The business philosophy behind live variety shows: Create IP and reap the benefits of the industry chain

How to play live variety shows? What is the difference from traditional variety shows? Issues such as whether it can become a mainstream variety show genre have become the focus of attention in the industry. The reporter also chatted with many program producers with these questions and got many interesting opinions and inspirations.

Original title: Investing more than 100 million yuan, Wang Sicong and Ma Dong piled together, and a commercial model for live variety shows up!

On a hot afternoon in Beijing, Wang Sicong sat in 789 Bauhaus Square and watched a group of beautiful girls singing and dancing in the sun, fighting in the quagmire and catching pigs. He asked them to "please" online audiences to the greatest extent possible, because netizens have the "power to live and kill" to decide on female contestants.

If you watch the live broadcast of this program alone, you will have a very low feeling. The picture is rough and the game settings are relatively vulgar and down-to-earth. Even the main planner of the event, Wang Sicong, is complaining to a player who claims to be a goddess,"You can't be cold on the show. Our audience is all losers. You are so ungrounded."

In fact, this is a brand event that has been carefully planned for several months. The participating parties, Mango Entertainment and Wang Sicong's Panda TV, are both first-line companies in the circle. The overall capital investment has also reached about 100 million yuan, and the production volume is not inferior to traditional TV variety shows. It is reported that "Hello! Goddess "has recouped most of its costs, and as the show progresses, making profits is almost no problem.

With more than 100 million yuan in funding, it produced a seemingly crude program? This may implicitly coincide with the current tonality issue of live variety shows, that is, for whom live broadcasts are done.

The author sorted out the multiple recent live variety shows and unexpectedly found that more than 80% of them are related to game live broadcast platforms. In other words, this live variety show craze is mainly promoted by game live broadcast platforms and traditional variety production forces, while the current popular Mobile Live Video Broadcasting platform has "disappeared." As for traditional platforms such as Youku and Tencent, they are still feeling the stones. Whether it is "Project Stalker" or "15 of Us", which has been airing for a year, they have not made much splash.

"This is not difficult to understand. Currently, there are two forms of live broadcasts, game live broadcasts and show variant live broadcasts. The essence of a game live broadcast platform is a content platform, with the accumulation of content production; while the show and its variant models are aimed at traffic, the focus is on marketing to obtain traffic and then monetize it." Dou Yuxiao, vice president of Panda TV, told reporters that the difference between the two has caused the current live variety show to be the first to break out on the game live broadcast platform. Panda TV has adopted "Hello! Goddess "is actively deploying in the field of live variety shows, adding more pan-entertainment content to the platform, and trying to launch more live variety shows.

For a while, how to play live variety shows? What is the difference from traditional variety shows? Issues such as whether it can become a mainstream variety show genre have become the focus of attention in the industry. The reporter also chatted with many program producers with these questions and got many interesting opinions and inspirations.

Live variety show core: Let netizens change the fate of the players

"At first, we wanted to broadcast the audition for the top 240, but we were worried that the scene would be difficult to control. In March, we sent people to Changsha for a meeting and coordination. Finally, we neutralized the opinions of both parties and decided to start live broadcasts in the top 60 selection period." Panda TV Dou Yuxiao talked about the collision of ideas between them and Mango Entertainment during their cooperation.

"After doing these two issues, the biggest difference from the past is the interaction." Wang Ke, vice president of Mango Entertainment, said that live variety shows use bullet screens to achieve more free interaction. In "Hello! At the recording scene of "Goddess", netizens can use the bullet screen to communicate with the players in real time. Wang Sicong will also decide whether to see or not to see the female players based on the bullet screen situation.

"The interaction later is more interesting. Think about it, if you press on your phone, the female player's bed will turn over; if you press again, the bed will spray water. This kind of interaction is impossible to achieve in traditional variety shows." Wang Keyue, vice president of Mango Entertainment, became more excited,"The fate of the players can even change."

In addition, the audition process, game links, and user participation have also gone through a lot of running-in.

As a former senior producer of Hunan Satellite TV and producer of the live variety show "Jiugong Ju" on YY, Wan Chengtao also said that traditional TV people have long been accustomed to the director-centered system, but now that they are transforming into Internet products, they must study the ecology of relevant live broadcast platforms and user preferences, adjust while practicing actual combat.

After all, the core keywords of live variety shows are strong interactivity and strong sense of competition. That is,"allowing users to influence the direction of program content and even change the fate of players." Currently, this interaction is transforming from a shallow level to a deep level.

① For relatively shallow ones, interaction means rewards.

According to Zhang Xiaofan, co-founder of VG Entertainment, each player in "Flower Climbing" has two exclusive gifts. Netizens can direct their favorite players to increase their popularity. If they hate someone, they can also swipe negative gifts to reduce their popularity.

The program team once imitated the operation and maintenance methods of paying players such as "Journey", and often took the lead in swiping gifts to stimulate the competition mentality of viewers and encourage viewers to reward in disguise.

The author believes that this interactivity essentially adds some elements of game competition into it. According to the background data that has been broadcast, such strong interactive moments are often the most frequent.

② With version 2.0, in addition to giving rewards and popularity, you can also practice the goddess remotely.

《hello! During the audition period for "Goddess", netizens can buy gifts for two contestants who are answering PK questions and help one of them obtain tips such as "pass questions" and "get tips" to change the player's situation or score. By the time the top 10 players 'villa drills are held, netizens can buy cat coins and brush props to perform tricks such as blowing air and spraying water on a certain goddess to control the offline cultivation of the goddess. Use Dou Yuxiao's words: "The five goddesses selected in the end were selected based on netizens 'popularity. Even Wang Sicong couldn't change the results."

