Text | Eye entertainment
With the end of the first half of 2024, the competition of long video platforms in the drama market has also come to an end.
Summarizing the drama market in the 2024H1 stage, the development route of "high-quality growth" is still continued, which is specifically reflected in the reduction of quantity and the improvement of quality, and "quality increment reduction" has become the key word in this stage.
According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, a total of 149 dramas will be effectively broadcast in the first half of 2024, a decrease of 6.8% compared with the same period last year, but the number of feature films has increased instead of decreasing, reaching a total of 53.407 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35.1%. At the same time, there were 32 dramas with a popularity index of 80+ on the V list in the first half of the year, which was the best result in the past three years.
Under the trend of unchanged high-quality development track, the creation of dramas on long video platforms has also changed from quantity to quality, driving market growth through high-quality content.
Bidding farewell to the first half of 2024, the competition of long video platforms has entered the second half, and the summer files that have arrived are gradually heating up, and whether the drama market can continue to grow with high quality in the second half of the year has become the direction of the joint efforts of the whole industry.
2024H1: New growth, new opportunities, new trends
In the first half of this year, the drama market still maintained a vigorous upward attitude, and while the overall market continued to improve, it ushered in the "three new changes".
First, new growth, the continuous release of top quality explosive models has driven the increase in the popularity of the drama market.
Although 2024H1 lacks the national hit of "Hurricane", the performance of the top dramas is full of flowers, and it is more average in terms of broadcast results and popularity, which is mainly due to the improvement of the overall quality of drama creation.
Unlike last year's "Hurricane", which won tens of billions of views, this year's hit can be said to be "endless". According to the certification of Lighthouse Professional Edition, the four popular models of "Flowers", "Walking with the Phoenix", "Celebrating More Than Years 2" and "Ink Rain and Clouds" will run through the first half of 2024, and the continuous output of the top hits has always kept the drama market relatively active.
Among the popular models in the first half of the year, "Between the Ink Rain Clouds" is particularly eye-catching, small investment dramas and early investment promotion are not ideal, but the final broadcast effect can be ranked with the top projects as the four major hits, which means that the quality of waist dramas has been significantly improved, and more high-quality content has driven the surge in the popularity of the market.
The second is a new life, and the costume drama has successfully turned around and returned to the list of popular models.
From the perspective of content creation, the theme of ancient costumes is undoubtedly the most eye-catching track in the first half of this year. After costume dramas became synonymous with bad movies due to their long-term poor quality, they ushered in a complete turnaround in the first half of this year, and returned to the top hit with a number of high-quality dramas.
Among the four popular models certified by Lighthouse Professional Edition, there are three costume dramas, which belong to the three major tracks of costume male frequency ("Celebrating More Than Years 2"), costume fairy ("Walking with the Phoenix"), and costume love ("Ink Rain and Clouds"), showing a trend of dominating the screen.
In addition to the top hits being occupied by costume dramas, according to the statistics of the V list, there are 10 costume dramas in the TOP30 of the H1 drama network broadcast index, accounting for one-third of the number. It is not difficult to find that with the creation of dramas beginning to fight for quality, the quality of costume dramas has been significantly improved, and they still have a strong competitiveness in the drama market.
The third is a new trend, mini-boutique dramas have become a new creative trend in the drama market.
In the process of pursuing high-quality development in the drama market, "small but beautiful" mini boutique dramas provide a new solution, and the success of "My Altay" and "New Life" in the first half of 2024 has promoted mini boutique dramas to become a new creative trend.
iQIYI launched a new drama label "Dust Theater" this year, and the first mini boutique drama "My Altay" achieved both word-of-mouth and popularity, and won a high score of 8.5 points on Douban with its excellent movie-like texture; Youku's suspense short drama "New Life" is full of praise for its novel and compact plot, with a Douban score of up to 7 points.
Compared with long videos, mini boutique dramas focus on TV series with a sense of cinema, and the quality of dramas is improved through a more compact plot, richer content, and a more extreme audio-visual experience.
The three new changes in the drama market in the first half of 2024 actually revolve around the route of "high-quality development", and have been updated in various aspects such as content quality, genre creation, length and volume, etc., realizing an all-round upgrade of drama creation. Behind the high-quality growth of the drama market is the continuous development of long-form video platforms based on love, you, and Teng.
Tencent leads the 2024H1 drama market
In the first half of 2024, the competition of the three leading video platforms in the drama market ended with Tencent's victory.
According to the statistics of the V list, among the TOP30 dramas in the 2024H1 drama network broadcast index, Tencent has 12 dramas, and there are four popular dramas with a webcast index of 90+ on all platforms, Tencent accounts for 3, you must know that there will only be 2 dramas with a broadcast index of 90+ in 2023.
In addition to maintaining its advantage in the popularity of dramas, Tencent has also made up for the shortcomings of word-of-mouth dramas. According to the statistics of the V list, Tencent has a total of 9 dramas with a Douban score of more than 7 points in the first half of 2024, which is on an equal footing with iQiyi, which has a "high-scoring drama factory", and has achieved a double harvest of popularity and word-of-mouth.
