Economic Observer Network reporter Qian Yujuan
On November 21, Kuaishou Technology announced its third quarter financial report. Its total revenue increased by 20.8% year-on-year to 27.95 billion yuan (RMB, the same below). In the revenue model composed of online marketing, live broadcasting, e-commerce and other services, the reporter noticed that Kuaishou released such a set of data that the investment revenue of Kuaishou’s Xingmang short drama in the third quarter increased by more than 10 times compared with the previous quarter.
The third quarter of Kuaishou is regarded as the “peak season for content traffic”. In order to seize the dividends brought by this stage, the platform has launched a lot of popular content such as summer short dramas. The financial report shows that a total of 85 Kuaishou movies were launched during the summer. Mang short dramas, 21 of which have achieved over 100 million views.
“In the media and information industry, paid short dramas have the best growth.” Cheng Yixiao, chairman and CEO of Kuaishou, gave such a set of data at the analyst conference call after the financial report was released. This year, the paid short drama industry has spent the most on Kuaishou. Increasing month by month, in the third quarter of 2023, the consumption of paid short dramas increased by more than 300% year-on-year and nearly 50% month-on-month.
Summarizing the above-mentioned growth, Cheng Yixiao believes that it is not only due to Kuaishou’s optimization of paid short drama mini-programs and paid links, but also to the rapid increase in the supply of paid short dramas such as platform policy support.
As an early domestic platform for short dramas, Kuaishou launched the “Starlight Project” in 2020 and the “Drama Star Project” in July 2022. This summer, Kuaishou Entertainment also launched the “Summer Meteorological Drama” The summer film list of Kuaishou short plays with the theme.
In the “2023 New Media Ecosystem Insight Report” issued by QuestMobile on November 21, it was believed that short dramas have become a “big hit” this year, and many platforms have focused on short dramas as a content form in order to consolidate their content fundamentals.
“Use the characteristics of reversal, compact and enjoyable plot to mobilize users’ emotions and immerse themselves in it.” QuestMobile found that for the platform, the end of the content is commercial realization. In addition to direct content payment, brand-customized short plays have also become short plays. important commercial direction.
The financial report shows that Kuaishou’s commercially customized short drama “Beauty Come True” launched in the summer also brought 1.09 billion exposure to the title sponsor Tmall International. From the perspective of Kuaishou, popular content not only effectively increases user activity, but can also be combined with advertisers’ brand marketing appeals.
A QuestMobile report shows that the interaction volume of short dramas on the Kuaishou platform accounts for 9.5%, ranking among content forms such as comedy, film and television entertainment, current affairs information, and games. “The space for short video content has been dug deep.” QuestMobile analysis believes that the form of short drama content in its infancy has not only become a carrier for various platforms to find and create new content, it has even become a relay point for the future growth of short video platforms. .
In September this year, the content of Kuaishou short dramas achieved year-on-year growth in terms of proportion of publications, interaction volume, and user penetration. For example, “Please Grandma”, “The Reason I Returned to Seventeen” and “Zuo Yuan You Zhi Zhi” achieved 950 million, 500 million and 250 million views respectively.
In addition, on November 15, the China Online Audiovisual Program Service Association also published an article stating that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will once again launch a one-month special rectification work on online micro-short dramas to “cool down” the hot short drama market. On the eve of the issuance of the above policy, Kuaishou issued the “Kuaishou Announcement on the Governance of Illegal Micro-Short Drama Mini Programs (Issue 11)” and removed more than 10 illegal micro-short dramas from the shelves. At the same time, accounts that posted illegal content were punished accordingly. .