New players pay tens of millions of yuan to enter cultural variety shows, but the money is unknown

Wang Xianyu participated in" applauding Zhonghua "

. However, it is the exponential growth of cultural variety in a short period of time that seems to prove that such themes are beginning to" follow the trend ". At the same time, after experiencing the initial tap water-style word-of-mouth fermentation, innovation, realization, similar competition and expansion of influence have become key words that cultural variety has to consider.

what innovations have been made in the new cultural variety show? What are the development difficulties we are facing? Is it already the peak of the development of cultural variety? To this end, the reporter interviewed Guan Zhengwen, founder of strength Culture, chief director of "meet words like face to face", independent producer of Oriental Satellite TV, Wang Xinyi, chief director of "applause China", "Little celebrities of Chinese Studies" producer room longitude and latitude, guest writer Ma Boyong, person in charge of entertainment advertising and other industry insiders.

< strong > New trend < / strong >

< strong > Cultural programs involving idioms, history, paintings, and operas < / strong >

this summer are generally more professional in content. Take "face to face" as an example, most of the letters selected in last season are mainly modern and contemporary letters, and the length of interpreting letters is also relatively short. But in the second season, more ancient letters will be added, such as Sima Qian's letter to Renren and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the professional interpretation of the letter will be strengthened. Cultural celebrities such as Liang Wendao and Shi Hang will also be present to interpret the letters. "because viewers' feedback wants the program to be more personalized and enlightening, we hope to do it as deeply as possible this season." Guan Zhengwen said.

at the same time, many brand-new cultural variety shows have also made bold attempts at the content level. For example, compared with previous cultural programs that only focus on poetry and Chinese characters, the "Little Scholars of Sinology" launched by Shandong Satellite TV covers idioms, history, paintings, and so on, and even focuses on the knowledge of "universities." therefore, we hope to dabble in a wider range of Sinology knowledge, so that the audience can feel a deeper level of learning and the way of life. " The producer room longitude and latitude revealed.

while Oriental Satellite TV's "applaud China" is to put a narrower audience of operas into prime time, and the adaptation of operas such as "all the Cake Rolls" selected in the program also shows folk artists' popular expression of traditional culture. "We want to inherit traditional opera, but we also need to be in line with the aesthetics of today's audience, so at the content level we have made innovations that resonate with the audience." Wang Xinyi said.

< strong > Guest < / strong >

< strong > is more popular, with equal emphasis on popularity and ability < / strong >

compared with the first half of the year, only "readers" and "meet words" have harvested celebrities in the industry. Most of the cultural variety shows this summer have invited more well-known guests to join, ensuring the flow of cultural variety. For example, "up! Poems "invited well-known writers Liu Zhenyun and Jiang Fangzhou to sit in;" applaud Zhonghua "invited celebrities such as Xu Fan and Wang Xieyu.

in the view of Ma Boyong, a writer who chose "Little celebrities of Chinese Studies" in the variety show, cultural variety is more of an opportunity for cultural celebrities to improve themselves. "before participating in this program, I knew a lot of knowledge very vaguely. It's not comprehensive enough. In the course of the program, through the exchange with other judges and contestants, but also sort out their own knowledge structure, and benefited a lot. "

in the first season, Zhang Guoli, he Bing and other "Old Drama bones" were invited to join the "meet words like face to face", and the second season also included a series of actors with both popularity and acting skills, such as Zhou Xun, Yao Chen, Wu Gang and so on. It is reported that the number of actors interested in participating in the second season is actually far more than the current guests, and although this season seems to emphasize popularity and flow in terms of the lineup, Guan Zhengwen always believes that the actor's deductive ability and speaking skills are the first. "because we are all messengers of letters. Only when the letter is good and interpreted well can it be liked by the audience. "

< strong > platform < / strong >

< strong > broadcast on first-tier platforms and prime time < / strong >

in addition to the innovation and upgrading of content and lineup, most of the cultural variety shows in the second half of the year are arranged to be broadcast in prime time on first-and second-tier satellite TV, and some of them are even broadcast in prime time on weekends, which largely makes up for the defect that cultural variety can only be broadcast on weekdays. "for example, if viewers are looking for variety shows on weekend evenings, they will naturally see Oriental Satellite TV, as a first-tier satellite TV. At this time, at least our program will have a greater chance of being followed." Wang Xinyi said.

and in the network field, many cultural variety arts have joined the network station linkage. In addition to "seeing words like face to face" will continue the spread of short videos, Guan Zhengwen also applies this model to the "Chinese character Fengyun Club". The game spread of the short film "Test you a word", because interesting teasing also attracted the second spread of netizens, "it is hard to say whether the program can bring fire or not, but the fun is true." Guan Zhengwen revealed that in the future, their programs will produce content for the Internet, "because the public's consumer demand for audio-visual programs has already exceeded the growth rate of the advertising market."

