Online video content outsourcing and conversion of domestic payment to solve the profit problem is about to turn over

online video is a rare and everlasting industry in the Internet field, but the problems encountered always revolve around the huge copyright cost and profit dilemma. Online video, once known as the content porter, experienced a qualitative change in content in 2016. Self-made and supplemented by outsourcing has been gradually implemented, and practitioners are no longer ashamed to discuss the scale of payment. E-commerce + video, live broadcast + video and other industrial linkage forms are rich, from products, markets to industries are showing a "look very beautiful" appearance.

online video is a rare and lasting industry in the Internet field, but the problems encountered always revolve around the huge copyright cost and profit dilemma. The online video, once known as the content porter, experienced a qualitative change in content in 2016, and self-made and purchased as a supplement were gradually implemented. Practitioners are no longer ashamed to discuss the scale of payment, e-commerce + video, live broadcast + video and other industrial linkages are rich, from products, markets to industries all show a "look very beautiful" appearance.

< strong > fundamentals: < / strong >

< strong > content is purchased for internal supply < / strong >

online videos that have experienced piracy, listing, merger and other tests never put too much emphasis on their own existence. The content carried by the platform is a natural public relations medium, but the content is also a curse exerted in this field for many years. For online video players, the rise in the price of copyright content is no longer worth making a fuss. Although the industry knows that copyright outsourcing is a bottomless pit, few people dare to give up outsourcing completely and rely on self-control. This content source, which makes the industry in a dilemma of popularity, makes online video companies love and hate each other and can't stop.

the above situation has improved to a certain extent this year. According to the relevant report of Analysys International, the pure net TV series IP in the fourth quarter of 2016 has been adapted into the normal state. During this period, the TV series broadcast on Pure net are Youku Tudou's "Joy Secret Service", Tencent Video's "Super Star Academy", Sohu's "Forensics Qin Ming", iqiyi's "Beauty as stuffing" and "Soul Ferry 3" respectively. The overall playback volume ranges from 790 million to 2.2 billion, with an average of 1.264 billion, with an average of 74.167 million episodes per episode. Analysys International believes that the above-mentioned online self-made content cut from unpopular industry dramas not only provide a richer type of theme for the market, but also attract users to watch with on-screen social interaction.

according to related reports, 108 small-volume online dramas were launched in 2016, halving from 221 in 2015, but the number of online dramas with more than 200 million broadcasts was 11, much higher than the 2 in 2015. The improvement in the production level of homemade content has directly increased the number of broadcasts, which is enough to surprise the industry and marks the beginning of the qualitative change of homemade content. However, this has experienced and is experiencing shoddy production, hot spots and other problems, for this reason, online video companies have made a lot of efforts in the personnel training of self-made content.

recently, iqiyi has conducted in-depth cooperation with Beijing Film Academy in the fields of talent training, support for works and activities, IP development and project fund cooperation, and school-enterprise cooperation. The two sides have jointly trained professionals and created high-quality content for the online film and online drama industry. In order to curb the bubble of online video self-made content and strengthen supervision, the State Administration of Press, publication, Radio, Film and Television has also removed dozens of online movies, which is regarded by the industry as the end of the era of barbaric growth of online self-made content. It is only a matter of time before the level of homemade content is improved under multiple effects. Obviously, it has reached a turning point from the online drama "the first year of homemade" in 2014 to online video homemade in 2016.

at the same time, the quality of online self-made content has triggered a series of good chains, such as attracting star lineup, all-star lineup Li Yifeng, Yang Yang, Tang Yan in Tomb robbing Notes, Jiao Junyan and Zhang Ruoyun in Forensic Qin Ming, Jin Rong in Xianban Campus 2, Zheng Yijian and Zhou Xiuna in my Best Goddess, and other works began to increase. In addition to online dramas and online movies, online videos have also been tried on pure online variety shows and talk shows. According to the statistics of iqiyi, Tencent and Youku's 2016 premiere variety TOP20, it can be found that home-made variety shows account for 20% of the variety head traffic of the three major websites. From the number of TOP20 point of view, iqiyi, Tencent, Youku home-made variety number of 8, 4, 5 respectively, network self-made variety has quietly become the main consumption content of video users.

however, in terms of the current amount of self-made content and playback, themes and production level of domestic video websites, it is not enough to support the entire viewing demand of users. Buying phenomenon dramas is still worth online video shopping, but the proportion of outsourcing will gradually decrease. Sohu Chairman of the Board and CEO Zhang Chaoyang said publicly that the procurement of high-quality content will continue in 2017, but will decline next year. Most of the video traffic by 2018 will be contributed by the company's homemade programs.

< strong > appearance: < / strong >

< strong > pay to solve the profit problem < / strong >

almost at the same time as the rise of web-made content, there is also the scale of online video payment. According to the definition, the network video payment market refers to the network video platform to provide payment services for individual users and the various market links formed around this business, which does not include live broadcast reward, show entertainment and other services.

since the rise of online video, advertising has always been the most important business model, and the revenue from this channel accounts for an absolute proportion of the income of the online video platform. However, according to Analysys International, the growth rate of the video advertising market has slowed sharply since 2013, from 123% in 2011 to 38.2% in 2013. the size of the advertising market was 36.5 billion yuan in 2016, with a growth rate of 50.1%. The growth rate is expected to decline again from 2016, with a month-on-month growth rate of 31.5% in 2017 and 22.9% in 2018. The slowdown in traditional revenue growth has led online video manufacturers to expand forward charging models, including pay-on-demand, membership services and value-added services.

