Author | Huang Yu.

In today's weather is good. Today's weather is good.

The tide has turned for better. After two years of downturns, Tencent Video, which was cheered up by Ma Huateng and has a team that is daring to venture, has finally ushered in a year of hit shows.

Shortly after the finale of the hit show 'The Story of the Rose', Tencent Video launched another summer hit - 'Everlasting Love 2' on the night of July 8th.

This costume and myth drama adapted from Tonghua's novel of the same name caused a frenzy of ratings last summer with its outstanding character portrayal.

Tencent Video, which has performed poorly in the past two years, has undoubtedly become the most successful platform among 'Ai Teng You Mang' (which refers to Tencent Video, iQiyi, Youku, and Mango) this year. As Ma Huateng hoped, Tencent Video is now producing more hit shows.

However, with the mobile internet entering the stock competition and short video platforms rising rapidly, the growth of memberships, a long-standing issue for long-form video platforms, has hit a ceiling. Tencent still has a long way to go if it wants to be the king of the video industry.

Outbreak.

Tencent Video has once again won big. With the release of hit shows one after another, people often marvel at the platform.

The release of 'Everlasting Love 2', a drama that had been delayed for a year, did not disappoint Tencent.

Public data showed that 'Everlasting Love 2' topped the Maoyan drama popularity chart within half an hour of its premiere, and various related entries also hit the hot search.

Under high popularity, 'Everlasting Love 2' also earned a lot. In the first day of release, out of 4 episodes, each one had 11 advertisements, and the total number of ads exceeded 70, setting a historical record for the number of ad sponsorships for TV dramas.

Previously, the Wang Kar-wai-directed 'Blossoms' had only 10 advertisements per episode as the opening grand drama of the year. It is clear that the success of 'Everlasting Love 1' in the summer of the previous year laid a solid foundation.

In addition to 'Blossoms' and 'Everlasting Love 2', Tencent Video's hit shows this year also include 'To Be With Phoenix', 'Joy of Life 2', and 'The Story of the Rose', totaling five.

Gao Dongxu, chief analyst of Zhongyu Think Tank, told Wall Street News that Tencent Video has indeed performed well this year, daring to break through the old model and improving in all aspects, such as content innovation, script polishing, actor casting, and shooting production, to ensure the quality of their dramas.

Various signs show that Tencent Video, which has long been stuck in the mire of ancient puppet dramas, has found its own rhythm after reflecting on 2022, focusing on quality content and cutting non-quality content.

At the Tencent Video Film and Television Annual Conference in 2024, Wang Juan, vice president of Tencent Online Video, pointed out that top dramas show a 'high-heeled cup effect'. Quality contents are more risky and less boring.

At the beginning of this year's annual Tencent conference, Ma Huateng also praised Tencent Video, calling it a platform that has accomplished much within the past year. At the same time, Ma Huateng pointed out a clear direction for the video content, emphasizing that he would rather not produce some mediocre dramas, and instead focus on producing premium ones with concentrated resources.

Beyond its five consecutive hit dramas, Tencent Video has also recruited Ma Dong from iQiyi to create the variety show 'A Delightful and Wonderful Night,' and officially launched the 'Hong Kong Drama Plan' in cooperation with TVB, which was once a core content advantage of Youku.

Challenge

In the road to create a 'Chinese version of Netflix', Tencent Video, iQiyi, Youku, Mango, and other long-form video giants have been constantly fighting for dominance.

In the first half of this year, each platform has released high-quality works that are both popular and well-received. However, in the context where hit shows are critical factors influencing the number of memberships and user stickiness, long-form video platforms are all shrouded in anxiety over making hit shows.

From both the user scale and the number of memberships, the growth of long video platforms has entered a bottleneck period. Tencent video has maintained a range of oscillations for its paid memberships in the past few years, almost floating between 0.11-0.12 billion. In the first quarter of this year, Tencent video's paid membership grew 8% year-on-year to 0.116 billion.

At the same time, long video platforms are facing the impact of short video platforms like Douyin, Kwai and Bilibili.

Multiple insiders pointed out to Wall Street News that long video platforms do not have high user loyalty, and only through continuous and stable output of original explosive content can they maintain and increase their user numbers.

The challenge is that it is not easy to stably output explosive hit dramas. On the one hand, there needs to be a mature original content production mechanism. On the other hand, there needs to be a strong financial strength.

Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iimedia consulting, said to Wall Street News that for Tencent video, its advantage in creating popular hit dramas lies in its strong financial strength, rich sources of films and advanced technology, as well as comprehensive content layout, especially its rich source IPs.

However, even though it is considered to have "monetary ability" by the outside world, under the main theme of Tencent Group's overall cost reduction and efficiency improvement, Tencent video has also been tightening its belt in recent years to further improve its profitability.

Sometimes, the competition for major hit drama IPs seems more like a "gamble." In order to reduce risks, Tencent Video CEO Sun Zhonghuai said that he hopes to promote a comprehensive transformation of the cooperation model with drama companies -- from the previous "fixed price, buy and sell" procurement logic, to a co-creation model of "dynamic betting, post-incentive" oriented towards broadcast results, sharing risks and benefits.

At the same time, Tencent video recently announced the iteration of its revenue-sharing model, upgrading from a single evaluation system to a combined revenue model of "member watching time + member referral incentives," which puts forward more direct and realistic requirements for film quality.

In addition, under the pressure of profitability, "nested fees" and a large number of drama advertisements will also cause user dissatisfaction, and Tencent video must balance this while trying to excavate hit dramas.

The era of burning money to buy copyrights and encircle the land is over. Long video platforms have long entered a new stage where the content is king and revenue is maximized.

Under the background of "reducing quantity and improving quality," Tencent video still faces challenges in becoming the "Chinese version of Netflix."