Do a short play with a monthly income of 400 million？ Interview with Chen Ruiqing, Chairman of Dianzhong Technology： Last year’s net profit was less than 1%.

How much money does the short play make? A few days ago, an entry of "making a short play with a monthly income of 400 million yuan" was posted on the hot search, and the short play market once again stood at the forefront. Is the short play that focuses on the sinking market really a good business today?

With such curiosity, I had an exclusive interview with Chen Ruiqing, the chairman of Dianzhong Technology, the protagonist of the hot search. However, in his eyes, short plays are far from being "profitable" at all, but a small-profit and meager-profit business that has been fully market-oriented in rapid growth, and the possibilities are still in the future.

After a short period of rapid growth, the profit ratio of the short drama business in mainland China has been relatively stable. According to Chen Ruiqing, the average gross profit margin of the whole short drama industry is basically stable at around 17%, which is about one tenth of the amount of "top-up running water" which is the favorite in online communication. This only 17% gross profit needs to be shared by producers, copyright owners, producers and investors, and only about 4% can be shared in each link. Of the 10 short plays, only two can run out in the market and make money. When the production cost is shared again, there will be little profit left.

The so-called 400 million is the total flow of Dianzhong Technology’s entire company, including online literature business, and the total recharge amount of dozens and hundreds of short plays issued by the company in that month. Specific to the company’s net profit in the field of short plays, Chen Ruiqing said that it was less than 1% in 2023 and even lost money in January 2024. Rather than making big money with short plays, it is better to use the online business to "raise" short plays.

From "monthly income of 400 million" to "annual net profit of 1%", why is there such a huge difference between the online transmission benefit and the real income of the short play business? And where will the short play business go in the future?

Doing short plays is to bet on the future.

Although Dianzhong Technology is currently the "head company" in the field of short plays in China, Chen Ruiqing did not think that short plays were a good business at the beginning. "Our philosophy is win-win cooperation. When hundreds of partners all transformed to do short plays, I began to ponder this matter."

In July, 2022, he decided to enter the field of short plays after visiting a large number of partners such as Tik Tok and Today Headlines. "I figured out two things, one is the trend of text video and film, and the other is that we know how to tell stories. Looking back now, we did it late. "

What the audience caught up with was the rapid development period of the short drama industry, and the cost increased to 200,000 to 300,000. It is also in this iterative period that short plays have entered the era of full competition, and there is no longer the situation of making a fortune in the past, but many "routines" and "scraping" contents have been eliminated, and they have gradually embarked on the market competition that pays more attention to content.

Chen Ruiqing is very optimistic about the market space of the short drama industry in the future. "Excluding the audience of movies and TV dramas, the entertainment needs of 500 million people in the Mainland may not be well met. I think that the market size of the short drama industry will definitely exceed 100 billion yuan in the future, and overseas will definitely exceed 10 billion US dollars. "

From the perspective of the supply side, Dianzhong technology has a unique advantage. Just as in the past, many adaptations of online dramas came from online novel IP, so did the contents of many short dramas. Dianzhong Technology has an extremely rich network literature reserve, and more importantly, there is a huge reserve of writers behind it.

Compared with the production cycle of three or four years for large-scale production of long dramas and movies, the production cycle of short dramas is extremely short, and it may take one or two months to shoot and broadcast online. On the one hand, it can better grasp the pulse of the audience in the current era, on the other hand, it can also make creative creation get feedback at the fastest speed.

As a result, short plays can turn a large number of online literature into movies, especially some types that were not welcomed by traditional long plays and movies in the past. To some extent, short plays and long plays have a complementary role in the demand for online literature IP, and there is not a clear direct competition.

From the forefront of creation, there are already many online writers themselves. Because they see the good benefits of short plays, they have transformed into screenwriters of short plays, and many of the massive author resources accumulated by Dianzhong Technology have the possibility of transforming screenwriters. Chen Ruiqing predicted that "the number of short plays adapted from online texts will drop below 50% next year, because there are not many adaptations and homogenization is becoming more and more serious, and new talents must bring creativity to different groups of people."

