Poor blood-making capacity, film and television crowdfunding, high opening and low opening, worrying industry survival rate

According to incomplete statistics from Crowdfunding Home, in 2016, there were about 10 film and television crowdfunding platforms that had closed down or transformed. In other words, nearly one-fifth of film and television crowdfunding platforms have been "dead", and the industry survival rate is worrying.

Original title: Poor blood-making ability, doubts about the future of film and television crowdfunding platform.

In February this year, Tencent Video PGC Film and Television Group conducted a survey of online dramas. Among them, 107 online dramas were collected because they did not add online audio-visual program information registration numbers to the titles. Remove the shelves for processing.

For film and television crowdfunding platforms that rely on online dramas and big online movies to survive, this is undoubtedly another heavy blow.

Film and television crowdfunding was once called the hope of grassroots filmmakers.

"Return of the Great Sage", which has a box office of nearly 1 billion yuan, was raised for distribution of 7.8 million yuan due to funding constraints. After the film was released in 2015, the box office continued to climb and even became a phenomenal movie of that year. Each of the 89 investors who participated in the crowdfunding of the film received high returns of about 250,000 yuan. The success of "Return of the Great Sage" also made film and television crowdfunding has once again attracted the attention of the capital market.

However, according to incomplete statistics from Crowdfunding Home, in 2016, there were about 10 film and television crowdfunding platforms that had closed down or transformed. In other words, nearly one-fifth of film and television crowdfunding platforms have been "dead", and the industry survival rate is worrying.

Although it has roots in the film and television industry, crowdfunding platforms are now facing the dilemma of opening high and moving low.

The giants entered the company and the company entered its third year with the rise of a large number of emerging platforms

. However, Yin Chao, the founder of Taomeng, decided to completely transform the company.

Taomeng, established in 2012, was once an online financing platform that provided crowdfunding and distribution services for micro-movies and online movies. It is also the third website platform in China to provide crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding has been popular on the Internet. According to Choice data, it is estimated that the number of companies that will receive financing through crowdfunding in 2016 will be around 1800, and the crowdfunding transaction amount will reach 200 billion yuan. The World Bank predicts that by 2025, the total amount of crowdfunding in China is expected to reach US$46 billion to US$50 billion.

According to statistics from the "2016 National Crowdfunding Industry Annual Report", as of the end of December 2016, among all types of crowdfunding platforms operating normally, there were the largest number of reward crowdfunding platforms, reaching 222; followed by non-public equity financing platforms, reaching 117; There are 70 hybrid crowdfunding platforms (including two and more types of crowdfunding).

At present, the concept of crowdfunding has involved more than 30 industries including finance, corporate services, manufacturing, culture and entertainment, general health, automobiles, and e-commerce. The cultural and entertainment industry belongs to the first echelon.

Among them, film and television crowdfunding, which is rooted in the so-called "golden land", is generally optimistic in the industry. Through crowdfunding, it breaks the threshold of film funding and is favored by the capital market as a compensation for the film investment model.

In 2013, the annual fundraising amount of the film and television crowdfunding platform reached 10 million, of which three million-level projects were born, namely "100,000 Cold Jokes" and "Big Fish." Begonia ", the 2013 happy male movie" I Am Me ", of which" 100,000 Cold Jokes "is the first theater movie to raise funds through crowdfunding.

This battleground for military strategists has also attracted the attention of giants. Taobao, Jingdong, Baidu, Suning and other companies have successively laid out the "crowdfunding + film and television" section.

On October 28, 2015, Suning crowdfunding's first film and television crowdfunding project "Ip Man 3" was launched, and 40 million yuan was raised in just one day. When the "Double Eleven" Suning crowdfunding TV series "Red Guard" was launched, the goal was reached in just one minute, and all crowdfunding stalls sold out by 4.96 million in less than 4 minutes.

At the Jingdong Crowdfunding Bigger Conference in October last year, Jingdong Crowdfunding directly released the "IP+ Product" crowdfunding model, which aims to select more matching IP parties and product parties through Jingdong Big Data's analysis of user needs. Provide precise docking and reduce industry costs. With the trinity crowdfunding model of "product crowdfunding + equity crowdfunding + mass innovation ecology", I hope to become an IP industry incubator.

According to incomplete statistics from Crowdfunding Home, there are currently about 47 platforms that include film and television crowdfunding business, including about 23 platforms in the film and television vertical field. In 2016, the film and television crowdfunding turnover was about 400 million yuan (including products, income rights and film and television funds). As of the end of August 2016, the number of successful investments reached 143,000.

Financial products or marketing tools?

