"Abebe" is a psychological term, also known as "Abebe complex", which refers to the strong attachment to items such as stuffed animals, old clothes or small blankets that have been used by individuals for a long time, usually in children as young as two or three years old, and this complex will gradually fade as they get older.
When this concept is applied to the adult group, it will cover a wider range of imagery, usually referring to a "habitat" reserved for young people as they adapt to the rapid development of the external society, which can be a type of object, a hobby, a secret base, etc., which can help them relieve the pressure from family, school and society, and give them spiritual comfort and relaxation and respite when they suffer frustration or anxiety.
Podcasters, who were once not favored in the domestic market, are playing this role. Because it has never been able to spread out the market on a large scale like graphics, short videos and other content forms, it has always retained niche characteristics, but instead provides objective conditions for young people to get together on demand, where they speak freely, seek resonance, and huddle together for warmth, and podcasts can become a "gentle township" for young people. Seeing that there is a trend of breaking the circle, but it is trapped by the problem of commercialization.
01
Difficult to break the circle
In fact, the start of Chinese podcasts can be traced back to more than a decade ago, but it was not until 2020 that the Chinese podcast market ushered in a growth climax. According to the statistics of the podcast search engine Listen Notes, nearly 10,000 new Chinese podcast festivals were added in 2020, and in 2018 and 2019, this data was 1,465 and 1,931 respectively.
Also this year, the first domestic podcast product, Small Universe, was launched, which greatly stimulated the Chinese podcast market. Subsequently, Lizhi and Dragonfly FM launched special podcast apps, the audio platform launched a special channel page for podcasts, and major manufacturers such as Baidu, Kuaishou, and Tencent entered the game to launch corresponding products, and podcasts began to move from a corner of the country to the core of the online audio market.
In the following years, this rookie showed its strength in the long-dormant market, and data shows that in 2022, among various podcast platforms or streaming media platforms, the user usage of the small universe will reach 74.6%, far exceeding the old podcast platforms and large audio media such as Himalaya and NetEase Cloud, at this time, the daily activity of the small universe has reached one million.
But the expansion of the small universe does not represent the situation of the entire industry, after the blowout of Chinese blogs in 2020, the growth rate of the following year declined, only adding more than 5,000 files, and by the middle of 2022, the daily increment is only maintained at about 15 files, not only that, the update frequency of new podcasts is also very low, and many programs are almost unsustainable in the future.
At that time, the remarks that "the domestic market can't do podcasts" were rampant, and people never thought that in just a few years, podcasts could usher in new growth. According to the platform's official statistics, as of 2023, there are more than 240,000 podcasts with commercial value in Himalaya. The small universe has also added 32,610 podcast programs and more than 300,000 single episodes, with an average daily increase of nearly 90 episodes.
Various data show that Chinese podcasts are beginning to come out of the trough and are gradually breaking the circle to a broader field.
02
A place for young people
Why have podcasts become a place for young people? There are two key reasons, one is cultural value, and the other is emotional value.
The value of culture mainly stems from its tolerance of minority groups, which allows many topics to be discussed more broadly, and the participation of different groups can bring about a collision of ideas, so as to show people more diverse perspectives and perspectives. Listeners were able to break the information gap, hear voices beyond the stratosphere, input multiple knowledge to improve their comprehensive ability, and increase information density and interest for boring commutes and leisure time.
According to the "2023 Himalaya Chinese Podcast Ecology Report" released by Himalaya, the number of listeners of Chinese podcasts will exceed 220 million in 2023, and young people in first- and second-tier cities are the main group for podcast listening, which has characteristics such as high education and high income. A strong sense of self-improvement drives them to become a loyal audience for podcasts.
Screenshot of the data of the "2023 Himalayan Chinese Podcast Ecology Report".
Emotional value is mainly manifested in two aspects, one is the "sense of companionship" given by the form, and the other is the "sense of identity" brought by the content.