However, these are just a vision of the short play in the future. Today’s short play market is still in the process of hard exploration.

How to upgrade the iteration of 02 boutique short plays

How to make full use of the characteristics of short plays, create appropriate video content and embark on the road of high-quality short plays 2.0?

Talent iteration is one of the key links. Nowadays, overseas, many graduates from "Ivy League" famous schools have entered the creation of short plays, while at home, many graduates from "985" famous schools have become short play writers.

What is more worth mentioning is that in the production process of short plays, screenwriters are placed in an unprecedented important position. In the traditional creation of long dramas and movies, screenwriters usually serve producers and directors, and they can change their scripts on demand. Even many big-name actors have the right to change their scripts. However, in today’s short drama production ecology, screenwriters have become the creative core and production core. Chen Ruiqing told me that maybe the short drama company really doesn’t make much money now, but now the short drama writers have really made money, and good screenwriters are very scarce.

From the point of view of production and production, the era of casting a large number of rough short plays at the same time and deciding which one can run out will gradually become a thing of the past. To create fine works, it is also necessary to increase the cost. Previously, it cost 100,000 yuan, but now many short plays cost 300,000-500,000, and most of them can reach nearly one million. What stands out behind it is that creators and investors have begun to have a full understanding of the short play market and know what types, stories and roles can be welcomed by the audience.

Compared with the "water-flooding" story-telling mode of 60 episodes and 45 minutes per episode in the long drama era, the short drama is a kind of "squeezing water" in creation, that is, purifying the story and extracting the most important turning points and contradictions to enlarge it. Perhaps in the past, 200,000 words were changed to 2 million words, but now 200,000 words are changed to 20,000 words. For the audience who are used to the fast-paced life now, this "dry-goods-oriented" way is no less exquisite in narrative and character construction than ordinary long dramas and movies, and it brings more refreshing feeling. Moreover, relying on the rhythm of short plays, many wonderful unitized stories can also be presented to the audience with a good rhythm, and many excellent stories limited by the rhythm of past film and television dramas can also be filmed. After all, the so-called high-quality products not only lie in the production level of serving the Tao and lighting photography soundtrack, but also in the wonderful degree of story logic itself.

It may be one of the ways to break through the market model of recharge on demand, which is completely to C. At the end of 2023, Dianzhong Technology launched "Linping, Set out for Happiness", which is a short play with the theme of the Asian Games customized by Linping, Hangzhou, mainly to show the local customs and intangible cultural heritage of Linping in the form of short plays. Chen Ruiqing said, "Now we are also cooperating with Kaifeng, and we are also negotiating with CCTV, Xinhuanet and World Wide Web. We will work together to develop the’ short drama+’cultural market. We hope to help all walks of life realize the spread of Internet brands, and set up a department to do it. Even if we may not make money at first, we are optimistic about its future. "

This kind of to B business, in the planning of Dianzhong technology, itself carries the function of social responsibility. Chen Ruiqing said, "We think we can find a balance between social value and commercial value. Short videos bring short-term interest, but short plays are different. After a story, the audience can often recall it after watching it. We believe that miniseries are one of the best platforms for storytelling. I hope that dozens of such works can be launched this year to serve the society, explore the road to breaking the circle, and let miniseries bear more social responsibilities and economic benefits. "

In addition, Dianzhong Technology also saw the limitations of the small program mode. In August, 2023, it launched the free short drama APP Hippo Theater, and users could unlock the series by watching advertisements or recharging their members. At one time, the download volume of Hippo Theater in the APP Store exceeded national-level apps such as Tik Tok and Taobao. Chen Ruiqing said, "In order to give users a good feeling, Hippo Theater now has nearly 2,000 works, of which less than 50% are our homemade works, and users can also see works that are popular on other platforms, such as provoke and Donglan Snow. In the content, we will choose works that conform to mainstream values, have positive ideological values, and are loved by users. I hope that we can have more categories and more choices. "

03 Short Play Helps Culture "Go Out"

The market of short plays is by no means limited to Internet users in mainland China. "Short plays going out" has become one of the largest market-oriented foreign cultural communication among the people in China after "going out online".

