Every year, the top 100 companies are bustling with excitement and trending every year.
Recently, Bilibili (09626. HK) released a list of the top 100 UP creators for 2023 (hereinafter referred to as "2023 Top 100"), which sparked heated discussions and questioning among netizens. For example, "Why are they all one million fans, A was selected for B but not?" "Why didn't Warriors make it? Director Xiao Ce also didn't make it?"
According to a report by China Business Daily, 39 out of the top 100 companies in 2023 have made their debut on the list, the lowest proportion of newcomers in history; From the perspective of partitioning, there are 23 UP masters who have contributed the most to the 2023 Top 100 in the knowledge area, supporting the ranking of the top 100 with the highest knowledge content in this year.
The reporter also noticed that compared to the 2023 Top 100 list, Bilibili did not choose UP owners with more topics such as Warhawk, but tended to choose creators willing to delve deeper into a certain field; And the inclusion of UP owners such as "Your Shadow Moon Moon", "Heyehua" and "Dark Cat's Blessings" also shows that Station B intends to consolidate the fundamentals of the anime. In short, from the 2023 Top 100 list, people can see that the trend of Bilibili content is stabilizing and they are not too concerned about creating memes.
"It seems to be an ideal model to take anime as a circle layer to spread to pan entertainment, but Tiktok Kwai can also dig vertically from pan entertainment to anime field. The two are an encounter mode, which will only be more introverted. Station B should guard the moat, and it is better to use anime to melt the circle from anime to form a pan content platform of anime color." Zhang Shule, an Internet industry analyst, told reporters that for Station B, The top 100 list is a guide, allowing more content creators to find their vertical entry points from the top 100 guide is the key to the list.
It's not a certificate of commendation, it's a nomination certificate
According to the journalist's analysis, the average number of followers among the top 100 in 2023 is 4.25 million, with a median of 3.24 million followers. Nearly half (48) of the top 100 UP have main followers ranging from 1 million to 3 million; From the perspective of partitions, the top 100 in 2023 come from 15 partitions, which is 4 fewer than the previous year. The number of people on the list in many partitions is decreasing, with knowledge area UP owners accounting for the highest proportion among the top 100, with a total of 23, followed closely by the game area and food area, with 14 and 12 respectively.
It is worth noting that 39 people from the 2023 Top 100 have made their debut on the list, which is the lowest proportion of newcomers since the establishment of the Top 100. It can be said that the 2023 Top 100 is the one with the highest knowledge content, and it is also the one where the old Top 100 has made a strong comeback.
For the criteria for selecting the top 100, Bilibili officially provides three dimensions: professionalism, influence, and innovation, but this is somewhat vague, with more than 100 UP owners meeting the criteria. So, some opinions believe that the selection of the top 100 companies has a lot of room for operation and arbitrariness, leading to doubts.
According to the video "First Reveal: How were the Top 100 on Bilibili selected?" by Bilibili UP host LKs, he contacted the person in charge of participating in the 6-year Top 100 selection. The annual Top 100 selection has a certain threshold, and the time range for the 2023 Top 100 selection is from November 1, 2022 to October 31, 2023.
Among these data thresholds, the most important one is the increase in followers. It is understood that Bilibili will generate a pool of top 1000 followers with comprehensive rankings in terms of follower growth data. The threshold for follower growth in the 2023 Top 100 is about 360000 people per year, and the average follower growth in the 2023 Top 100 is about 985000 people. From this perspective, whether or not one can be selected into the top 100 is not about the total number of fans, but rather the increase in fan base. Of course, there can be up to 10 people outside of this thousand person list, but there must be enough reasons to catch them.
The video "First Reveal: How were the top 100 Bilibili selected?" shows that with this list of thousands of people, Bilibili will do some subtraction, such as removing the blue V organization number and leaving personal UP owners; As a commercial platform, Bilibili will reduce points for UP owners who have made their debut on other platforms, signed live broadcasts or business contracts on competing platforms; Bilibili also considered vertical screens, account matrices, and other factors... In addition, Bilibili also attempted to rate the 2023 Top 100 by inviting internal senior employees and practitioners to rate from multiple dimensions such as camera language and video emotions, as a reference standard for being selected as one of the Top 100.
In the past two years, as soon as the Top 100 list was released, some UP owners quickly overturned it, to the extent that the Top 100 list was jokingly referred to as the "Top 100 Assassin List". Considering this situation, Bilibili will also consider the lifecycle of UP owners and whether there are potential negative impacts if they are selected as the top 100.