However,"Flower Climbing the Stairway" adopts an end elimination system. Netizens can also decide whether or not a player should stay by swiping someone's gift or swiping a negative gift to another player. And every round of knockout rounds is like the excitement of the AKB48 finals.

Take the real-world variety shows "Project Stalker" and "Expedition" as examples. Wang Kang, the chief producer of the latter, told Entertainment Capital,"It may be a bottle of water, an important survival equipment, and a precious opportunity to interact with the outside world. Live broadcasts. Our viewers no longer give you rewards when they are happy, but buy these rewards to change the fate of their favorite players, change the results of the competition, and even change the direction of the program."

Business experience behind live variety shows: Create IP and reap the benefits of the industry chain.

Now the problem is here. What is the business model and profitability of the live variety show that everyone can't wait to join? This is probably the focus of people's greatest concern.

As we all know, the most intuitive income from live programs lies in advertising sponsorship, copyright income (sold to on-demand websites), rewards from netizens, and gifts given. It is reported that "Hello! The first issue of "Goddess" received millions of rewards at Changsha Station. With the advancement of the program and the accumulation of popularity, it is not a problem to break through tens of millions.

However, unlike the simple and crude income from rewards, some program types are easier to make money from advertisers, but some do not attract much investment.

It is reported that the real-world variety show "Project Stalker" has won six sponsors, and "Expedition" also said that there are many advertisers who are interested in and are discussing it. It is not difficult to see that it is relatively convenient and easy to implant real-world variety shows, and it is indeed easy to negotiate.

In terms of other women's live variety shows, currently "Hello! "Goddess" and "Flower Climbing Body" only won the title of one company, and they are still continuing to attract investment in the future. On the one hand, both leaders said: "As the popularity of the program increases, I believe new customers will come in." But on the other hand, they do not care much about the temporary profits of their programs. They are often "drunk people do not have their intentions."

Zhang Xiaofan, the chief planner of "Huayang Ladder", told reporters,"In fact, with the entry of advertisements and the income from gifts, we can basically COVER the cost, and there is also a lot of room to achieve profit. But we're not saying how much money we want the program to make. What we care more about is experimental. Success in the model will be a breakthrough achievement."

According to Panda TV Dou Yuxiao,"Hello! Goddess "does not have any requirements or expectations for the income from rewards. Their ultimate goal is mainly to create online stars and serve the pan-entertainment transformation of the entire platform. "I have always felt that the ability of live broadcast platforms to create stars has been underestimated.《hello! Goddess "wants to use the form of a program to satisfy this demand of netizens. We believe that after we create them and let them make online dramas, their popularity should not lose to that of stars who made their debut through film and television works. This actually confirms the current new ecology of star-making."

In fact, the ambitions behind the participants can be seen through the types of programs they choose. Take "Expedition" as an example. As an outdoor competitive reality show program that has been prepared for more than two years and cost 200 million yuan, their goal is to turn the program into an IP. What they need to do in the future is to develop artist brokerage, IP copyright development and Community operations, e-commerce, game development, derivatives and other content.

"If I came up with any program plan, the live broadcast platform would be overjoyed."

"If I told the live broadcast platform that I wanted to do a variety show six months ago, no one would understand it, but now everyone is rushing to do it." Zhang Xiaofan described the earth-shaking changes in this field in six months. Behind this, it reflects the complex mentality of live broadcast platforms, content producers, advertisers, and Internet celebrity companies.

"Nowadays, live broadcast platforms are too short of good content. If you take a live program case, they will be very welcome." According to most content providers, major platforms are extremely "hungry" for live variety shows.

It is understood that Mango Entertainment relies on the Hunan entertainment platform and wanted to do a beauty show for "Sister Star", but its influence on terrestrial channels is limited. Later, they took this plan and asked Panda TV for cooperation, so they soon had "Hello! Goddess.

"There are only more than 100 million live game users in China, which are almost divided by several game platforms. It is difficult to have more room for growth. Without joining the pan-entertainment transformation, it is difficult to make further breakthroughs." Panda TV Dou Yuxiao said Wang Sicong's original intention of actively doing live variety shows. In short, for platforms in the Hundred Regiments War, it is urgent to create high-quality content, transform to high-end, and create differentiated advantages.

So what do the program producers think?

In an exclusive interview, Ma Dong said when talking about why he made "The Temptation of a Dinner","No one knows how to play it, but our logic is that we must rush in first and occupy a place first." "You know that nothing goes wrong on demand, but nothing goes wrong on live broadcasts. Maybe this is the logic of live broadcasts."

However, Xiaoyu found that "Dinner" did not have the highest amount of interaction on Douyu, and many netizens 'bullet screens also showed complaints such as "It's so boring" and "I don't know what to see". Many live broadcast platforms have also revealed to reporters that it will be difficult for platforms that have developed games and e-sports to change the inherent users in a short period of time. How the tonality of Mi-biased language programs matches the otaku taste of more than 80% of Douyu remains to be seen.

Of course, many people are also concerned about how to choose a cooperation platform for those content parties who have not yet set foot in it? Wan Chengtao said: "In the future, the differentiation and personalization of live broadcast platforms will definitely become more and more obvious. For example, yy's reward model, Youku will expand e-commerce after Alibaba enters. Tencent has great value based on the user population, while Yingke and iQiyi may produce high-quality programs. We can choose the platform based on each other's business model and original style.

Editor: yvette