"Everything counts"? Uncovering the fraud industry chain in the film and television industry in the digital era

In the commercial era, when everything starts to look at money, many people's hearts, especially the mentality of directors, have changed, which is understandable. However, if directors start to be kidnapped by data, the development of the film industry will be full of despair. This is not just a commercial issue, but more a moral issue. And what's even more terrifying is the standard fake data used to measure data.

Original title: Who ruined China's movies? A counterfeiting industry chain worth up to 4 billion

yuan When Zhang Guoli and Ren Quan began to mix in the VC circle, investment in film and television dramas began to enter the eye of the venture capital circle, which was exciting.

However, whether to invest in film and television, let's take a look at the current film and television industry chain from "The Ferry Man".

Judging from the "Ferry Man" incident, the biggest news in the film and television industry chain in the digital era

in December 2016 should be the criticism against film critics over whether "The Ferry Man" is good or not in the past few days.

"The Ferry Man" is a romantic comedy co-produced by Alibaba Pictures, Zedong Films, and Hehe Films. It is produced by Wong Kar-wai, directed and screenwriter by Zhang Jiajia, and starred by Leung Chaowei, Jin Chengwu, Eason Chan, Dapeng, Yang Ying, Zhang Rongrong, Du Fu, Xiong Dailin, etc.

Regarding the low box office of this movie, some commentators believe that critics on Douban and Cat's Eye rated films such as "The Great Wall" and "The Ferry Man" too low, which stopped the audience and affected the box office, and then rose to the level of "affecting China's film industry."

Is this the truth?

Frankly speaking, it has been a long time since the reporter saw a movie. Seeing the controversy in this movie, the reporter walked into the movie theater, but what he received was disappointment. It did not move the reporter more. As a friend recently analyzed some movies-with the development of human society and the advancement of science and technology, another extremely ironic phenomenon has emerged: humans are de-emotional, only willing to believe in data, and become like machines; Machines are becoming more emotional, trying to approach people's hearts and become like people.

Of course, the reporter also learned about the current film and television drama industry chain. It was found that as the Internet began to be deeply integrated into life, consumption in the digital era, especially the film and television industry, began to upgrade, especially the film and television industry, and the entire industry chain also changed.

So what is the current composition of the film and television industry chain?

A long time ago, judging the quality of film and television works largely depends on the preferences of the audience. But in today's eye-economy era, audience attention and the quality of film and television works are simply and rudely quantified into data: ratings, box office, and clicks, which in turn affects the entire film and television industry chain-film and television companies The company has injected these links into the industrialized film and television content production process without any suspense. So whether you turn on the TV or walk into the movie theater, an invisible black hand controls your TV screen driven by countless chains of monetary interests.

Pythagoras of ancient Greece long said that "everything is counted". Although the "numbers" he referred to are different from today's data, they are similar in some respects. Therefore, today there is "everything is information", that is, data is king.

Especially during the New Year's Day holiday, this number is even more important. It is said that the consumer market in recent days has reached tens of billions-once a certain film and television drama becomes popular, or a certain TV station's New Year's Eve party has a high click rate, it will affect hundreds of millions of box office or billions of advertising sponsors.

The importance of New Year's Day's Eve is imaginable.

However, although the business is big, it is not easy to do. Why? In the Internet age, everything is too transparent, okay? The masses are not fools, at least they can have a channel to complain.

Who ruined China's movies: In the commercial era of a counterfeiting industry chain worth as much as 4 billion

yuan, when everything starts to look at money, many people's hearts, especially the mentality of directors, have changed. This is understandable. However, if directors begin to be kidnapped by data, the development of the film industry will be full of despair. This is not just a commercial issue, but more a moral issue.

And what's even more terrifying is the standard fake data used to measure data.

Data show that in 2016, the TV drama counterfeiting industry chain alone reached an annual revenue of 4 billion yuan. You can imagine how deep the water is.

Moreover, there was even a scandal that "Ip Man 3" helped people launder money-"After releasing" Ip Man 3 ", I have to leave this place quickly. It's terrible!"

"I now wonder if I'm making a movie or helping a group of loan sharks launder money."

"Ip Man 3", which grossed 500 million yuan in box office in four days after release, finally exposed the truth of "false pomp" and "box office flooding". Even the inside story of money laundering allegedly helping Kuailu Group through the movie was exposed by the media.

The truth is terrible and frightening.

Therefore, even over the years, media reports, debates and appeals about ratings fraud have never stopped; however, the situation of ratings fraud has not changed, and even a larger and larger ratings fraud industry chain has been formed because of huge interests.