There are two main ways to play in the field of film and television crowdfunding.

First, film and television drama financiers provide financing to most investors in the form of transferring a certain proportion of shares, and the return method is often the profitable portion of the film and television project.

At present, it is not uncommon for the industry to turn film and television crowdfunding into financial products. Driven by Internet giants such as Ali's Entertainment Bao and Baidu's Baifa Youzhan, more and more "film and television crowdfunding + Internet finance" products have emerged in the industry.

In March 2014, Alibaba's "Entertainment Treasure" was officially launched. According to Entertainment Bao's external publicity, by purchasing Entertainment Bao, you can invest in popular film and television drama products at a minimum of 100 yuan, with an expected annualized rate of return of 7%. According to people familiar with the matter, the annualized rate of return of "Entertainment Bao" has dropped to around 3% and 4%.

"This kind of wealth management product generally adopts a guaranteed guarantee + sharing method that prioritizes the inferior. For example, if you purchase shares in" Tiny Times ", the box office of" Tiny Times "will determine the buyer's income step by step. But no matter what the box office profit or loss is, the buyer always has a guaranteed guarantee. Compared with a shorter banking cycle and higher returns, it provides an additional investment opportunity to obtain higher returns." Lei Ming said.

The "priority and inferior" in this is an activity that sets priorities in the trust beneficiary rights structure and classifies inferior ones. In short, buyers are "first" and crowdfunding platforms are "worse". When the product makes money, the buyer will get the money first, and when it makes money, the crowdfunding platform will make money first.

At the same time, there are also crowdfunding models in the industry that are purely self-financing, with higher risks and greater returns if the investment is approved. "Some Netcom companies that go to crowdfunding platforms don't have a guarantee. They will make money after investing, and they will lose if they lose." Lei Ming said.

The second major type of gameplay is product crowdfunding, which mainly focuses on spiritual rewards or physical rewards. It generally does not involve the equity part of film and television dramas. The purpose is to promote products and new products.

It can be seen that most of the film and television crowdfunding projects appearing on the Jingdong Financial Platform fall into this category. For example,"Ghost Blows Out the Light" robbed Tencent VIP members for 1 yuan and the crowdfunding initiated by the film and television drama "Red", promising to repay derivatives such as pillow, red notepad, and scarf.

Good films don't come, and niche film and television dramas are

difficult to turn over. Several friends around have participated in film and television crowdfunding. Most of them are urban female white-collar workers and take a fancy to the advantages of film and television crowdfunding with short film and television crowdfunding cycles and high returns."Everyone is betting on the next" Return of the Great Sage ".

"Return of the Great Sage" has always been the most talked about topic among practitioners in the field of film and television crowdfunding.

From only 8.7% of the first day of release, the final box office reached nearly 1 billion yuan. Equity crowdfunding not only created the myth of "Return of the Great Sage" box office counterattack, but also brought huge benefits to investors. Some media estimates that the 89 crowdfunding producers participating in the investment can receive at least 30 million yuan in principal and interest, and the return on investment will exceed 400%.

But two years have passed, and whether the success of "Return of the Great Sage" can be replicated is still a question mark.

"In fact, the top 50 top projects every year are extremely good. They are too valuable and hundreds of capital companies are competing for it. Only projects that lack money or some uncertain niche projects that need to spread risks require crowdfunding." Lei Ming analyzed. Lei Ming is the founder of ABD Aimeng Entertainment, a data service company that assists in IP content development.

Lei Ming also gave an example. In a big movie that had just started in recent days and was directed by a famous actor for the first time, more than 200 shares of the shares had been distributed before the movie was filmed. This shows the popularity of capital for head resources.

This means that only film and television dramas such as high-risk, low-return, and low-potential energy will choose to raise funds through film and television crowdfunding. As a result, film and television crowdfunding platforms and high-risk Internet celebrities and online dramas have become increasingly involved. Some people even estimate that the project failure rate has exceeded 90%.

Click on a mainstream film and television crowdfunding platform. The 11 recommended crowdfunding projects displayed on the front page include 7 Internet majors and 2 online dramas. This is the norm for domestic film and television crowdfunding platforms. According to a previous statistics from other media, online movies account for more than 60% of the national film and television crowdfunding projects.

And what is the return rate of big online movies and online dramas?

"We conducted a sample survey of more than 200 Netcom companies last year, and the result was that about 92-93 of Netcom companies were lost for every 100 companies. Very few of them would be profitable or tied, and the rest would be basically silent. I lost everything. The result of competition between platforms still depends on luck. There are one or two dark horses every year to see who can catch them." Lei Ming said.