< strong > Dilemma < / strong >

★ head: "face to face" naming fee 50 million + / p >

★ other: "applaud China" and "Little Scholars of Chinese Studies" naming fee 5 million-10 million

(data provided by Yue Entertainment)

although cultural variety seems to have entered its peak this year, the number and investment have increased. However, due to the limitation of content and subject matter, the production team still faces great challenges in terms of business prospects, communication scope and type innovation.

< strong > 1, the crown name is over 10 million? Business prospects are not optimistic < / strong >

is different from the state of "streaking" in the first season of "face to face." in the second season, not only did it successfully increase the number of nominees, but other advertisements sold out three or four days later. "there will be four or five advertisers this year, and at present, many brands have begun to actively enter the cultural variety, which is a good thing." Guan Zhengwen revealed.

in his view, the "streaking" in the first season of "face to face" is because advertisers' influence on cultural programs and the size of the audience have not yet established market confidence, "so instead of spending time waiting for advertising, we think the best thing is to produce the program first and generate the necessary data needed by advertisers."

but now times have changed, and the popularity of programs such as "meet each other" has led to the success of "applauding China" and "Little Scholars of Chinese Studies" to win the favor of naming businessmen before the first season of broadcast.

Jieyue Entertainment said that at present, advertisers are indeed more active in the naming of cultural variety than before, among which the more obvious are the Internet finance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the high-end automobile industry. Because the audiences of these brands are mainly middle-aged users who like to watch cultural variety, they need serious cultural variety to endorse them, "but like some mobile phones and fast consumer goods that focus on young people." in fact, they will still invest in entertainment variety. "

in addition, most of these brands named cultural variety are also "new players". The naming fee of millions to tens of millions of dollars for cultural variety is undoubtedly more cost-effective than the hundreds of millions of investment in entertainment variety. Jiyue Entertainment Advertising Director told the reporter: "non-head cultural variety will not have too many customers to compete for sponsorship, so as long as there is a nominee to take the offer, the money can cover the cost of the program, which is generally accepted by the program group." The idea of "China has hip-hop" costs 5 million yuan, but now it is only a few million to be named a satellite TV cultural variety show, which is indeed cost-effective. "

but is the commercial prospect of cultural variety likely to compete with other types of variety in the future? The answer given by industry insiders is not optimistic.

< strong > advertisers lack confidence < / strong >

in Guan Zhengwen's view, the marketization of cultural variety still has the limitation of subject matter. For example, under the same viewing and click data, advertisers will still give priority to entertainment variety, "even if they broadcast less than our data, they will be higher than us in advertising volume and pricing." The main reason is the lack of recognition of cultural variety in the market. Although the show is valuable, advertisers still have doubts about the audience. "even if we get good data for the first season, advertisers will worry about whether anyone will like it next season." But as long as entertainment variety shows have a mature model, or pull a list of stars that are beautiful enough, advertisers will assume that you can succeed. Even if such a program is 80% to 90% still a failure. " Guan Zhengwen said.

is not as rich as entertainment variety advertising, that is, Yue Entertainment also said that in addition to naming, advertisers are generally less likely to advise customers to invest in cultural variety. Because entertaining variety shows will be richer in the way of advertising and have more space to be implanted. "like other advertisers who see words like face to face, they may be presented by oral broadcast by the host, insertion in creativity, eggs at the end of the film, and so on. For the sake of the reputation of the program, it is impossible for them to advertise in the content read aloud. "

< strong > Investment-output ratio may be lower < / strong >

, not all cultural variety can be commercialized in the future. At present, there are not many good cultural variety production teams, and if the cultural content is not done well, it is easier to homogenize. If the program is not innovative, customers will also become cautious. "Cultural programs without bright spots may eventually become accepted by customers, no matter how low the price is. But if the investment-output ratio is too small, it can not avoid the possibility of miscarriage. Of course, we do not rule out policy support. Hunan Satellite TV is going to do a program soon, even if it hasn't been named yet. " Advertising industry insiders revealed.

