The live streaming industry has undergone tremendous changes in places you don’t know

In recent years, the live broadcast industry has undergone tremendous changes, from the early stage of relying on eye-catching behaviors to attract traffic to a new era that focuses on content quality and value. The participation of professional artists and art troupes has not only improved the quality of live broadcast content, but also opened up new ways for the dissemination and development of traditional culture.

When Cui Liling, an actress from the Yanbian Song and Dance Troupe, re-arranged the hit song "Wild Wolf Disco" using the Korean rap style of "Pansori", this powerful and unique ethnic art attracted more than 800,000 people to watch the live broadcast. Netizens were attracted by this magical rap and swiped the screen in the live broadcast room: "It feels like eating kimchi in the wind and snow in Changbai Mountain."

Three or four years ago, it was still rare to watch performances by professional troupes and artists online. At that time, most of the live broadcast rooms were anchors with good looks or who could make things interesting. They became popular very quickly, so quickly that many people didn't know who they were, but they had already started to play memes. Even without professional talents, they could still attract people's attention.

However, this content trend cannot last forever. In order to establish a positive and sustainable content ecosystem, live streaming platforms represented by Douyin have been dealing with bad content. With the banning of a number of top anchors who violated the rules, the "abnormal shortcut to fame" based on traffic alone has no way out.

With the encouragement and support of the platform, truly talented individual anchors, professional national-level art troupes, and grassroots art troupes have entered the live broadcast room one after another. Professional and high-quality content has also made the number of fans and stickiness of many live broadcast rooms stronger and stronger, attracting more outstanding creators to gather together, use long-term thinking to do live broadcasts, and form healthy competition.

01 Eye-catching "top streamers" were blocked one after another, and the top anchors were renewed

In the early years, the rise and development of the short video industry truly opened the door to the "grassroots". From ordinary people to Internet celebrities, perhaps only a mobile phone is needed. However, similar to most emerging industries, at a stage when industry rules are not yet clear, some practitioners have gained a certain amount of traffic by attracting attention.

The once popular "Tie Shan Kao" initially became popular on the Internet with its affectionate personality, simple image, and live PK, and gained a wave of fans. In July 2021, Tie Shan Kao and "mentor Tian Bin" live broadcast, and became famous with the sentence "Wo is Nen Die" and "swearing", which attracted Internet celebrities all over the Internet to take advantage of the popularity.

However, just over two months after becoming popular, in September 2021, Tieshankao was permanently banned by the platform for using dialect to curse people to attract traffic and maliciously attracting attention with vulgar content. At the same time, more than 17,000 illegal accounts including Guo Laoshi were also banned. Such governance is not a one-time surprise operation, but a continuous one.

According to incomplete statistics, in recent years, anchors who have become popular due to controversy, such as "Hong Dapao", "Mr. Lin", "Xiucai", and "Ni Haishan", have been banned by the platform. The live broadcast content ecosystem has changed a lot compared to the past.

In the eyes of some people, the money-making ability of top anchors is equally attractive to platforms, and profit-seeking platforms are unwilling to take the initiative to manage. However, if a platform wants to have stronger vitality, it must advocate reasonable and legal values. Anchors and content that challenge public order and morality are destined to not become the mainstream of society, and they cannot go far in business models. In the long run, it will do more harm than good to the platform, anchors, and viewers.

What kind of content ecology should the platform have? The changes in the content of Douyin's live broadcast room reflect the answer: the platform encourages truly talented individual anchors to enter the live broadcast room, attract audiences in a positive, healthy and meaningful way, and pay more attention to the quality and value of the content.

As the live broadcast industry continues to become more standardized and professional, in recent years, live broadcasting of performing arts has become an important online carrier for the performing arts market. Performing arts practitioners choose to enter the live broadcast room, provide high-quality performance services online, and earn income through the live broadcast reward model.

The value officer still remembers the first time he watched the live broadcast of "Brother Fang Yan". At that time, he built a stage outside the terrace and did an outdoor theater live broadcast. In the mode of comedy theater, singing and dancing, skits, variety shows, and celebrity imitations were interspersed. The quality of each performance was online. The refreshing live broadcast format attracted nearly 3 million viewers. Compared with vulgar and ugly anchors, such content is obviously more heartfelt and more distinctive.

Liu Shuhan, a post-95 opera actor, appears in the Douyin live broadcast room on time at 8 o'clock every night. She shows off her singing skills, seeks like-minded people, and shares opera knowledge. Through live broadcast, she has magnified the charm of traditional culture and found a new stage to realize her opera dream.

For such talented anchors, live broadcast platforms provide them with more traffic resources. Through trial and error, as the content characteristics of these talented anchors' live broadcast rooms become more and more obvious, their fans and income continue to grow. This has not only formed healthy competition, but also promoted the healthy development of the live broadcast industry.

