Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Speaking of short dramas, I believe everyone will be familiar with them.

Compared with the lengthy plot of traditional online dramas, the biggest focus of short dramas is the length of time and high concentration, which conforms to the current trend of fragmentation of users' entertainment time. Most of the themes of his stories are superfluous son-in-law, overbearing president, traversing, rebirth and other seemingly exaggerated and nonsensical, but very "above" fictional content.

It is precisely because the production of such short plays do not pay attention to plot logic, do not pay attention to shooting techniques, set scene props shoddy, and even called "electronic mustard"-lack of nutrition, but many netizens can not stop.

According to the Economic Daily, the number of views of mango TV skits alone has exceeded 600 million this year, and the number of daily active users of the Kuaishou platform has also increased to 260 million. It can be seen that the short drama has shown blowout development, but also ran out of a new entrepreneurial tuyere-Mini Program short drama.

As the name implies, Mini Program short drama refers to moving the short drama that should be put on the short video platform to independent Mini Program for users to watch, and in addition to paying for VOD, it has derived multiple realization means such as advertising, agency account sharing and so on.

An entertainment critic tried to type the word "short drama" into the search box of Mini Program, only to find more than 200 Mini Program users who provided services for watching short dramas.

So, when the "electronic mustard" short drama meets the "use and go" Mini Program, what kind of spark will collide? Why do short drama creators and operators not use the short video platform, which has hundreds of millions of users, and have to "start over"?

Is the method of "01" more "flexible"? People who know a little about Mini Program know that what it precipitates is a private domain traffic pool. It is not easy to run a Mini Program from zero to one. So, after moving the short drama to Mini Program, how can operators get traffic?

The answer, of course, is to drain from the public domain traffic pool.

Zhang Xu (a pseudonym) belongs to the entrepreneurial team, which runs a short drama Mini Program. According to Zhang Xu, at present, almost all short plays Mini Program are drained in the same way, that is, clips of short dramas are broadcast on the mainstream short video platforms.

Once users are attracted by the clip, they will jump to a separate Mini Program to watch more episodes after clicking on the relevant link. In other words, spend a promotion fee to "rub" traffic from a short video platform with hundreds of millions of users.

Since short dramas are popular, short video platforms also have huge traffic, and there is also a mature pay-on-demand mechanism, why do institutions bother to develop and operate an independent WeChat Mini Programs that can deliver short dramas? Zhang Xu's answer is: freedom.

The operation of an independent Mini Program, whether it is the sharing of VOD revenue, the operation of user traffic, or the creation and delivery of short drama content, can be broken away from the restrictions of the short video platform and controlled by the operator behind Mini Program.

"like microdramas on the short video platform, Mini Program skits account for the vast majority of revenue from pay-on-demand. The vast majority of Mini Program skits charge 1 yuan per episode, and the first few episodes are usually free. Users often have to spend dozens of yuan, hundreds of yuan to watch the whole play."

Zhang Xu said frankly that although the pricing of platform skits is similar to that of Mini Program skits, if you put skits on the platform, the revenue will naturally be shared with the platform. If users are led to Mini Program on demand, the revenue goes into the pockets of the operators without sharing the accounts.

In addition, after breaking away from the rules of pay-on-demand on the platform, Mini Program skits have more forms of on-demand fees, which can be paid on an episode-by-episode basis, or the whole drama can be bought out at a preferential price. It can even be broadcast on an unlimited monthly basis, and operators can even formulate packages according to the actual delivery situation to boost users' desire to spend.

"as long as the content of the short play is cool enough, the company spends promotion fees, and the traffic from the short video platform will inevitably be converted into the private traffic of Mini Program, which can be continuously realized. at the same time, without the restrictions of the platform, it is tantamount to an investment. It's been used for a long time."

Zhang Xu explained that taking the CPC billing method for short video advertisements as an example, the fee per click ranges from 0.20 yuan to 1 yuan. As long as users are attracted by the free skits and pay for an episode, the operator of Mini Program will get back the money.

In addition, as the ownership of Mini Program belongs to the operator, it can also put in commercial advertising content, and even open up agents to earn agency fees and secondary VOD sharing, so as to increase the form of realization of short dramas and improve overall revenue.

According to the research data of China Research and Development Institute, 73.3% of domestic online video users approve the consumption mode of "free content + commercial advertising"; at the same time, half of the users said they are willing to pay for high-quality video content.

In other words, once users are on Mini Program, whether it's pay-on-demand or commercial advertising, there is always a way to cash in that allows the operator to make a profit.

It is not difficult to see that Mini Program skits are the best weapon for short dramas to get rid of platform payment rules and precipitate traffic. With the rise of Mini Program skits, a large number of contestants have poured into the track, a fight related to revenue, is being staged quietly.

Does "02" get rid of the "middleman" to earn the price difference? After two or three years of development, the industry has formed a more mature industrial link: the content team is responsible for creating and delivering short plays; the operator with short video platform resources is responsible for the operation of the series and buying volume.

The final revenue is shared by the content team and the operating organization in the proportion of four, six, five or five.

However, as short dramas pay more attention to the plot than shooting skills, and the birth of Mini Program short dramas, operators have got rid of various restrictions of the short video platform, and operators and content teams, which were originally close partners, began to have a grudge against each other.