data report proves the rapid development of online video payment market. According to the report, the number of online video paying users in China in 2016 was 61.3 million, an increase of 109.7 percent over 2015, and the revenue of the paid market was 10.89 billion yuan, a growth rate of 124.9 percent. According to public information, as of June 2016, the number of effective paid members of iqiyi had exceeded 20 million, and Tencent Video announced that the figure had also reached 20 million in November 2016. Sun Zhonghuai, vice president of Tencent and CEO of Penguin Pictures, predicts that the penetration rate of paid members of video sites will increase from 10% to 16% next year. With the gradual reduction of the Internet population dividend, the online video platform will form a more diversified business model by deeply tapping the value of users. In the future, the number of paying users will continue to grow at a high speed, and user fees will account for a larger proportion in the overall revenue structure of the online video platform.

from the perspective of dredging the payment channels, the rise of the payment scale is the improvement of the payment system, and in essence, it is the strengthening of the content discourse power of the network video platform. Since 2015, online videos have cut into the upstream content production link in the form of film and television companies. At present, examples of vertical extension of online video to the industrial chain can be found everywhere. Iqiyi Huatze Film, iqiyi Pictures, Oneness Pictures, Penguin Pictures, Letv Pictures, Storm Pictures and so on. In addition to paid content resources such as movies, TV dramas, documentaries and concerts, online variety and children's education have also begun to become new payment points, and users' rights and interests extend from content rights and service rights to more areas.

behind the diversification of users' rights and interests, the maturity of the sharing mode among network video platform, content production organization and hardware terminal manufacturer has also played a certain role in promoting the outbreak of network video payment.

it is understood that users purchase online video payment services in different directions of capital flow. It is the most direct development idea for the network video platform to obtain the full amount paid by the users. in addition, after users watch the paid video content, for the manufacturers who participate in the content cooperation sharing mode, the network video platform according to different content levels, according to the effective on-demand quantity, the agreed sharing ratio and the content copyright party to share, the representative mode is iqiyi's online movie sharing mode. Recently, iqiyi officially released the annual TOP20 list of iqiyi's online films in the past three years, which is the first time that the annual box office has been announced since the establishment of the online film market.

users can also purchase smart hardware terminals bundled with video payment services, such as mobile phones, smart TVs, TV boxes, and so on, to obtain network video platform payment services for the corresponding term. Then the hardware terminal manufacturers will share with the network video platforms that provide specific payment services according to a certain proportion, represented by Letv, Storm and so on.

< strong > Linkage: < / strong >

< strong > Multi-industry superposition takes effect < / strong >

the support of diversification behind the payment model also comes from the linkage of a variety of industries and platforms. At the end of last year, Alibaba Home Entertainment announced that it would reach a strategic partnership with Mango TV in terms of content, which would open up both members and advertising systems, and jointly launch new Internet televisions based on their exclusive cooperation.

this is only a form of industrial linkage. With the improvement of the penetration of network video in the Internet, network video has become a broadcast platform that can be matched in importance from being a supplement to the channel of TV stations. According to relevant data, in the fourth quarter of 2016, the TOP5 broadcast volume of webcast TV dramas was "Jinxiu Weiyang" broadcast on iqiyi, Tencent Video and Youku Tudou, "Cold Mountain order" broadcast on iqiyi, Letv video, Sohu video and Youku Tudou, and "if Snail has Love" broadcast on Tencent Video. In Youku Tudou's "Let's fall in Love" and "impossible tasks" broadcast in iqiyi, Sohu, Tencent Video and Youku Tudou, the average number of views per episode of the above TV series is as high as 340 million. Take "if Snail has Love" as an example, while the play was broadcast on Oriental Satellite TV in the fourth quarter of last year, Tencent Video's paying members could also watch the last three episodes in advance every Tuesday to Thursday. The differential editing of online and offline free and paid models has become an important way to reflect the value of the content of TV series.

in addition to sharing traffic with traditional broadcasting platforms, online video has also begun to make breakthroughs in emerging markets. Taking advantage of the hot concept of live streaming in 2016, almost all online video platforms have seized on this hot spot to test the waters. When iqiyi released the live broadcast brand Qixiu Live in July 2016, iqiyi founder and CEO Gong Yu said that "live broadcast is the standard configuration of all kinds of Internet services." Xu Weifeng, co-president of iqiyi, said, "there is a natural meeting point between online video and live streaming in terms of interaction and coordination, star resources, content production and so on." I think this is what the video industry must do, not if you don't do it, you will die, but there will be a missing piece in the whole video layout. "

online video is not simply to follow the trend. Resources such as platform output and content production are the advantages of the network video platform. At the same time, the form of video + live streaming can provide more imagination for the content of the platform. For example, live video content can include the front and back scenes of content production, and the value of IP is developed to a greater extent from content launch, preparation to publicity.

from a macro point of view, online video no longer exists independently, but has been demarcated into the category of large-scale entertainment. In September 2016, Oneness Group formed a "Video Entertainment Alliance" with Alibaba's UC and Sina Weibo. Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba Group, said, "with the Oneness Group joining the Ali family, including Weibo and UC, it has formed the troika of the Ali cultural and entertainment sector." The "Video Entertainment Alliance" aims to achieve the connection of content, distribution and cash. he hopes to turn the 600m consumers owned by Alibaba Group into the audience of Youku Tudou content producers and the products into the production factors of content entrepreneurs. Connect 600 million consumers' wallets to the wallets of self-media content creators. Yang Weidong, president of Oneness Group, said: "this alliance will achieve content communication, interaction communication, relationship communication, account communication and algorithm communication, forming a complete linkage ecological matrix."

although online video is gradually getting rid of the fate of content porters in all aspects, and the business models of the industry are constantly enriching, new competitors and challenges are coming, copyright prices are still rising, and profitability is still not completely solved. this is the best and worst of times, and vice versa.

Edit: yvette