From the perspective of the number of popular dramas, the number of hit dramas and the number of high-scoring dramas, Tencent has always been in the leading position in the H1 stage, and its performance is quite impressive, mainly due to the concentrated broadcast of head projects such as "Flowers", "Walking with the Phoenix" and "Celebrating More Than Years 2", especially "Celebrating More Than Years 2" has become the king of dramas in the first half of 2024, helping Tencent continue to lead the drama market.
Compared with Tencent's spring breeze, iQIYI's performance in the first half of 2024 is a little lonely, affected by the output of non-explosive dramas, resulting in the lack of network volume and popularity, but from the perspective of the overall broadcast effect, iQIYI still handed over a good report card.
According to the statistics of Lighthouse Professional Edition, in the 2024H1 stage, the number of iQiyi solo dramas will reach 47, an increase of 20% year-on-year, and the cumulative number of broadcasts will reach 12.776 billion, ranking first among the three major head video platforms.
In fact, the lack of head hits is a major problem that iQIYI has encountered since entering 2024, and the broadcast results of key dramas such as "Fox Demon Little Red Lady Moon Red Chapter" and "City in the City" have not met expectations, in this case, the "double volume" growth of solo dramas mainly depends on the improvement of the quality level of waist dramas, which once again confirms the necessity of iQIYI to adhere to the high-quality development route.
Youku, which has always been at the bottom, has sprung up in the 2024H1 stage, and the suspense-themed mini-boutique drama "New Life" has a novel setting of information poor fraud, becoming a dark horse in the suspense track; The revenge drama "Ink Rain and Clouds" started the summer file, once again setting off a wave of house fighting dramas; The broadcast effect of small-budget costume dramas such as "Flower Order" and "Cherish Flowers" has exceeded expectations.
Although Youku is still slightly behind other platforms in terms of the number of hit dramas, broadcasts, word-of-mouth and other dimensions, it has also given the audience and the market a lot of surprises with the counterattack of several small-cost dramas.
Looking at the report cards handed over by the three leading video platforms in the 2024H1 stage, Tencent's top blockbusters frequently lead the drama market, iQiyi relies on high-quality dramas to stabilize its position in the industry, and Youku relies on low-cost innovative dramas to achieve a counterattack, reflecting the importance of quality content and innovative content.
With the improvement of market demand and the aesthetic level of the audience, the creation of dramas on top video platforms has shifted from quantity to quality and innovation, pushing the drama market to a new, dynamic and high-quality growth stage.
The drama market has launched a new round of competition
The drama market has opened the second half of the competition, and the new round of "war" begins with the imminent summer file, as the most important schedule of the drama market throughout the year, the summer file battle has attracted much attention.
Entering July, with the end of popular dramas such as "Ink Rain Clouds" and "The Story of Rose", the three major head platforms are once again standing on the same starting line, and at present, Tencent's Jin Yong IP drama "Iron Blood Dan Heart", iQiyi's costume suspense drama "Yan Xinji", Youku's costume rebirth drama "Spending the Year of China" and other three major platforms have not met expectations, and the expectations of the audience and the market are placed on the pre-rehearsed dramas.
Judging from the summer broadcast of the three major platforms, Tencent still maintains its leading position.
"Sauvignon Blanc 2", which is scheduled for July 8, is far ahead in terms of market attention, on the one hand, the hit broadcast of the first season of last year's summer file has laid a good audience foundation for the second season, and on the other hand, the production model of "big IP + big traffic" has a lot of chassis, "Sauvignon Blanc 2" is the most popular drama series this summer.
At the same time, there are also urban dramas "You Are More Beautiful than Starlight" starring Xu Kai and Tan Songyun, the Republic of China fantasy drama "Ice and Snow Ballad" starring Ouyang Nana and Gao Weiguang, and "Lonely Lost City" starring Huang Jingyu and Xin Zhilei...... In general, the themes are diversified and the cast is strong, and Tencent is still determined to win this summer.
Compared with Tencent, although iQiyi and Youku have a lot of inventory, they have insufficient potential for summer dramas.
Youku's summer pre-rehearsal "Young White Horse Drunk Spring Breeze" is one of the IPs of the "Shaoge Universe" series, although the male frequency martial arts has a certain degree of attention, but the audience is limited, and "Youth Song Xing" has a good reputation and lack of popularity.
iQIYI has only taken out "Lonely Lost City" with Tencent, "I Am a Criminal Policeman", "Above the Clouds", "Going North" and many other key dramas with a strong lineup have not yet been officially finalized, and the summer file is not optimistic at present.
Objectively speaking, although Tencent's advantages in this year's summer file are very obvious, iQiyi and Youku are obviously in a state where they have not yet made efforts, and the audience and the market are looking forward to the three leading video platforms to bring more high-quality content in the summer file, opening up a good situation for the drama market in the second half of 2024.