"excluding the cost of promotion, the revenue of a short drama with 100000 yuan on demand is usually between NT $300,000 and NT $400,000. even if the share is divided according to the proportion of four to six, the content team will take at least NT $120,000 to NT $160,000, which is not a small sum." However, according to Lu Ying (a pseudonym), the head of a short drama operation in Guangzhou, the cost of producing short plays is extremely low.

The shooting and editing cycle of a 100-episode short play with less than 10 minutes each is roughly within a month. because the requirements for shooting and setting up the scene are not high, the main input cost is almost the salary of the director, actor, camera, and later stage. 40,000 to 50,000 yuan has reached the peak.

As a result, the production cost of each episode of a short drama is only 400 to 500 yuan, which is quite low. The most attractive thing about short dramas is often the promotion of the plot. If the operator recruits excellent talent for writing and directing, the content creation of short plays can also be done in one hand and increase profits.

"now many operators (institutions) are working on Mini Program skits, working with off-the-shelf content creation teams, while quietly digging for excellent short video choreographers and directors. recently, the company is also recruiting writers and directors with high salaries." Lu Ying said that short plays can be filmed with mobile phones, and as long as the choreographer and director are in place, the organization can take charge of creative and operational work.

With the popularity of short dramas and the popularity of Mini Program skits, operators are recruiting people with experience in writing and directing short dramas, and their salaries and benefits naturally rise. At present, on the mainstream recruitment platform, the monthly salary of short drama writer and director is as high as 20,30K.

Similarly, the content creation team, which lacks the resources and operational capacity of the mainstream video platform, is not willing to let the streaming operators take most of the revenue from the skits, but instead ponders over the Mini Program skits and tries to get rid of the situation where "middlemen" earn "price differences".

"the drainage mode of Mini Program skits is quite transparent, which is promoted on the short video platform and scraped up the traffic." Short video screenwriter Komatsu said frankly that there are not too many operational skills for simple promotion, the threshold is not high, and the content team can be easily competent.

As for Mini Program, which launches short plays, there are already a large number of off-the-shelf solutions in the industry. As far as he knows, Mini Program, a short drama that can pay for on-demand and slide down serial broadcasting, costs only 20,000 to 30,000 yuan to develop. "A lot of Mini Program has ready-made code, so it's not difficult for development institutions to change it."

Mini Program skits, which are relatively independent and have a low threshold for development, have attracted many content creation teams, operators, and even startups that are not part of the content creation field to fight in the microdrama industry. Will Mini Program replace the video platform and become the mainstream channel for short dramas?

The false tuyere of "03" that is short-lived in the pan? Some people in the industry said that 2022 will be a real year for short dramas.

According to the "Research report on the current situation, problems and Development trend of short Drama Industry", the number of short plays filed from January to September in 2022 reached 2792, about twice that of the whole year in 2021.

However, Lu Ying, who is deeply engaged in the field of content creation, revealed that nowadays, what restricts the development of short dramas is not the flow, but the plot content. According to the list of short plays released by various video platforms, it is not difficult to find that the current popular themes of short plays are still "sweet pet" and "refreshing drama".

Limited to the content regulation of the mainstream video platform, whether it is the story of "overlord" or "son-in-law", it is obvious that it has fallen into a high degree of homogenization, and it is difficult to come up with new ideas: short dramas with exaggerated plots and too big brains are destined to be unable to be released on the video platform.

But once the mainstream short video platform has become a "drainage tool", skits put on independent Mini Program can naturally bypass the platform's content creation restrictions, even if the story is more clever and the plot scale is exaggerated, it is obviously not a problem.

In other words, the emergence of Mini Program skits has untied the shackles of the content creation of microdramas.

Lu Ying said frankly that at present, the number of Mini Program skits already under planning and waiting for production may be 10 times the number of publicly documented skits. After all, every skit Mini Program needs more than 10 skits as a reserve before it can be put into operation.

"without restrictions on content creation, brain holes and large-scale plots are the biggest advantages that Mini Program skits can compete with short video platforms. topics such as money worship and curiosity can also be created boldly." The basis for the popularity of Mini Program skits is very similar to the "Wild Shuangwen" that was once "on the street".

However, Mini Program is not a place outside the law for content creation. The short drama creation team has not yet made great efforts, and the corresponding norms have been officially issued. At the end of November this year, Mini Program officially issued a "notice on further standardizing the content of Mini Program" short dramas.

According to the announcement, the authorities will crack down on promoting unhealthy value orientation, showing off wealth and worshiping money, exaggerating the opposition between rich and poor, advocating violence, attracting attention by "scrubbing the ball", and publishing obscure sexual behavior and provocative content. the plot is false and grandiose, the theme is vulgar, and the content of the play is completely out of touch with reality.

The announcement also announced some of the illegal skits Mini Program, and gave targeted reminders. For those who have been reminded many times but do not make corrections, the authorities will carry out step-by-step disposal of the relevant Mini Program according to the degree of violation, including ability ban, removal and so on.

It is believed that with the popularity of Mini Program skits, more content regulatory measures may follow. So far, typing the word "skit" into the Mini Program search box has shown that there are no Mini Program-related results, and it is clear that the authorities have targeted the blocking.

[conclusion] perhaps, the sudden emergence of Mini Program microdramas, which want to circumvent the platform regulatory rules, is just a short-lived pseudo-tuyere. Once the hyperbole plot support, Mini Program short drama is difficult to maintain a high degree of activity and communication ability, after a short peak, it is inevitable to be forgotten by the public.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: know Notes (ID:dongdong_note), author: Shenle, Editor: Qin Yan

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