In addition to these, there are other considerations for selecting the top 100. Overall, the selection of the top 100 on Bilibili is a hot potato. Management, colleagues, fans, netizens, capital, and competitors all have their own versions of the list, so the selection of the top 100 is bound to be criticized.
"It took two months to finally come up with this top 100 list, which can be said to be based on objective data and supplemented by subjective evaluation, seeking a balance as much as possible among everyone's completely different needs." - LKs - said.
Zhang Shule said, "The top 100 list is a guide that guides content creators to return to their main attributes and main users, and allows more content creators to find their vertical entry points from the top 100 guidance. This is the key to the list. It is not a certificate of award, but a 'submission letter' that many content creators need to fill out for the next top 100."
Remove branches, reduce costs and increase efficiency
The complex judgment system and sufficient choices have raised doubts about Bilibili for hundreds of years. However, unlike last year, Bilibili did not choose top 100 UP creators with many topics, but instead chose creators who are willing to delve deeper into the content.
The reporter noticed that the four new anime top 100 UP owners, "Blessing of the Dark Cat", "Piper of Hamilun", "Your Shadow Moon Moon" and "Heyehua", received a lot of attention from fans on the site by virtue of the videos related to Genshin Impact. It can be seen from this that Station B intends to strengthen the fundamentals of anime content.
"In addition to anime and games, the most popular extension area is film and television, which is directly related to the performance of Station B." Zhang Shule pointed out that the 2023 Top 100 list shows Station B's determination to return to the anime home culture base. "In the past, it chose to extend from the anime outwards, but now it may be to integrate other spheres of content into the anime, from China-Chic, music to other pan entertainment and cultural and creative fields, making anime a more inclusive depression."
According to the "2023 Most Beautiful Night" New Year's Eve Gala data released by Bilibili, the peak live broadcast popularity of the evening on December 31, 2023 exceeded 344 million people, setting a new historical high; Within 24 hours of airing the New Year's Eve Gala, the total number of views reached 100 million, with a total of nearly 400000 bullet comments. The number of submissions for related content reached 135 million times.
For the reasons for fine-tuning the wind direction of Bilibili content, Zhang Shule interprets it this way: The previous excessive expansion and expansion of internet giants have led to a state of moving away from their core base areas and jumping into guerrilla warfare on the outside. Despite some gains, it is not beneficial to the main business, and the long front line has also led to a dilution of overall strength. The complex branch business has affected the development of existing main business, and Bilibili's previous goal of reducing costs and increasing efficiency was also to remove overly jumping branch businesses and focus on the main business outward "Snack rather than swallow by whales."
According to the financial report for the third quarter of 2023, the total revenue of Bilibili reached 5.81 billion yuan, which is the same as the same period in 2022; The net loss was 1.3 billion yuan, a 22% decrease from the same period in 2022; The adjusted net loss was approximately 864 million yuan, a decrease of 51% year-on-year. The gross profit margin has also increased from 18% in the same period last year to 25%, and has been increasing month on month for five consecutive quarters.
Specifically, advertising and value-added services have become the main drivers of revenue growth for Bilibili, with year-on-year growth of 21% and 17%, respectively. In the third quarter, Bilibili's live streaming business revenue reached 2.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17%. In terms of advertising business, the total advertising revenue of Bilibili in the third quarter reached 1.64 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21%.
In July 2023, Bilibili World and Bilibili Macro Link (BML) hosted two large-scale events in Shanghai, attracting over 200000 users to participate.
The financial report shows that in the third quarter, the number of daily active UP owners on Bilibili increased by 21% year-on-year, and the number of UP owners with over 10000 fans increased by 36% year-on-year; The average monthly video submission volume increased by 37% year-on-year, reaching 21 million articles. This quarter, 1.68 million UP owners earned revenue on Bilibili, a year-on-year increase of 34%.
Gao Dongxu, founder and chief analyst of China Entertainment Think Tank, said: "The year 2023 of Station B is a year of transformation and adjustment in constant entanglement. With the decline of game business income, it has made continuous efforts in e-commerce, especially in the anime derivatives; offline activities based on content are also the focus of its efforts. I think these two points are in line with the positioning of Station B as a young community."
Gao Dongxu pointed out that the significant decline in game revenue, the adjustment of game teams, the impact on related overseas businesses, and some failures in mergers and acquisitions are all the entanglements of Bilibili in 2023.
"I think the core work of Station B in 2024 is content. First, in terms of short video quality, it selects more selected content; second, in terms of anime derivative content, that is, e-commerce should have better IP derivatives; third, offline activities, it should have more creativity and content for players, consumers and users. In addition, it has invested heavily in national creative content before, which depends on whether there is good popular content Make some breakthroughs. " Gao Dongxu analyzed it this way.