Audio is a form of audio that is so common and electronic has a long history of development, long before the spread of television, radio could enrich the entertainment life of listeners through broadcasts on different channels, but it was so common that it was neglected. In the era of graphics, video and live broadcast to control entertainment, in addition to music apps, audio has become a subsidiary channel of major mainstream applications, and has not been favored by users.
But it is precisely because of this that podcasts can break out of the encirclement in the context of the content track is already a red sea, and "come back to life" in an unexpected way, the secret is that it provides sufficient space for young people's emotional venting and emotional identity, which greatly alleviates the mental pressure brought by the era of involution to young people.
People complain about nitpicky bosses and difficult colleagues here, tell unspeakable secrets and incomprehensible troubles, share daily trivial and valuable experiences, comfort and tolerate each other, face the negative factors of life and the dark side of human nature, bravely self-analyze and self-deconstruct, and exchange the most honest expression for the soul resonance in the crowd. And this sense of concentration and privacy, which is incomparable to any other type of content form, has become the best bargaining chip for podcasts to maintain user stickiness.
In addition, compared with variety shows that are limited by rules, the biggest feature of podcasts is the divergence and randomness of chat, which is a bit similar to radio, but has a lot more creative space than radio. The inclusiveness of podcasts is not only reflected in the content and audience, but also in the form of creation, there is no prescribed editing process and time arrangement, if you want to record in advance for release, you can record and edit as you go, and you can even retain the flaws in the recording according to your personality and preferences, which is the freedom and casualness that comes with the "niche" gene.
It is precisely this characteristic that makes the content of the podcast present a lot of "real feeling" and freshness, so as to attract users to find their own "like" here, so as to slowly accumulate an audience and grow into a place for young people.
03
What is the solution to the commercialization problem?
The "2023 Himalaya Chinese Podcast Ecology Report" pointed out that there are more than 240,000 podcast programs with commercial value on the Himalaya platform, 50.2% of podcast listeners have paid for podcast content, and the commercialization of podcasts is becoming increasingly diversified. Although the growth of data shows people the potential of the market, behind the general data is the dilemma that the commercialization model is still immature.
To a certain extent, the bottoming out of podcasts is the market's rejection of the "short, flat and fast" content in the short video era. The fast pace has caused creators and consumers to focus on how to attract attention and gimmicks, and high-quality long-form content has lost the market, but long-form podcasts are just making up for this phenomenon. However, the monetization ability of the head anchor of the podcast platform is 108,000 miles behind the head anchor of the short video platform.
The monetization model of podcasts is nothing more than a common one, one is the advertising model, that is, the content is invested with the platform, cooperates with the brand, customizes the content individually, and obtains the brand title sponsorship, etc., and the second is the content payment model, that is, the fee is charged for the C-end audience, and the common methods include rewarding, paying for a single program, opening a membership, etc.
Brand placement generally examines the number of broadcasts, subscriptions, and comments of the program, but it is too difficult for these data to be on the same level as the short video platform. Looking at the ceiling, even the gain brought by popular content is not enough to feed the head anchor. The fundamental reason is that the total traffic of podcasts is only so large, even if it is breaking the circle and has a warming momentum, it has not yet gotten rid of the relatively "niche" situation.
Scaling up was a natural issue, but the initial developments have already left the original audience skeptical. The growth of the small universe has stimulated the vitality of the market, and it has also attracted a lot of criticism of "doing podcasts with Internet operation thinking". Being alienated by business logic and deviating from the original content tonality seems to be the fate that cannot be escaped from the large-scale expansion of content products. In the public opinion situation of the small universe, Douyin and Xiaohongshu have already gone back and forth.
At that time, Doushu was also looking for a long time in the sound of doubts before he found his own growth path. It may be too early to judge what the development potential of the small universe is, but the prospect is still worth looking forward to, after all, in a sense, it shoulders the hope of the Chinese podcast track.