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Following the film and television drama and variety show, the video website is eyeing the cake of documentary. Icarus produced by Netflix won the 18 Oscar for Best Documentary.
Tencent launched the Fat Roll program, inviting documentary director Chen Xiaoqing as the deputy editor-in-chief, responsible for fully controlling all its documentary studios.
Youku has established the Pan-Documentary Center, which will be exported on many topics, such as Pan-youth issues, trendy life, food culture, travel reality shows, ecological public welfare, space documentaries and so on, and establish a relatively perfect "documentary universe".
Iqiyi launched a partner program, hoping to open up the entire documentary industry chain and connect funds, platforms and markets. Take the lead in opening the documentary payment and accounting mode, and attract high-quality creation through the stimulation of commercial realization.
Announced the "search plan" to find more excellent documentary content for users and provide the whole industry chain support for creators.
Billie Billie signed a contract with an independent television station.
At present, the documentary sources of video websites are mainly divided into three types: copyright purchase, co-production and self-made content, which are moving forward step by step in the documentary industry chain. The Internet has brought documentary opportunities that have been dormant for many years, and it has also brought rapid and significant changes to the industry.
Young people's love
sudden
In recent years, the most encouraging change in the documentary industry comes from the gradual rejuvenation of the audience from the "three highs" (high class, high education and high income).
Wang Juan, editor-in-chief of Tencent Video and senior vice president of Penguin Film and Television, shared a set of data: "Tencent documentary users account for 70% under the age of 28. It can be said that the audience of the documentary has been represented by the post-90 s and post-00 s, and the main force of the documentary has gradually become younger. "
Wang Juan, editor-in-chief of Tencent Video and senior vice president of Penguin Film and Television.
Yang Haitao, vice president of Aiqiyi, has publicly stated that "among the audience of Aiqiyi documentaries, 19-30 users account for more than 50%, and 18 users account for 14%." According to the online survey of Ze Media, 57.27% of the post-90s video website respondents expressed their preference for documentaries.
Yang Haitao, Vice President of iQiyi
It was Li Li that brought the first wave of young people's surprises to this documentary. The unexpected popularity of 20 16 "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" made documentaries accustomed to middle-aged and elderly audiences feel flattered. Li Li saw the business opportunity from this sudden accident and invested in the documentary of the same name shown in the cinema.
Then the second season of "Bird's Eye of China" was broadcast in Mile Mile. At the time of the first broadcast, the broadcast volume reached the first place at that time, with 9.7 points.
If the national treasure can talk,
The nourishing atmosphere and young audience of the documentary have become the export that many documentaries expect. Finding Craft, which was rejected by many TV stations, is known by more people because of its miles and miles.
Wang Bingdi, the director of What's Life like, who won the special prize of the 8th China Documentary Academy Award, told ID:TVWatching that when she considered using the Internet to promote the film, Li Li was her first choice. Li Xi, chief operating officer of Bili Bili, said, "To some extent, users of Bili Bili represent the future of documentaries."
Trying to win the love of young audiences is the theme of all film and television products, but it is especially serious for documentaries that were once characterized as spiritual consumer goods for the elderly.
"In fact, in Japan, young people are not very interested in documentaries," said Sen Liming, the columnist of the documentary "72 Hours", which was rated as the most popular documentary by NHK viewers for ten consecutive years. We collected about 2,000 letters from young people, and found that more people who live in the Internet world actually want to know more about their real daily life, or some areas they don't know much about, for example, what is the life of workers living on construction sites? "
Tencent cooperated with NHK to create the documentary "72 Hours" in China. The Japanese team provides operational experience and the Tencent team completes localization work. The focus of localization work is to explore the tastes of young audiences in China.
Zhang Xuejiao, the general director of 72 Hours of Documentary in China, said, "We think modern young people like fresher content, so we divide the topic into multiple categories." The first episode of the program is about the youth in Changsha.