But the embarrassing thing is that after the myth of the return of the Great Sage, no film and television crowdfunding project can continue to write brilliantly.

Worrying about blood production, more than one-fifth

of them have gone bankrupt. According to incomplete statistics from Crowdfunding Home, about 10 platforms have closed down or transformed last year, which means that more than one-fifth of the platforms in the industry have "died."

Yin Chao admitted that in the two years from 2012 to 2014, when the company had not yet transformed, the platform had completed hundreds of micro-movie crowdfunding projects, but the crowdfunding success rate was only 10%, and the platform's annual profit is around tens of thousands of yuan.

One of the reasons why Yin Chao decided to transform was the difficulty in realizing funds.

"The process of utilitarian crowdfunding is very hard. I decided to transform after thinking about the realization of funds. After the company transformed into online film distribution and investment incubation in 2015, the company's situation began to improve. In 2015, it made a profit of tens of millions, and in 2016, its revenue exceeded 100 million." Yin Chao said.

"Film and television crowdfunding platforms generally choose to draw commission from running water, but all the products that crowdfunding are small products, which also determines that your size will not grow bigger. Even if you make a high-quality online drama, it depends on whether platforms such as iQiyi and Tencent Video give you a location. Only when you have a location can you have click-through rates can you have traffic. The initiative never falls into your hands." Lei Ming said.

In addition to worrying about the platform's own blood-making capabilities, film and television crowdfunding platforms also have to bear the risks faced by policy supervision and the industry itself.

According to Zhang Jin, CEO of Zhuoran Pictures, the first risk comes from the legal issues faced by equity crowdfunding itself. There are still many loopholes in the field of equity crowdfunding that can be exploited, which is inherently risky.

The second risk lies in how the platform protects the rights and interests of investors. Film and television drama products themselves are extremely high-risk investment categories. A new industry with imperfect laws and regulations is targeting an extremely high-risk field. This is actually a kind of gambling, and this kind of gambling is not gambling with one's own chips, but gambling with others 'chips.

"Film investment is a very professional matter. Only extremely professional people can have a certain degree of judgment accuracy. Crowdfunding platforms disperse such high-risk things to so many non-professionals to do crowdfunding, which is extremely risky. There is still very little data that can be referred to on market rules, and I don't think this matter will hold true in the short term." Zhang Jin analyzed.

Lei Ming believes that many of the successful crowdfunding films are not short of money, and are more for promotional purposes and focus on the marketing value of the platform. This involves competition between vertical platforms and industry giants.

"These resources are often snatched by large platforms that truly control traffic and funds. The film companies will also weigh the traffic chips of each family and will not flow to independent crowdfunding platforms." Lei Ming said.

It is necessary to find opportunities upstream and downstream of the industrial chain

. The total box office of domestic films set a new record in 2015, which also led more people to enter the film and television industry. Entering 2016, although the number of emerging platforms pouring into the track has dropped significantly, there have been already a film and television crowdfunding platform that has been favored by capital and has begun to have brand value.

Vertical film and television crowdfunding platforms are still favored by capital. On June 12, 2016, the film and television crowdfunding platform Yingdaren received a 2 million yuan angel round investment from Dream Venture Capital. On August 31, 2016,"Yingren Street", a micro-movie platform that integrates online cinema and crowdfunding, announced that it had received 3 million angel financing from Mingxinfang Venture Capital.

Tang Tingting, partner of Shengdao Investment, believes that in the long run, the prospects of this industry are bright. "Crowdfunding is actually a good pre-emptive mechanism that can directly make target users speak out."

At the same time, Tang Tingting also provides two suggestions for crowdfunding platforms that want to deeply delve into the film and television industry: on the

one hand, the risk control system of the platform itself must be built well. Because financial issues are involved, a certain standard review process is definitely needed, and the first check must be done.

On the other hand, it is necessary to enhance the platform's ability to select projects. Information asymmetry in the investment market brings natural advantages to the existence of crowdfunding platforms. The best quality projects on the market will be voted out first by institutions and other professional parties. Therefore, how to screen out higher-quality projects, or find alternative ways, avoid traditional investment paths, and select creative new projects becomes particularly important.

In Yin Chao's view, the future opportunity for film and television crowdfunding lies in opening up all upstream and downstream industries.

"Simply as a crowdfunding platform, it only undertakes the financing process, and it can be said that there is no consequential output; second, the platform has to bear many risks, such as whether it can repay, whether it can generate benefits, etc., which is in a very awkward position. Therefore, we must grasp the top resources and participate in the research and development of original content to truly enhance the value of the platform." Yin Chao said.

Editor: Nancy