Dianzhong Technology is one of the best players in "short play going out". Chen Ruiqing said that it is even better than the estimated results. "I completed the goal that I expected to complete in one year in four or five months." His goal is to be close to the number one short drama broadcasting platform in North America. From October 2023 to now, the short drama platform DramaBox under Dianzhong Technology has been very close, especially during the Spring Festival, DramaBox topped the list of domestic overseas enterprises for seven consecutive days in Apple stores and Google stores in North America by revenue.

It is not normal for all short drama practitioners to go so smoothly overseas. The particularity of Dianzhong Technology lies in that this is a company that lets online literature go abroad, and has rich experience in overseas markets. Basically, all the places that were easy to "step on the pit" in the past have been stepped on once, so I will encounter relatively few difficulties when I walk again with a short play.

Another somewhat unexpected thing is that Dianzhong Technology is overseas, and the first place to go is developed countries such as English-speaking areas such as North America. In Chen Ruiqing’s view, first of all, audiences in developed countries such as North America have a relatively high awareness of paying for content, and are relatively less sensitive to price. In addition, the content of English is relatively wider. "It will be relatively easy for developed countries to do other countries after they succeed. I always do the hard work first, and I succeed in all the hard work, so it is easier to do the others. Moreover, the thickness of talents in North America is different. Many people around the world go to Hollywood to study movies, and these local talents are easy to find. English covers a wide range, and many people in many countries speak English. You can study local ethnic customs after all the English contents are covered. "

In Chen Ruiqing’s view, there are three processes to gain a better foothold in overseas markets. Firstly, the local works are translated and presented directly to foreign audiences; secondly, China’s plays are taken out for "localization" in overseas markets; thirdly, the original stories are created and produced locally in overseas markets. "At present, we are still in the first step and the second step. The third step is already being done, but the results have not been verified. "

Compared with the domestic market, the cost of producing and distributing short plays in North America is relatively high, and the cost of losing a little mistake is 1.5 million and 2 million dollars, but Chen Ruiqing is not worried about losing money for a while. "We have to look at the long-term market, and we are firmly optimistic about overseas markets, so let overseas teams do it without fear of losing money."

There are indeed many difficulties in opening up the North American market. At present, the biggest problem is that the creator’s understanding of users is still not enough. "There are still very few people who can understand both Chinese and Western cultures and tell good stories," said Chen Ruiqing. "We have copied the domestic stories mechanically, and people will not eat that set in the past, but according to their model, the background color in our stories is gone. There are very few people who can understand these two pieces. We have formed several teams and are still screening and iterating. Perhaps in the process, some people have mastered the rules and traffic passwords. "

When overseas markets begin to recognize and accept short plays, especially those from China’s team, our culture will have a better chance to spread in a subtle way, such as the beautiful family in Confucian culture and the happy lifestyle in Chinese, which will naturally form folk cultural exchanges through the market.

summary

Although in the past, during the development of short plays, many projects were "mixed with mud and sand" and "mixed with dragons and dragons", after experiencing rapid development, the whole short play market has entered a platform period that has to be upgraded. When the dividend period is fleeting and speculators leave, we can see where the remaining long-term activists will have the opportunity to lead the industry. As Chen Ruiqing said, when he and Dianzhong Technology have already prepared for the worst, they will always find a glimmer of survival in the market in the future. "Our support for screenwriters, directors and producers leaves no room. We need talents very much. The profit of short plays is very low, but our investment has not decreased and we have never laid off employees. Although it is difficult now, I think the future will be better. "
　Author: Stanley