The show model has failed, professional anchors have entered the market, has the direction of the live broadcast industry changed?

In recent years, the live broadcast industry has undergone a transformation from wild growth to content upgrade, especially in the entertainment live broadcast industry. The entry of regular forces such as art troupes has brought professional performing arts live broadcast content, making the live broadcast ecosystem more diverse and prosperous. This article deeply analyzes the motivation behind this change and its far-reaching impact on the live broadcast industry, showing the importance and value of high-quality content in standing out in fierce competition.

The live entertainment industry is undergoing a dramatic change in content.

Looking back at the development of the live broadcast industry, from its early wild growth, to the pain of transformation, to the current stage of diversified content and prosperous ecology, practitioners have gradually reached a consensus that content is king. Especially in the current stage of fierce competition in the industry, it can be said that whoever has the content will win the world.

Since last year, high-quality content tracks represented by big stages and group broadcasts have become popular in the industry and have become the focus of many guilds; regular forces represented by art troupes have also rushed into the market and made in-depth layouts, bringing professional performing arts live broadcast content.

These changes are the embodiment of the upgrading of industry content. These changes also show that a high-quality and professional content supply side has been formally formed, and the content ecology of the live broadcast industry has become more diverse and prosperous.

Therefore, we can see that content upgrades have a clearer evolution pattern, that is, better quality and more professional. What far-reaching impacts have such changes brought to the industry?

1. Live broadcast of art troupes running into the venue

"Entertainment live streaming has reached new heights now. Some group broadcast rooms are comparable to TV variety shows." Recently, a guild expressed the above emotion after seeing many high-standard group broadcast rooms.

For example, the "Huabei Inn" which was built using real scenes not only has a high-level scene configuration and excellent music, but the character costumes are also eye-catching, as if you are watching a costume TV drama.

Another guild stated that now more and more theaters and troupes are doing live broadcasts, and vocal music, opera, dance and other performing arts performances have become high-quality live broadcast rooms that are popular among users.

For example, hundreds of orchestra members and artists from the national-level art troupe China National Orchestra collectively entered the live broadcast and formed a regular live broadcast; in addition to national-level troupes, many grassroots troupes have also found online business positions in the live broadcast room, such as Changde Song and Dance Theater, Ji'an Pingju Troupe, Yanbian Song and Dance Troupe, etc.

Take Douyin as an example. If you search for “theater live broadcast”, you can see many professional entertainers live broadcasting:

Ding Ge, a young actor from Hubei Huangmei Opera Theater, sings Huangmei Opera for the "listeners" in the live broadcast room. Since the live broadcast in 2021, Ding Ge's Douyin fans have reached 270,000 and he has received 1.1 million likes; Fan Ya, an opera singer from Jiangsu Performing Arts Group Song and Dance Theater, often teaches vocal singing techniques in the live broadcast room and has more than 100,000 fans; Gao Zitong, a soprano from Jilin Symphony Orchestra, has a live broadcast room that is like a concert, with more than a thousand people online and 400,000 fans on the account; you can also see many performers interacting with their peers on the same screen and showing their talents...

As more and more performing artists from art troupes flock to live broadcasts and use live broadcast rooms as a new operating position, we can see the changes in the main force of anchors: high-quality talent anchors represented by professional performers have become important participants in the live broadcast ecosystem. According to official data from Douyin, in the past year, actors from art troupes brought more than 76,000 personal performances to live broadcasts, with the number of performances increasing by 440.72% year-on-year, and the reward income increasing by 406.7% year-on-year.

The anchors have changed, and the guilds have also changed. Guilds are no longer just traditional entertainment agencies, but also include professional troupes.

Just as the emergence of amateur anchors gave rise to guilds, the expansion of the scale of anchors from theater troupes will require professional institutions and companies to provide operational services for these performers, and more mature management methods are needed to resolve the relationship between the individual broadcasts and career development of theater troupe actors.

Xinbochang learned that with the help of the platform, some theaters and troupes have established live broadcast guilds and have carried out long-term and stable operations on Douyin, such as Changde City Song and Dance Theater.

It is reported that the Changde City Song and Dance Theater Guild has signed contracts with 17 anchors, most of whom are actors outside the theater.

Moreover, in terms of anchor recruitment, service and operation, the theater guild is close to the operation model of traditional guilds. For example, in anchor recruitment, the theater guild will recruit actors outside the theater; in anchor operation and service, each anchor will be equipped with a back-end support group, and timely feedback will be given on problems encountered during the broadcast. The guild will also provide anchors with the service of setting up live broadcast rooms.

2. What changes will it bring to the industry?

So, what changes will the live broadcasting of art troupes and even the establishment of guilds bring to the entire live broadcasting industry?

For the platform, it undoubtedly expands the high-quality content.

Over the past year, the supply and demand for high-quality content have continued to grow. High-quality content tracks represented by big stage and group broadcast have been sought after in the industry. For example, the big stage represented by top anchors Tang Yi and Mu Sen has more than 100,000 online viewers for almost every live broadcast. The group broadcast content is even more diverse, with ancient style and technical flow emerging in an endless stream. Group broadcast guilds such as Xingdan Media and Shuaiku Network have broken through with high-quality group broadcast content and become top guilds. The academy group live broadcast represents higher-quality and professional live broadcast content, thus promoting the content upgrade of the industry.

For guilds, it can form healthy competition, thus forcing the guilds to upgrade their capabilities.

In the past year, Xinbochang learned that many guilds have begun drastic transformations, taking refined operational capabilities as standard and constantly iterating their capabilities. For example, the old guild "Red Parrot" has carried out a "break or build" transformation internally, abandoning the extensive and head-pulling operation method and turning to a refined operation system that focuses on anchor incubation and high-quality content creation.