Maximum and minimum
A professor from TV College of Communication University of China once said that TV watching (ID:TVWatching) is developing in two directions: maximization and minimization. Most importantly, documentaries assume the function of political theory, which is closely related to the development of the country and current affairs. Minimalism is a documentary that explores the details of life from the perspective of youth and closeness, and then spreads it after giving full emotions.
From the documentaries of major websites, we can see extremely small and completely different trends.
The first is huge social responsibility. Three self-made documentaries jointly produced by Mango TV 2065 438+08, My Youth is on the Silk Road, I don't live up to my youth, I live up to my village and I live in that faraway place, all belong to the main theme documentaries. Tencent Video has tailored Poverty Alleviation 1+ 1 and 40 Details Around Us for 40 years of reform and opening up.
Live up to youth and the countryside.
Luo Jianhui, vice president of China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association, believes that the two gift-giving documentaries of Tencent Video clearly show the society the concept and practice of Tencent Video in two aspects: social responsibility and mission responsibility, indicating that online content should not only focus on form and channel innovation, but also play a guiding role of positive energy.
On the other hand, most self-made documentaries promoted by commercial video websites tend to have "minimalist" life themes. For example, "A String of Life", which Bi Li participated in the production, takes barbecue culture as the starting point to create a food documentary. Chairman and CEO Bi Li believes that this work is a record of the social activities that young people have participated in now and represents the youth of young people.
Regardless of the size, the way of documentary production is being adjusted with the viewing habits of users in the network age.
What is this life is a work made by Xinhua News Agency to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship. It tells the story of orphans in World War II and assumes the "great" function.
With the popular perspective and the creative characteristics of grand themes, What is this life has become a dark horse in the documentary at the end of 20 18. On the fourth day of its release, the number of hits on the whole network exceeded 40 million, and it was hailed as the most authentic national image film in China.
Wang Bingdi said, "The most gratifying thing is that I have received a very large proportion of young audiences." A Japanese speaks a Northeastern dialect, which pokes the cute point of netizens, crosses the nurturing grace of war and hatred, and directly hits the tears of the audience. "What is this life" opened the gap between "maximum" and "minimum".
Reading scriptures with foreign monks
Internationally renowned veteran documentary producers have seen the space to expand the China market through video websites. Head video websites have extended olive branches to these institutions.
In the process of cooperation, domestic video websites actively joined the front end of the documentary industry chain, which improved the vision and level of the documentary field. The cooperation between video websites and international documentary producers can be divided into: copyright purchase, * * * investment and co-production.
Tencent Video and BBC*** announced the "BBC Earth Tribe" plan based on the "Fat Roll Plan", and developed the business cooperation mode of the whole industry chain in terms of joint production, promotion and distribution, and commercial authorization. The main foothold of both sides is to make a documentary about China and tell the story of China well.
He Jibing, general manager of Youku Pan-cultural Center under Alibaba Entertainment, said, "The cooperation mode of online documentary has changed from buy buy in the era of 1.0 to * * students in the era of 3.0, which requires more investment, risks and benefits."
He Jibing, General Manager of Youku Pan-cultural Center of Ali Entertainment University
/kloc-in September, 2008, Billie Billie announced that it had reached an in-depth cooperation with Discovery Channel, including 145 documentary and 200-hour exclusive discovery zone, and both sides also planned the content system.
The cooperation between video websites and foreign production organizations is very important in the transformation of localization. Zhu Lexian, director of the Documentary Center of Tencent's video operation platform department, said, "The direction of documentary creation will be adjusted according to users' preferences, and their understanding is the lowest-China audiences will definitely want to see the real situation of China society and people. For example, the BBC wants to see the earth from space. They want to add some China elements. We will also put forward China's opinion, or which direction this story should go. We communicate very frequently. "
Production and dissemination are equally important.
Documentary has entered a brand-new communication environment, and production and communication have become equally important. Documentary people used to just focus on good works and then try to find a TV station to broadcast them. This idea doesn't work now.
