director of the millennium

Wu Yuan's worries were not groundless.

In recent years, although Guangying Times still maintains its leading position in the film industry, the company has basically given up its TV drama industry.

Back then, in the first few years after the establishment of Guangying Times, it was still relying on both movies and TV series. At that time, it poached the entire crew of "The Sky of 2010 Years Old" to become the company's TV series department. Later, it continued to produce Taiwanese idol dramas and made some of the best-selling TV series in later generations given by Wu Yuan. Until around , the company's TV series department had high revenue.

But after 2012, the TV drama department of Guangying Times gradually declined and was no longer the company's main business. The TV drama production of Guangying Times was gradually replaced by Guangying Kuaibo. Some employees of the company simply moved to Guangying Kuaibo and became a member of Guangying Kuaibo's self-produced drama department.

Later, the variety show production department of Guangying Times also moved to Guangying Kuaibo. Up to now, Guangying Times has basically become a pure film production company and agency company, and no longer participates in the production of variety shows and TV dramas.

Even so, the film industry in the era of light and shadow is also facing constant challenges from latecomers.

Yes, I am talking about the three major companies: Wanda Pictures, Penguin Pictures and Alibaba Pictures.

The Big Three, which began to develop with full force around 2014, have now become influential giants in the Chinese film industry. They have even surpassed such old-line film companies as Huayi, Bona, Pony.com, and Emperor Entertainment Group.

Well, although these old film companies are indeed not that old.

But under the impact of Internet companies, these traditional film production companies really can't hold on.

For example, Huayi has basically gone away from the film industry and its agency has basically given up on it. Emperor Entertainment Group has fallen into decline along with the decline of the Hong Kong film industry. Pony.com has fallen apart due to the death of its boss. Only Bona Entertainment is still relatively strong and was lucky enough to have found the company's development direction of "new main theme movies".

As for the industry leader, Guangying Era has been developing very well in recent years. The expansion of the fairy-xia movie universe has been going smoothly, with the average box office of each movie in the universe exceeding 15 billion. Combined with other movies and the cooperation with Zhang Yimou, it can still maintain its top spot. However, facing the pressure from the Big Three, it also feels a sense of urgency.

It is not just Guangying Times. Guangying Kuaibo is also facing the threat of the three major video websites. Among the four major video platforms, if we only count the mainland market, it has now fallen to the third place in market share, competing with Youku for the lower position.
Under such circumstances, Guangying Kuaibo and Guangying Times also had to actively seek change.

As for Guangying Kuaibo’s choice of “seeking change”, naturally, if you can’t beat them, just join them.

The current operating methods of Guangying Kuaibo in mainland China and overseas are almost completely different. It is no problem to say that they are two different companies.

Overseas, Guangying Kuaibo's operating method is more like Netflix. Although it also has its own dramas, it mainly relies on cooperation with local production companies in various countries to purchase the online copyright of TV series and jointly produce dramas.

For example, in South Korea, we cooperate with well-known screenwriters and film and television companies to become the exclusive online broadcasting platform.

In Japan, it cooperates with TV stations and becomes a network broadcast partner of TV stations. Sometimes, Guangying Kuaibo even bears the production costs of TV series. However, Guangying Kuaibo does not get involved in the artists and actors. Japanese and Korean production companies find their own cooperative agencies and brokerage companies to conduct various insider transactions. Guangying Kuaibo is still separated from them by a layer and is more like a simple broadcasting platform.

However, in China, Guangying Kuaibo has already caught up with the three major Internet companies.

How to align?

Of course, they learn from the so-called "industrial closed loop" and "commercial moat" strategies of their Internet companies. From variety shows to TV dramas, they are all self-made. From the shooting team to the artists and actors, to the scripts and broadcasting platforms, they all are in their hands. From the upstream to the downstream of the industry, everything is tightly in their hands. There is no need for any outsiders to interfere!
For example, Guangying Kuaibo currently has eight signed filming teams, it is expected to have 20 scripts for its own dramas this year, and there are five brokerage companies that have cooperated and invested in it. It can complete all the links of a web drama from preparation to broadcasting without relying on any outsiders!
This is unimaginable in any country overseas. In most countries with a TV drama industry, it is impossible for a company to take care of all the links from preparation to broadcasting, and even the artists and actors are all from their own company.
This extreme "industry closed loop" can only be achieved by the Chinese online drama industry, which has been heavily invaded by the three major Internet companies.
Of course, the fact that the Big Three plus Guangying Kuaibo can be self-sufficient in completing all aspects from TV series preparation and production to broadcasting does not mean that there is no room for other independent film and television production companies to survive.

Excellent film and television companies like Noon Sunshine still exist, but because the three major companies and Guangying Kuaibo have their own complete industrial systems, production companies like Noon Sunshine, which can only produce TV series but do not control any broadcasting platforms, are severely suppressed in price when selling dramas.

The Big Three and Guangying Kuaibo have tacitly suppressed these "foreign investors". When they purchase TV series from abroad, they will give a very low price, so low that the producers can only barely make back their investment. A TV series that costs 5000 million to produce may only be sold at 6000 million in the end, and it cannot be sold for more.

Because the seller's market is firmly controlled by the Big Three and Guangying Kuaibo, these TV drama production companies have no choice but to sell their dramas at low prices or keep them on hand and not broadcast them.

As for selling only to TV stations?

In this era, TV series that are only broadcast on TV and cannot be broadcast online have almost zero influence. The effect of broadcasting is the same as not broadcasting at all. For the production company, it is even better to hold the TV series in hand and not broadcast it.
Under such circumstances, in recent years, once-well-known screenwriters and excellent TV drama production companies in the industry have criticized the monopoly and suppression of the Big Three and Guangying Kuaibo in the media, and have also put the blame for the increasingly poor quality of domestic TV dramas on these online broadcasting platforms.

It is because these online broadcasting platforms tacitly support online dramas launched by their own capital and suppress the quality TV dramas produced by normal film and television companies that the market is flooded with all kinds of feminine and artificial ancient puppet dramas, poisoning the new generation of young people.
Occasionally, Wu Yuan would see similar comments and complaints when browsing Weibo, but he would just laugh it off.

There is a saying.

"It's your choice, idol!"

The market has become like this, with bad money driving out good money. This is the audience's own choice, at least the choice of the majority of the audience.

Otherwise, if most Chinese people really don’t like to watch the online dramas produced by the Big Three, they wouldn’t be becoming more and more popular, with better and better data, and becoming mainstream.

Those idol stars who are promoted by capital will not be able to reap the benefits so easily.

All I can say is that this is the current market situation. The new generation of young people just love to watch this kind of ancient puppet drama. So what can we do? (End of this chapter)