"Super content" accompanied by huge costs, Ningmeng Film Company plans Series B financing

Just as the outside world is focusing on the news that Zhang Dazhong and Yang Wenhong, former vice presidents of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), have both resigned, Ning Meng Pictures, founded by Su Xiao, another former SMG executive, has also begun to plan to launch Series B financing.

Just as the outside world is focusing on the news that Zhang Dazhong and Yang Wenhong, former vice presidents of Shanghai Media Group (SMG), have both resigned, Ning Meng Pictures, founded by Su Xiao, another former SMG executive, has also begun to plan to launch Series B financing.

"We plan to launch Series B financing in the near future. In addition to expanding the production capacity of TV dramas, the new funds will also be invested in content producers such as movies and variety shows." Recently, Su Xiao, founder and CEO of Ningmeng Pictures, said this to reporters.

To many industry insiders, the name of Ning Meng Pictures is no stranger. Almost all of the company's top executives come from SMG Shangshi Pictures. Founder Su Xiao has previously served as deputy director of Oriental TV, director of SMG Film and Television Theater Center, and CEO of SMG Shangshi Pictures. Co-founder Zhou Yuan was previously the secretary of Shangshi Pictures.

This film and television company established in 2014 quickly gained huge external attention as soon as it was launched. In the first round of financing, Tencent, as a strategic investor, made more than 100 million yuan in venture capital investment in Ningmeng Pictures. In return, the three film and television dramas produced and produced by Ningmeng Pictures in 2015, namely "Lonely Court Late in Spring","Little Farewell" and "Good Mr.", also performed well. Among the market shares in the head field, the major film and television giants rank first, and they have monopolized three seats in the top ten TV series so far.

"The copyrights of the three major dramas and new media were all sold at the highest price on the market this year, with an overall exceeding 200 million yuan. Sales of various satellite TVs have not yet officially launched, but the market's willingness to purchase is already very strong." Su Xiao said.

After winning the first battle, Ning Meng Film began to draw a bigger blueprint. In addition to the continued expansion of film and television drama production capacity, Su Xiao also plans to carry out multi-faceted attacks in movies and variety reality shows. Su Xiao said: "This year, Ning Meng invested more than 200 million yuan in content production. After Series B financing, it is expected that the annual investment will exceed 600 million yuan in the next three years."

LeTV may follow Tencent's entry

into the Round B financing. The reporter noticed an interesting detail. Su Xiao defined Ning Meng's content as "super content." "TV series, movies, and variety shows are all within the scope of our layout. No matter what type of product, we must make 'super content'." Su Xiao said.

It is not difficult to see that the reference to "super content" in Ningmeng Pictures has a great "correlation" with LeEco's products. Since entering smart TV in 2013, LeEco has dubbed all its products "super". Among the new media procurement lists of the three film and television dramas that are mainly sold above, apart from Tencent Video, a subsidiary of the first-round investment shareholder Tencent, LeE.com is the only video website purchaser.

Given the current situation where BAT is divided into three companies, Youku Tudou controlled by Alibaba, iQiyi [Weibo] owned by Baidu [Weibo] and Tencent Video owned by Tencent have become their own systems in content production and procurement. As for Ningmeng Pictures, a producer of film and television content, video websites other than BAT such as LeTV, Xiaomi, PPTV, and Sohu Video that have playback terminals are undoubtedly ideal shareholder choices.

Some industry insiders revealed to reporters that the financial advisory company hired by Ningmeng Pictures for Series B financing was Yikai Capital. Relevant information shows that Yikai Capital has undertaken many investment, financing and M & A related businesses related to LeTV. For example, LeTV Sports, which just completed Series A this year, and LeTV's film company LeTV Pictures, are all operated by Yikai Capital. Not only that, the friendship between Wang Ran, CEO of Yikai Capital, and Jia Yueting, founder and chairman of LeEco, is also well known in the industry.

From this point of view, after introducing Tencent as a strategic investor in the first round, Ning Meng Pictures is very likely to introduce LeTV in the B round. The industrial logic behind this marriage has become increasingly clear.

In the current ecological construction of LeEco, there are already video websites, mobile terminals, smart TV terminals and in-vehicle terminals under development. These terminals will provide playback channels for professional content producers such as Ningmeng Pictures. For LeTV, which has many terminals, it is also in urgent need of binding high-quality content providers to fill the content gap.

However, Su Xiao only said in an interview that strategic investors must take precedence over financial investors. "For the development of an enterprise, strategic resources are more important. In addition to having money, Ning Meng hopes that the investors should also have their own platforms and even some big international backgrounds."

The high cost of "super content"

For Ningmeng Pictures, although the three dramas have outstanding sales through new media channels,"super content" also means "super cost".

"Nowadays, there are two main types of companies that produce TV drama content in the market. One focuses on traditional media, and this type of film and television company has the largest number. However, the scale of the traditional media market is slowly being limited, especially after the introduction of the satellite TV drama and two stars policy, which has affected the output and scale of the entire market to a certain extent." Su Xiao said.

In Su Xiao's view, high-quality dramas similar to American dramas will become a future direction for Ning Meng Pictures. But as far as the product itself is concerned, the cost of super content is undoubtedly high, and its risks cannot be ignored. It is understood that the current cost of each major drama by Ning Meng is about 100 million yuan.

"The entire lineup of the company's TV series is equipped with first-class actors and production teams, and includes many new technologies. But nowadays, the polarization of TV platforms is becoming more and more obvious, and fewer and fewer satellite TV stations can afford super content." Su Xiao said. "If the company's TV series content is better and the cost rises again, then customers may not be able to keep up."

For this reason, video websites that are easy to pay for may be the main export of high-quality dramas in the future.

Su Xiao bluntly said: "To follow this path, the way to pay is directly user payment. This will be a trend in the development of the entire content, and the products positioned by the company are going in this direction. Why should we conduct Series B financing at this juncture? This is largely the reason."

It is worth noting that this view is also highly consistent with this year's hot topics in the video industry. Previously, iQiyi tested the test of paid viewing of "Tomb Robber Notes" and achieved good results. From this perspective, the important role of user-friendly video websites in Ning Meng's future landscape is self-evident, and the answer may soon be revealed whether Ning Meng will consider introducing relevant battles.

Editor: vian