Old documentary institutions quickly keep pace with the times and adjust their thinking. JACLYN LEE‐JOE, the global chief marketing officer of BBC, said, "We cooperated with Tencent to launch a video collection, which divided long videos into 50 video contents of 10 minutes, suitable for playing on the mobile side, and all short videos were extracted from genuine videos. We also made a 360-degree VR experience through Blue Planet 2 and made our Earth Pulse 2.
In order to adapt to the spread in China, the BBC's documentary "Dynasty" about Tencent's video fat roll plan has launched a Mandarin version and a mini version.
"Dynasty" jointly produced by Tencent Video and BBC Studio
Wang Juan, editor-in-chief of Tencent Video and senior vice president of Penguin Film and Television, said, "We should not only create high-quality documentaries that attract young audiences, but also spread these high-quality gold content as a platform to amplify the value of gold."
Wang Bingdi, director of What's Life Like, told TV Watching (ID:TVWatching), "In addition to the pursuit of creation, this film has also made many breakthroughs in communication, such as how to adapt to new media, how to plan and report, and so on. In recent years, in addition to learning how to make high-quality documentaries, the biggest growth is to learn how to package explosive products. "
"What is this life" does not have a special online media promotion team, nor does it contact the video website in advance to give publicity and recommendation resources. The spread began with a tweet from the official account of Xinhua News Agency's WeChat, but it was this article that hit the network communication point that made this 45-minute documentary get a chance to meet the audience on a large scale.
The Hope and Dilemma of Realizing Documentary
The audience of traditional documentaries has the property of high income, but now the audience of documentaries is developing towards youth and has the property of high consumption, which constitutes the market potential of documentaries and is also the reason why video platforms take a fancy to this cake.
Wang Juan of Tencent Video said frankly, "Documentaries have a group of people who trust the consumption of high-quality content, and they love documentaries very much. This is the value of the documentary we recognize. "
Rui Chen, chairman and CEO of Billie Billie, said at the 2065 438+08 Q3 financial report meeting: "Since the third quarter of this year, paying members have mainly paid for our cartoons and documentaries." Self-made documentaries are still in the IP training stage, but in the long run, the benefits are very considerable. "said Li Xi, chief operating officer of Bili Bili.
Chairman and CEO Rui Chen
Video websites have seen business opportunities from the development of documentaries, and also brought a brand-new business cooperation model for documentaries.
Wang Ying, general manager of Tencent's video commercialization, said: "We have broken through the previous advertising monetization model and adopted the first/second brand sponsorship model to make brands and documentaries stand side by side. This arrangement is more friendly and acceptable to users, especially young users.
Users watch documentaries based on their trust in the content. We hope to' empathize' with this trust and trust in the brand, so we will be extra cautious in the choice of commercial cooperation brands. By choosing the brand cooperation that matches the tonality of documentary, we can achieve a win-win situation for documentary, users and brands. "
Tencent video also tried to cooperate in authorized business, "trying to take the linkage between IP authorization and advertising investment as a breakthrough; Further extend the overall influence of documentary IP on online and offline services and users. "
Under the guidance of the above model, in 18, the audience saw milk powder everywhere in Adventure Life. "Flavor World" and the joint chopsticks launched by the Forbidden City. The "Flavor Room" also realized the online and offline interaction with Carrefour. Offline stores put "flavor" ingredients on the shelves according to the procedures, and they can buy them by scanning the code with one click, and also launched on-site service, which enriched the realization chain of documentaries.
Online and offline interaction between flavor house and Carrefour
In addition to the joint interaction with brands, documentaries have also begun to develop IP value. Tencent Video has begun to build a "taste" series of IP, gradually enrich the IP marketing ecology, dig deep into the documentary marketing value, and deeply, comprehensively and accurately develop the target audience value.
Li, the young CEO and general director of Master Master, shared, "The best content is to let users pay for you. Documentary is the best carrier of local advertising. Discovery's most important source of income is native advertising, which expresses a kind of values. Getting through e-commerce is a major breakthrough in realizing the documentary content.