This is because, with the development of the industry, the traditional guild operation model is becoming ineffective, and the guilds need to be more professional and high-quality in terms of live broadcast room creation and anchor incubation.

Then, the entry of professional content organizations represented by art academies and troupes will strengthen healthy and vigorous competition among guilds, thereby allowing good money to drive out bad money, promote the upgrading of guild capabilities, and enable guilds to produce high-quality content.

Moreover, when art troupes become guilds, firstly, it extends the definition of guilds, allowing more institutions and groups with content capabilities and talent resources to participate; secondly, it makes the role of guilds more vertically segmented and professional. Compared with traditional guilds, art troupes are deeply rooted offline and have concentrated anchors, and can better leverage the advantages of offline resources and standardized management.

For theater actors, live streaming can help them increase their income channels and get a bigger stage.

Take Wen Chao, a baritone soloist under Changde City Song and Dance Theater, for example. In just a few months, he has 76,000 followers on Douyin, and the maximum number of people online at the same time for each live broadcast is more than 15,000. It is reported that the cumulative live broadcast income of Changde City Song and Dance Theater has exceeded 300,000 yuan, and the highest monthly income of a single anchor has reached 60,000 to 70,000 yuan.

Finally, for other anchors, as theater actors enter the scene and become important participants in the live broadcast ecosystem, the competition between anchors enters a higher dimension, and the anchor group accelerates iteration and upgrading.

For many anchors, especially veteran anchors, there is no doubt that the entire industry is evolving in a direction that they are not familiar with. In the past, you might have a mobile phone, a beauty filter, and you could gain popularity and income by chatting and acting cute in the live broadcast room; but now, with the emergence of better live broadcast scenes and content, the audience's tastes are also changing, and the pure show model is difficult to break through at the moment.

Moreover, we found that many of the previous "traffic-type" anchors are gradually being eliminated. For example, the outdoor anchor "Ni Haishan" with tens of millions of fans was banned by the platform.

Content-based anchors are growing fast. For example, the anchors from the academy groups mentioned above, as well as group broadcast rooms with exquisite costumes, props, and content design, have broken through in the fierce live broadcast track with their high-quality content.

This means that the anchor group is iterating at an accelerated pace, from the early wild growth to the increasingly formalized and professionalized ones today.

3. A more diverse content ecosystem is taking shape

According to the current development trend, it has become a normal practice for art troupes to enter the live broadcast room. There are two reasons behind the emergence of high-quality talent anchors represented by the performing artists of the troupes and becoming the main force in the industry.

On the one hand, in recent years, the regulatory authorities and major live broadcast platforms have continued to crack down on bad live broadcast content. At the regulatory level, the Cyberspace Administration of China has launched a special campaign to "clear up and rectify false and vulgar phenomena in the field of online live broadcasting"; at the live broadcast platform level, Douyin Live has continued to crack down on bad live broadcast problems such as bad PK and outdoor vulgarity in the past year, and has indefinitely revoked the live broadcast rights of 290,000 accounts, including top anchors such as "Xiucai" and "Mr. Lin".

On the other hand, live streaming platforms continue to support high-quality content, which results in a trade-off. Taking Douyin Live as an example, it recently launched the "Spotlight Plan - Douyin Live Grassroots Art Troupes Support Project", which aims to help grassroots art troupes gain new income through live streaming.

As live broadcast rooms become the online stage for the performing arts industry, art troupes have become important participants in the live broadcast industry, undoubtedly bringing profound changes to the industry.

First, the live broadcast of art troupes has brought in new user groups. The entry of professional art troupes has not only driven the content upgrade of the entertainment live broadcast industry, but also attracted new user groups to the live broadcast industry, converting users who were originally interested in traditional culture and offline art performances into live broadcast users.

Secondly, the live broadcast of art troupes has brought a new content model. Traditional guilds can completely learn the content of art troupes, upgrade the live broadcast room, and cultivate talented anchors, so that the guilds can gain new growth.

This will be a new development opportunity for institutions and guilds that want to enter the market.

Moreover, as the number of participants in the live broadcasts of art troupes increases and the scale continues to expand, the live broadcasts of art troupes and other forms of live content are intertwined within the live broadcast platforms, forming a more diverse content ecology.

A very obvious trend is that performing arts content is no longer synonymous with "highbrow and unpopular", but has truly become a content category that is loved by users.

According to the Douyin Performing Arts Live Broadcast Data Report, in 2023, the total number of Douyin performing arts live broadcasts reached 71.43 million, a year-on-year increase of 47%, and the average number of viewers per performing arts live broadcast was 4,263. This is equivalent to 190,000 medium-sized performances being performed in the live broadcast room every day.

Another trend is that performing arts content has been deeply integrated into the live broadcast ecosystem, and the collision of high-quality content has formed a virtuous circle.

We have seen that performers from art troupes are no longer simply performing, but also interacting deeply with the audience, connecting with other anchors, and learning and communicating together; we have also seen that art troupes are learning from each other, and guilds are paying more attention to talent content, increasing investment in offline scenes, and cultivating talented anchors. For example, the large-scale live broadcast gameplay that many guilds are doing has, to a certain extent, borrowed from the offline performance scenes of art troupes.

In short, as the live broadcast ecosystem of theaters and groups gradually takes shape, a professional and high-quality content supply side has been formally formed. Moreover, with the entry of more and more theaters and groups, the scale is still expanding, the audience is still increasing, and new user consumption habits are also forming.

For practitioners, high-quality content is the new increment in the context of industry content upgrade. How to improve content capabilities and how to incubate higher-quality content will be the most important competence in the future.