＂Who is he＂？ No one cares about Youku
Who is he? Have you seen it?
The Knockout is too hot. Who can stand the heat? It has to be Zhang Yi himself, and he has to continue to be a policeman.
On a rainy night in 1988, Wei Guoping, a novice policeman, encountered a major case of cutting his throat as soon as he came, and witnessed the death of his good brother. This is where the story of the future criminal police captain’s constant pursuit of murder began.
Who is He, a mystery drama starring Zhang Yi, reached its peak on the third day of its broadcast, becoming the fastest detective drama in Youku. Dengta Data shows that, since its launch, Who Is He has ranked first in the market share of full-screen feature films for 10 consecutive days.
Source: Youku App screenshot
It is reported that the drama has set a new record for Youku users and membership income since 2019, and has driven Youku’s downloads in the Apple Store to soar to the top of video apps.
However, at this time, it occurred to some people that how long has it been since Youku had such a hot drama? Think about it again, the last time you opened Youku, was it the time to redeem the rights of Taobao 88VIP members?
How "no" is Youku?
"Why do you want to talk about Youku? Youku has done a very general job in film, drama, comprehensive, animation and children. " Sebrina, a senior strategist of the former long video platform, talks about Youku, which seems to be a bit hate iron and not produce.
In his view, Youku can’t keep the real "people who can do content", and has no ability to continuously produce high-quality content. It is even very likely that the low content investment will lead to less and less refined overall content, and then the membership income and advertising income will decrease, so that it is even more unwilling to invest.
In the long video games that only big companies can afford, what used to be "Youaiteng" is now "Aiteng Mangyou".
According to Quest Mobile’s data, after several stalemate in the summer of 2021, since May 2022, Youku’s monthly life has been overtaken by Mango TV again, and even the third place has not been held. The long video industry has formed a relatively stable ranking of iQiyi, Tencent Video, Mango TV and Youku.
Source: In-depth report of East Asia Qianhai Securities Company (March 7, 2023)
However, Wang Yu, a film and television practitioner who reviews and watches nearly 150 TV series on average every year, said that from the perspective of TV series alone, Youku has actually done a good job in the past two years. At present, it still has a batch of explosive content such as "Long Moon Blooming", "I can’t hide it secretly" and "Ming Long Teenager", and it is also willing to spend real money on the marketing of TV series.
In 2022, Youku had seven dramas, such as Getting to know Jun at the beginning, Like an old friend returning home, The Gate of Rebirth, The Story of Xingfu’s Aquilaria Fragments, Aquilaria Zhong Hua, and so on, which were extremely popular in the station. In other words, Youku members are very willing to buy these dramas.
It’s just the heat. The long video platform has been calculated since 2018. If you want to grasp the overall situation, you can only refer to third-party data.
According to Yi En’s broadcast data, in the TOP10 of the domestic drama broadcast volume index in 2022, iQiyi’s solo dramas occupy half of the country. As for Youku, it will only be squeezed into the tenth place by three simulcasts of "Glory of Special Warfare".
In the TOP20 of the 2022 list of effective TV series released by Yunhe Data, iQiyi still leads with 9 solo dramas, Tencent has 4, and Youku only has 2 solo dramas, namely "Aquilaria Resina, Zhong Hua" and "Meeting Jun Chu".
Even if you look at word of mouth, Youku is basically out of position. In 2022, among the top ten scores of the new series Douban, Youku also had a seat on the list by relying on the broadcast "Beyond".
In addition to Mango TV, which is backed by Hunan Radio and Television and stands out from the rest of the world with its self-made variety, it represents the three giants of China Internet BAT, namely "Aiyuteng", and more often it is self-made drama.
Although there is no uniform standard, last year, Iqiyi had Cang Lan Ji, The World, Qing Qing Daily, and Tencent’s video had Meng Hua Lu, Xing Han Brilliant Moon Rising into the Sea, and The Beginning, while Youku’s several tens of thousands of dramas seemed to be a little worse in terms of national popularity.