For example, "The First Season of the Great Craftsman" and Youku cooperated to "buy while watching", and users will receive links to related products while watching. The average customer price is more than 3,000 yuan, and the best-selling scarf is more than 2,000 yuan. The performance was not bad at that time. "
Later, I learned that young people began to promote products that can be sold on a large scale through media platforms. For the first time, 1500 kiwis were sold out in one day.
Fan, the chief planner of Journey, introduced that Youku Journey spent tens of millions in the first season, which was paid by the participating guests Viann and his wife. In the second quarter, the overall expenditure exceeded 30 million, and the investment income was 6.5438+million. The cost in the third quarter is high, and the specific amount is difficult to calculate. Although the income from title, advertising and related derivatives reached 50 million yuan, the production cost of brand sponsorship and broadcasting platform still did not offset the cost.
lovers travel
The Game between Commercial Attribute and Works Attribute
Video websites are eager for documentaries not only to buy high-quality content, but also to improve the content ecology of members through documentaries.
Zhu Lexian, director of the Documentary Center of Tencent's video operation platform department, said, "The reason why there will be more and more self-control is because there may not be what you need in this market, so you have to make some innovations. For example, we are now determining the two documentary directions, one is lifestyle and the other is trend culture. Cinema documentary is not our main direction at present. Our main concern is members, first of all, to meet the needs of the platform to play content and meet the needs of users. "
Zhu Lexian, Director of Documentary Center of Tencent Video Operation Platform Department
There are two main modes for Tencent Documentary Studio to choose cooperative teams. First of all, the platform puts forward documentary ideas and looks for suitable companies and directors. The second is that the creator proposes that the platform evaluates the topic selection scheme and decides whether to cooperate.
The evaluation is divided into content control and commercial evaluation, focusing on its audience market, broadcast volume and the possibility of copyright sale. A content project often needs a long period of communication and running-in before deciding whether to participate in it.
Homemade content gives the platform greater voice. Documentary projects that do not meet the requirements of the platform need to be revised according to the opinions put forward by the platform until the platform is passed. The requirements of the platform for self-made content are oriented to meet the needs of users.
The satisfaction of self-made content to members' needs can be divided into extensive needs and vertical needs. The widespread demand is to pursue high clicks and high traffic. Vertical demand refers to the demand of the circle. For example, a documentary such as "Winning the Drone" is the spread facing the vertical circle.
Drone wins
It can also be seen that documentaries are facing great changes: from strong independence and personal attributes to commercial and platform attributes. On the one hand, the platform provides an outlet for documentaries to reach more audiences. On the other hand, producers have to compromise between the platform and themselves.
However, extremes meet, and the authorities may not be able to make the audience pay the bill. Excessive participation of the platform and excessive consideration of users' interests may not be a good thing for documentary creation. Many accidents have proved that the popularity of documentaries lies in the quality of the works themselves.
Movies such as "I am repairing cultural relics in the Forbidden City" and "What's this life" are all unpopular themes full of positive energy but far away from online interest points. However, because the main creator controls the content and emotions, he relies on himself without borrowing websites and becomes explosive.
For the platform, kitsch cannot be a panacea for survival, and in the documentary station, it cannot be too strong because it occupies the communication channel. Saving the user's ecology depends on the brains and inspiration of professional creators. The element that was killed in the planning stage is probably the reason why the film didn't explode at the end.
When the documentary is still in the minority, its vitality that can not be ignored and will always be cherished comes from the portrayal of true persistence and the attempt of rationality and sensibility to go deep into the deepest edge of human nature.
Documentary has become a new network celebrity on the Internet, allowing various forces to see the opportunity to realize cash and gradually enter the market. The whole industry is full of excitement, but it is definitely not the time for optimism.
Generally speaking, the audience of documentaries is still a minority. We can't let the desire for profit drown out the maverick character of the documentary. In the final analysis, the reason why documentaries become popular is precisely because they are different from glamorous things and are unique "personality responsibility" and "ideological responsibility" in the hearts of the audience.