" presents a completely different attitude of criticism between the white snow and the people of Xiariba. Admirers say that the "King of Sunglasses" has come down to reduce dimensionality and reshape the standard of TV drama creation; The opponents say that they can't understand any things. As far as the industry is concerned, it should be seen that not all dramas like "Flowers" challenge the laws of production regardless of the cost, and it is progress to improve the level of creation on the basis of conforming to both the laws of art and the laws of production.
The diodes of "boxing" must jump out and forcibly stand in line when they encounter a topic of women. A line in "Yi Nian Guan Mountain" "The woman is a flower and the man is a tree" stabbed the hornet's nest, KK wondered: It's not good to be a man, do you have to be a plant? Gender issues are used as "traffic passwords", and this double-edged sword is placed in front of creators, depending on whether they dare to use it and how to use it. Here, KK still wants to express a point of view: male power, women's rights, it is gender that plays a role in modifying, and in the final analysis, it is a matter of "power".
The fragmentation and differentiation within a single drama is the third important manifestation of the "differentiation" of the drama market in 2023, also exposed the problem of unfinished episodes, and the ontology of "crazy drama" started from this.
Who is he" After watching it, the audience was confused "Who am I". Too many branches reduce the viscosity of the drama, the huge and complex clues are only dug and not filled, the throat cutting case at the beginning and the end become black, and it is no wonder that the audience is angry about being "defrauded".
"Yi Nian Guan Mountain" ends with be, and the Liudaotang team has become a "small grave team". Audience's sharp comment: It's all buried, and the grave bag is not connected. The continuous offline of the main characters after 35 episodes makes it difficult for the audience to accept, not because of Be's uneasiness. The ugliness of the male protagonist, the deletion of the big female protagonist, and the turmoil of the male third stealing the scene throughout were completely intensified because of the collapse of the plot in the second half. From the 25th episode onwards, there are already faint signs of the fragmentation of the characters' motives, and at the end, "not an ancient puppet" was slapped in the face by "martyrdom".
"Minglong Boy" was accused of "madness", and there is a dimension of audience resentment that is indeed worthy of the attention of the creators: the waste wood has been rubbed and rubbed by cramps and bones, although the blood is boiling and worthy of admiration, but it cannot blindly pursue coolness and ignore the logic of facts. The college entrance examination is a major event in life, and everyone who has gone through this experience knows how difficult it is to improve one point. It's okay for a junior college to counterattack and go to undergraduate, but it's a bit disrespectful to counterattack to 985 - this doesn't make it clear to tell everyone, twelve years of hard work in the cold window is pure and useless, and you can choose to Qingbei in a year? The underlying logic collapsed, lost respect for the effort itself, and was scolded unjustly.
3. "Crazy" broken aesthetics and creative types
Film and television dramas themselves are the art of regret.
Due to force majeure or limited levels and other reasons, it is actually the norm that the work itself is not completely satisfactory. It is true that the audience's aesthetic tide is rising, and the differentiation of aesthetic tastes is obviously even more true, but the audience is not stupid, and in the context of TV stations can have "career fans", they can't see what works are doing their best, and what works are rotten?
What can hit the industry and the audience hard are those dazzling and hot "crazy dramas".
If it is really quietly broadcast, it does not cause any splash, but it is a good thing. It is not excluded that some works are hovering below the passing line, but they are still transported to the production track and put into the market at half price** "defective products". There are many companies in this industry that need to operate, and many people have to eat, write, shoot, sell, and broadcast, and have their own set of closed loops of operation, and they can only survive when they run.
And some "crazy dramas" that have collected traffic and occupied all resources, once they are put into the market with a halo, the backlash brought by "traffic" is huge, and it is very likely that a door that the same type of works that have been struggling to break open will be closed back in an instant.
Two types of dramas are the hardest hit areas: industry and spy war. Due to the particularity of the profession involved, these two types of dramas need to be reviewed by special themes and approved by the competent authorities before they can be filmed.
It is precisely these two types of dramas that are particularly easy to become a springboard for traffic and a carnival. For the sake of their handsomeness and personality, fresh meat idols disregard the logic of reality and professional background, and create characters on the screen that violate the real image of practitioners, and the hat of "discrediting the professional image" is not counted as being on the platform. Correspondingly, it is the creation of similar works that will be affected by the follow-up, and the company will tighten the elasticity of creation more and more tightly, leaving less and less creative space for future generations. As everyone knows, the existing space is the result of the efforts of many high-quality plays and the creators behind them for more than ten years.
There is also spy warfare, because it involves a hidden front, the audience will naturally have the psychological expectation of hunting and decryption. History is not child's play, there are many ways to meet expectations, and it is most undesirable to playfully turn the cruel comedy and nihilism of the hidden front. In a spy war drama broadcast this year, the two protagonists who pretended to be husband and wife at the beginning actually locked the traitor who recognized their identities in a large closet, and pulled him out from time to time to interrogate and create laughter, which was uncomfortable to look at. If you don't want the spy war drama to become the second "anti-Japanese drama", you really have to be more cautious about some creative "inspirations".
In the past year, national dramas have recovered some vitality. In the competition for the audience's attention economy, in addition to all kinds of short**, the opponents of the long ** have emerged with the same micro-short dramas as the series, and there will still be a lot of pressure in the coming year.
But the only thing that can be sure is that as a long-term ** drama, it is still quite attractive to the audience with its continuity and extension. Each flower has its own eyes, and the popular models of the whole people depend on the right time and place, and in 2023, there will still be popular models that run through the type track. "Content is king" is not a rehash of the same old tune, consolidate the foundation of a drama, give more respect to the screenwriter, reduce shackles and interference, and polish the creation according to the original appearance of the drama, "crazy drama" can also be a good drama.