"As far as my personal preference is concerned, I am afraid that the Youku explosion drama that I can think of can be traced back to The Longest Day In Chang’an in 2019 and White Night Chasing Murder in 2017." Wu Xiao, an investor in the cultural industry, said that Youku’s self-made dramas may have improved in the past two years, but compared with the faster iQiyi and Tencent videos, the real explosions are still scarce.
Iqiyi, which has achieved annual operating profit, had 120 million members as of the end of last year; Tencent’s latest financial report also shows that the number of Tencent video paying members is 119 million. It has also been reported that Tencent video has also started to make profits since October 2022.
When it comes to Youku, as of September 30, 2022, in Alibaba’s 2023 interim financial report, the details about Youku are still just "loss narrowing". However, the good news is that Youku has achieved a year-on-year reduction in losses for six consecutive quarters.
There are more details in the FY 2022 report, which shows that the number of daily paid users of Youku has increased by 15% compared with the previous fiscal year, mainly benefiting from original and exclusive content and "more contributions from the 88VIP membership program of Taobao platform".
So until now, we not only can’t know exactly when the number of paid members of Youku exceeded 100 million, but also can’t tell how many of them just have 88VIP.
The cool days together in those years are gone.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and long video games didn’t get to this stage at once.
The earliest Youku was not only cool, but also the coolest kid.
Youku, which was officially launched in 2006, as one of the first video websites in China, almost symbolizes everyone’s beautiful imagination of the Internet, a large number of free content (homemade or pirated) uploaded by users spontaneously, and the copyright bureau that later began to provide platforms for purchase.
In 2010, following the listing of LeTV on GEM, Youku became the first China video website to be listed overseas. That year, Qiyi.com, a subsidiary of Baidu, was just launched. In the second year, Tencent video was launched, and the three-legged situation will soon be formed.
Later, some people said that Youku was "bad" after being acquired by Ali, but in fact, Youku fell behind earlier.
After the merger of Youku Tudou in 2012, Youku Tudou once ranked second in the global market share, and it has an absolute upper hand in China, accounting for about 40% of the market. Wei Ming, the former president of Youku, later said in the conversation, "This is our Mount Everest, and then there is no more."
In 2015, the so-called "first year of video payment", iQiyi’s Tomb Raider Notes, Psychological Crime and Youku Video Hua Xu Yin started the exploration of video payment. In June of that year, iQiyi announced the number of members. As of June 15, 2015, its monthly paid VIP members were 5.017 million, a year-on-year growth rate of 765%.
Video payment service, which was once not optimistic, gradually formed a climate with the deepening of cracking down on piracy and the development of mobile payment.
However, Youku Tudou had to face the performance pressure, the content investment was reduced, and the copyright war was under great pressure. At that time, the viewing time of users began to lag behind iQiyi and Tencent videos.
Youku Tudou, who can no longer make industry rules and can only follow the rhythm of the younger generation, finally decided that it would be better to call it "ali dad".
In October 2015, Alibaba announced the full acquisition of Youku Tudou; The following year, 10-year-old Youku ushered in the formal withdrawal of founder Gu Yongqiang, and there was only one "dear dad" since then.
Since 2016, several rotating presidents of Ali, such as Yu Yongfu, Yang Weidong and Fan Luyuan, have started to "rectify" Youku one after another. Frequent coaching changes mean that the strategy and direction will change, and many employees leave because they don’t adapt to the Ali system.
One of the most talked-about stories is that after Fan Luyuan took office, he paid strict attention to attendance. A former employee of Youku told an interesting report that the people who made the content were somewhat "lazy" and were suddenly asked to punch in at 9: 30 in the morning. At that time, everyone crowded the exit of Wangjing East subway station, and it took 10 minutes to wait for the elevator to go upstairs.
"The commuting time has become longer, and I have to get up early to punch in. My heart that I want to resign is more determined." Two months later, she officially left after working in Youku for five years.
Frequent personnel changes are more like appearances. The "acclimatization" of Ali gene in Youku may be the deeper reason why Youku lost the opportunity to turn over.