This casts a shadow over the future of the entire domestic film.

Reveal the fake industry chain of film and television industry in the digital era

from "Ye Wen 3" to "Ferry Man," even if the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has made a move, but the wind of fraud is still more and more intense, no one can do it again, but no one can admit it, because the fake industry chain of the whole film and television industry is too large.

No one refuses to bring tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of benefits with a simple move.

"You can count money while lying down." Who can refuse the temptation of money? Who is willing to seriously study scripts, study acting skills, and even shoot?

Between comfort and hard work, everyone chooses the former, which will ruin the future.

Among all the means of fraud, China people have no doubt about gambling and speculative psychology.

According to professionals, there are currently two main methods of falsifying ratings. One is to "pollute sample households" and the other is to "directly tamper with data."

"Contamination of sample households" is one of the most common and old-fashioned methods. Some counterfeiters use private detectives to follow investigators or charge high prices on the Internet to obtain information about sample households. Once the information is in hand, they begin to lobby for bribes-by continuing to provide money and gifts to allow sample households to watch their programs at a fixed time. A relatively convergent approach is to place advertisements about TV dramas around the concentrated sample distribution area to influence residents 'viewing tastes.

A relatively "advanced" method is to directly tamper with the data. In 2015, Tencent Entertainment reported that by paying about 30,000 yuan for a single episode to bribe internal personnel of the data company, the ratings could be increased by 15%-20%, and the satellite TV rankings could also be improved by 2-3 places. By interfering with the data uploaded to the server by the sample household's home by hackers and other means, the ratings can also be "stolen". That is, the data output by the measuring instrument will be changed from station A to station B.

What is even more terrifying is that compared with the changes in data, what is even more frightening is the development and growth of professional counterfeiting organizations. More and more film and television organizations and data companies have joined the fraud camp, either becoming accomplices to satellite TV's fraud, or directly becoming the main perpetrators of fraud.

The person in charge of a program production company said,"If you investigate the production companies that are currently active in the market, you will find that several companies have made a fortune in data before. These companies have limited program production levels, but no matter which platform the programs they produce are broadcast, the ratings will not be bad. Among them, some production companies that have made their fortune in data have re-cooperated with relatively powerful program production companies in order to clean up their previous background of 'making data.' One is responsible for manipulating data behind the scenes, and the other is responsible for production. With such a 'strong alliance', I can make a lot of money."

The combination of production companies and data companies has expanded the "counterfeiting entities" and become a very fierce team.

When many TV stations sign a TV series purchase contract with a film and television company, they will attach a "gambling agreement"-the drama must reach the ratings guaranteed in the agreement when it is broadcast before the film can get all the purchase money from the TV station. Otherwise, the money will be deducted accordingly according to the agreed proportion.

In this way, in order to successfully get the final payment, the film and television company will definitely try its best to increase the ratings of the TV series. Data fraud seems to be the most convenient way, so much so that when AC Nielsen (global market research company) left the China ratings survey market in 2009, its CEO Steve Schmidt said: This market is too complicated.

Perhaps the most troublesome thing for the CEO is the complex interest relationships in China's ratings survey market. For TV stations, ratings are closely related to performance evaluation and advertising investment. Many TV stations and advertising still rely on ratings. The higher the ratings, not only will the performance be better, but also the higher the possibility of receiving major advertising opportunities. For producers and film suppliers, the "ratings versus gambling agreement" is an unavoidable "knot". For data providers, polluting viewing data is also to survive in the cracks. Almost all the ratings of TV stations and major cities across the country are monopolized by CCTV-Sofrey.

Some people say that the three brothers of fake ratings, fake box office, and real navy are the original sin and cancer of China's film and television industry; some people say that when engaged in the film and television industry, the first thing to do is to "dare" fake. It is difficult for us to further verify whether this is a progress of the times or a fall of morality. However, we can only say that we cannot understand the depth of the film and television industry.

For example, in the past, movie box office fraud simply pursued high box office. At worst, the film company and the distributor paid for the ticket themselves.

Today's film and television industry has been upgraded and keeps pace with the times in the digital age-the box office, which should be the ultimate source of profit from film investment, has been advanced in advance into the "gambling capital" for investment and financing profits. Before the film is released, investors have raised funds to the society through its P2P, crowdfunding platforms and other channels. At the same time, they can re-invest in purchasing movie box office income rights or income rights investment funds, and agree on a guaranteed box office amount. If it exceeds the guaranteed box office, social investment can earn excess returns.

Editor: yvette