< strong > 2. The audience still needs to be cultivated and valuable content needs to be explored < / strong >

although the number of cultural variety shows has increased, the ratings data do not seem to be high. To Zhejiang Satellite TV just started the broadcast of "up!" An example of poetry. The show, which is located in the prime time of the first-tier satellite TV on Sunday, invited cultural celebrities such as Liu Zhenyun and Jiang Fangzhou, but the average audience rating of the first two episodes of CSM52 City was only 0.6, and the number of Internet hits was only 139000.

also with poor ratings is "applauding Zhonghua". Although the program has a good reputation, after the average audience rating of the first and second episodes reached 0.68, the third episode began to drop to 0.5, or even 0.4. "because we just started to pick up after the first half of my Life, the TV series were very popular, which also led to our overall ratings." However, Wang Xinyi said helplessly that it is very difficult for the program to attract viewers who do not understand opera to become fans. "from the curve analysis, all we can do is to keep people who pay attention to Oriental Satellite TV on this program."

ratings and clicks are the guarantee that variety arts can be done for a long time. There is no doubt that one of the most difficult tasks of cultural variety is to cultivate a wider audience. In the past, many cultural variety shows in order to cater to the audience, for fear of doing the program too much spring snow, just do it popular and simple, losing personality and meaning. For example, after the first season of "face to face," what most viewers were most dissatisfied with was that the professional interpretation of the letter was too short and too shallow, which surprised Guan Zhengwen. "I find that we are at the operational level." often underestimates the audience and the audience's appreciation level. As cultural transmitters, we should not feel superior and show how deep the culture is just because we do cultural variety. "

according to Guan Zhengwen, in fact, most of the viewers have cultural and spiritual needs, in essence, the viewing habit of cultural variety has not yet been formed, and the content of the program is not attractive enough. At the beginning of the show, many viewers thought that the letter-reading program must be a minority, but eventually triggered public discussion. Before the broadcast of the Chinese character Club, viewers also thought that no one would watch the dictation programs of fifth-graders. But it has been introduced into the classroom by many schools. "as a matter of fact, all cultural programs are faced with starting from scratch and persuasion from scratch. It is not that this type of program has been successful before, and it will have a natural advantage in the future." And for cultural variety, the audience's consideration of the value of the content determines the size of the audience, "like the wonderful work" is also doing cultural speculation, but the audience is so wide, at the same time, many other cultural point of view programs are unknown. In addition to training the audience, why this kind of content is naturally so popular, this is also what we need to study and discuss at present. "

< strong > 3, cultural variety blindly follow the trend, lack of innovation < / strong >

the popularity of the" Chinese Poetry Conference "has made the variety market that likes to follow the trend begin to take action, poetry, Chinese characters, and reading programs are rampant again, but there are only a handful of people who enjoy good ratings.

"someone must have followed suit, whether it's because of policy benefits or the popularity of the first half of the year. But can cultural variety really get hot for a long time? " In Guan Zhengwen's view, there are few bright spots in cultural variety at present. after all, in the research and development of content, all programs are in their infancy, and haste makes waste. It is necessary to be patient and study in order to better present the cultural charm and value through the program.

in fact, where cultural variety is more difficult than entertainment variety is that each variety show, in addition to its own program color, also needs to bear the responsibility of making culture concerned for a long time, and this is not the short-term popularity of one or two programs. Or poorly produced cultural programs can be achieved overnight.

it is too early to conclude that exclusive farming is king. For the market, once cultural variety has become "popular" and "broke out", it seems to predict that this type will become a brand-new development trend in the field of variety arts. But to sum up, from the aspects of commercialization, audience training and content production, cultural variety still has a lot to explore. It is too early to predict a long-term rising or mature trend just because of the increase in the number of programs.

for example, in the first half of the year, "meet words like face to face", "Chinese Poetry Conference" and "Reader" received attention at the same time, which was more of an accident in rehearsal. "sometimes it is difficult for a lone tree to grow into a forest, and this accident does make this kind of program get more attention. But it is absurd to predict the trend because of this, and it does not have much substantive significance for the growth of the program. " Guan Zhengwen said.

at present, many kinds of cultural variety programs or shallow entertainment programs are actually done under the banner of promoting culture, just to attract customers, and some of them may not be essential enough in cultural content, and will be gradually replaced in homogeneous jails. it didn't reach its peak at all.

"so in my opinion, it's just a start. Instead of predicting trends or catering to the market, it is more important to think about how to make the content of culture better, otherwise it will become as impetuous and irresponsible as entertainment variety. " Guan Zhengwen frankly said that cultural variety will eventually return to letting the audience finish watching the program, thinking that this hour is not in vain, and listening to poetry appreciation is not vain. "Cultural variety will always have only good content and bad content, and if the program is finished, it will be over. Then it doesn't make much sense to discuss the skills and forms of so-called trends, mode innovation, and ways of communication."

Edit: mary