Wu Xiao explained that compared with Baidu, which only gives financial and resource support to iQiyi as the controlling shareholder, and does not make other interventions, Tencent itself is also inclined to culture and entertainment, and has a better understanding and control ability for video content. The collaboration between Ali and Youku is very difficult.
"Ali can do his own ecology well, but entertainment is not his job. It is not easy to do it well."
In addition to Youku Tudou, Ali also acquired Cultural China (later Alibaba Pictures), UC Browser, Xiami Music, Shuqi Novel, Guangzhou Jian Yue (later Lingxi Interaction), etc., almost relying on the "money-making ability" to build an industrial closed loop of the big entertainment industry.
Up to now, despite several changes, in fiscal year 2022, the digital media and entertainment division of Ali, which accounts for only 4% of revenue, is still dragging its feet. However, thanks to Youku, the total loss has dropped to 4.7 billion RMB.
Source: Alibaba Ecosystem, Fiscal Year 2022 Report
Ma Shicong, senior analyst of Analysys marketing channel industry, pointed out that the so-called "no" of Youku mainly refers to the decline of user scale and the weakening of market volume. As an important part of Alibaba Entertainment, after high-level changes and strategic changes, Youku failed to keep up with the changes in long video commercial gameplay in time, lacked innovation and was cautious in investment. Now it is more about "seeking stability" within the system.
Ali attaches importance to efficiency, so prudent content investment does not mean that there is no investment. Youku still spends on dramas, variety shows and other content.
"The traffic portal that lives over 200 million users a month is always valuable to Ali." Ma Shicong concluded.
Times have changed, and it may not be cool anymore.
Ten years, 100 billion.
At the end of 2020, "Late LatePost" came to the conclusion after interviewing dozens of people in the industry: Since the establishment of Tencent Video in 2010, in the ten-year war of long video, it has burned about 100 billion yuan by relying on Aiyouteng, the three giants of BAT.
The cost of the content industry is high. Last year, the news that iQiyi was profitable finally gave everyone a little confidence. It is not a problem to do a good job of content with your heart, at least to support yourself.
For Youku, although it is not like the more independent iQiyi, it has the motivation to spare no effort to transform and try, but its biggest advantage is still having a "rich dad".
Ma Shicong said that as far as the long video business model is concerned, from the perspective of membership income, including "Who Is He" being broadcast, Youku can still maintain one or two dramas with high discussion or great influence in a certain range every year, and maintain a certain membership conversion with relatively stable investment;
From the perspective of advertising marketing, the opening of Youku and Ali’s platform can meet the current advertisers’ high requirements for marketing certainty and high expectations for sales transformation. Coupled with the huge user consumption data mastered by Ali, Youku is still attractive.
But it’s probably impossible to say that Youku can still rely on Ali to return to a high position.
According to the research report of CITIC Jiantou, the profit or loss reduction of the head platform in the past year means that after a period of strategic adjustment, the long video industry in China is entering a new period of more healthy and rational development.
Wu Xiao pointed out that just as Ali spent a lot of money to win the right to broadcast the World Cup for Youku in 2018, it brought tens of millions of paying users to Youku, and the number of daily users of Youku during the World Cup group match exceeded 100 million.
At that time, the market, spending money may still change, but unfortunately Youku failed to retain users and missed the opportunity again. Time has changed, "burning money" is not sustainable, and what we will fight for in the future is internal strength.
After all, compared with the number of active users and the length of stay of short videos, Ai Tengyou, who has no power to fight back, is better off worrying about his own affairs. How can he ensure a stable supply of high-quality content, so that users can be willing to pay for you even in the face of price increases.
(At the request of the interviewee, Sebrina, Wang Yu and Wu Xiao are all pseudonyms. )
Author: Liang Tingting
Editor: Tennessee
Editor on duty: Guo Yi
"Click to have my rabbit phone case immediately"
▼
Click to watch the interesting report video.
Interesting report
, like 48
Tourism in Thailand, becoming the second Sanya?