The current content industry is facing changes in length and AI On September 25th, the 2024 iJOY Autumn Enjoyment Conference with the theme of "centripetal upward" was held in Shanghai. iJOY founder and CEO Gong Yu believes that the evolution of long and short videos is bringing the possibility of competition and new growth space to the market. On site, iQiyi released over 300 of its latest films for 2024-2025 and announced the official launch of "Short Theater" and "Micro Theater", focusing on the micro drama track.
In the past decade or so, the "change in length" of TV dramas has never stopped. In 2015, the average number of episodes of domestically produced TV dramas that obtained distribution licenses exceeded 40. That year, iQiyi's 12 episode web drama "Tomb Raider Notes" was planned to be 60 minutes long per episode. By 2016, the average number of TV dramas was 44.6 episodes. Since then, the number of episodes and the duration of each episode of the TV series have been decreasing year by year, and the series have met users' viewing needs with more compact plots and faster rhythms.
In 2020, iQiyi launched the "Mist Theater" which focuses on short drama collections, including high scoring short drama collections such as "The Hidden Corner" and "Silent Truth" on Douban. At the same time, short video platforms that have rapidly emerged relying on fragmented content have also begun to explore the direction of structured narrative storyline content. Paid micro dramas have developed rapidly, with a market size of 37.4 billion yuan in the past year, a year-on-year increase of 268%.
In response to this change, iQiyi has officially launched "Micro Theater" and "Short Theater". Among them, "Micro Theater" will release two new works every week, focusing on male female and silver haired audiences, with 1-5 minutes of vertical screen content as the main content; The "Short Theater" program plans to release a new work every week, covering various genres such as ancient stories, current events, suspense, etc. Each episode is 5-20 minutes long and mainly features landscape content.
Short dramas are not equal to short, low-cost web dramas, and micro dramas are not equal to low-quality mini program micro dramas, "Gong Yu said. Unlike the micro drama business model that uses more than 90% of its revenue for streaming in the market," iQiyi's designed business model distributes more than 70% of its revenue to content producers
At the same time, the increasing attention and popularity of domestic TV dramas in overseas markets have also undergone changes. According to Google search data, the search attention for domestic dramas continues to climb and has recently surpassed that of Korean dramas. According to data analysis company AMPD's Q1 2024 data, domestic dramas have surpassed Korean dramas in terms of popularity and market share in the Southeast Asian market, becoming the preferred entertainment content for local users. The value of domestic content in overseas marketing has significantly increased, and content creators should start investing their energy and focus on creating content for overseas markets, "Gong Yu said. Currently, half of iQiyi's overseas content is domestic content, followed by Thai dramas, Japanese and Korean content, which constitute cross regional popular content. There are also pure overseas local content such as Malay dramas, which mainly serve local users
At the Yuexianghui event, iQiyi released a variety of upcoming dramas with rich themes, featuring heavyweight dramas in realism, ancient costume fantasy, suspense and other content themes. Among them, the Dust Theater will bring "In the Human World", while the Everyone Theater will present works such as "Going North", "Creating All Things", and "Happiness"; Xiao Dou Theater will release the second season of "Don't Panic, King of Comedy" and "King of Comedy". Love Theater will cover works such as "Seven Nights Snow", "Big Dreams Return", and "Endless Love", while Mist Theater will release dramas such as "Born with Life" and "Just Defense". The series of dramas such as "The Strange Tales of the Tang Dynasty in Chang'an", "Police Honor 2", "Fearless 2", and "Crime Hunting Guide 2" will also be released to the audience one after another.
The largest IP in China currently is cities, where content is closely integrated with urban culture and tourism, and has a broad market space, "said Wang Xiaohui, Chief Content Officer of iQiyi. Since 2021, TV series such as" Tang Dynasty Mystery Record: Journey to the West, "" Wind Rises in Longxi, "" Wind Chaser, "and" Wind Rises in Luoyang "have been popular, with each drama igniting a city. iQiyi has cooperated with more than 20 provinces, regions, and cities to create film, television, culture, and tourism IPs. We will also develop IP content through IP seasonal broadcasting, drama integration, drama, film and animation integration, as well as cross-border cooperation such as offline VR full sensory theaters, stage plays, and official IP peripheral experience stores, to enrich the IP landscape and meet the increasingly diverse entertainment needs of audiences