02 After the adaptation period, professional artists gradually got better

While individual talent streamers have gradually become the mainstream of Douyin live broadcast rooms, in August 2022, the China National Orchestra launched a new attempt: hundreds of artists collectively settled in Douyin live broadcast, becoming the first "national team" to take the lead. In the industry, this is tantamount to a groundbreaking move.

At that time, offline performances were put on hold, and online performances became the choice of some performing artists. The China National Orchestra was determined to try short video live streaming. Wherever the audience is, that is where the artists' stage should be.

At first, both the artists of the China National Orchestra and the early audiences who happened to enter the live broadcast room were exploring new things. For artists who are accustomed to big stages and live audiences, live broadcasting is not an easy task.

Jin Yue, the chief performer of the China National Traditional Orchestra and a master of Erhu, was always nervous in the live broadcast room at first. He had been used to expressing himself only through music for so many years, but now he had to talk to netizens and interact with them in real time, which was really a test. Jin Yue was also in a dilemma about the choice of repertoire. If he limited his performance to a range that only industry insiders could understand, like in offline performances, it might discourage many netizens. But if he played popular repertoires, he was worried that he would not be able to reflect the professional level of a national player.

After many adjustments, explorations and attempts, Jin Yue and hundreds of artists in the troupe gradually adapted to the live broadcast format, from how to interact, the choice of performance content, how to place the background, how to light up, and even the decoration of the live broadcast room. Nowadays, the live broadcast room of the China National Orchestra often has tens of thousands of people online, which makes the artists feel very fulfilled, after all, the concert hall of the China National Orchestra only has more than 500 seats.

"The biggest gain is more viewers." In the live broadcast room, Jin Yue often responded to the audience's questions about the gains from the live broadcast. "Thank you for the music you brought", "I finally see your fingering clearly, how to play this part has always bothered me" and other comments are flooding the screen every time. Many fans also squat in the comment area of ​​the live broadcast room of the China National Orchestra to "follow the latest", "When will the orchestra live broadcast next time", "How many days will there be offline performances in the near future"? The artists who gradually integrated into the live broadcast room also exchanged their professionalism and sincerity for more enthusiastic and sincere responses from fans.

Compared with the orchestra's own success, this pioneering attempt may have greater significance in promoting and demonstrating the industry. As its influence expands, some colleagues from professional art troupes have begun to leave comments in the comment section of the Central National Orchestra's live broadcast room, saying, "The national team is like this, you are too arrogant." When seeing more and more people in the live broadcast room and more and more audience responses, under the leadership of the Central National Orchestra, hundreds of "national team" art troupes such as the China Coal Mine Art Troupe and the Oriental Performing Arts Group have joined Douyin's live broadcast plan and started to try live broadcasting.

In the view of the value officer, the live broadcast room is equivalent to a converter. The top art that could only be appreciated in concert halls or theaters in the past has not only become within reach, but also attracted more young people with more modern language and forms, pushing traditional culture and high art further.

The "national team" that was led by the China National Orchestra to join the live broadcast also tasted the sweetness and found new audiences, new stages and new income. This successful example subsequently had a magnetic effect on many grassroots troupes. In the past two years, more and more grassroots art groups have also entered the live broadcast room and opened up a "second theater" online.

The Yanbian Song and Dance Troupe, which began to experiment with live streaming and online operations in 2022, is now one of the top grassroots troupes in Douyin's live streaming room.

In addition to the "pansori" rap mentioned at the beginning, the famous Korean singer Jin Shanji often performs Yanbian classic songs in the live broadcast room. Artists specializing in Korean dance use long drum dance, elephant hat dance, fan dance and other dance styles in the live broadcast room. Many people who watched the live broadcast called the troupe to invite them to perform, and many people left messages saying: "After watching your performance, I also became interested in Yanbian and decided to travel there."

The Hunan Provincial Song and Dance Theater Opera Troupe specially set up a "Fang Hua Xian Ge" folk song female group, which sang both Hunan folk songs with strong regional characteristics and popular songs with a wide audience in the live broadcast room. The Ji'an Pingju Troupe not only sang Pingju, but also combined traditional Pingju with modern song and dance according to the needs of the audience, and innovatively choreographed a "Modern Pingju Song and Dance Show".

At present, live broadcast rooms are flourishing at the grassroots level. Some have achieved breakthroughs in revenue, while others are planning to promote local opera and culture on a larger scale through live broadcast channels.

03 In the era of content being king, good art deserves to be seen by more people

From the emergence of individual performing hosts to the joining of professional performing groups and national teams, and now to the emergence of grassroots art troupes, the quality and richness of content on the cloud stage are rapidly improving.

Behind this change, on the one hand, it is due to the platform's continuous purification of the content ecology and optimization of the living environment of good content. In recent years, Douyin has continued to deal with issues such as unscrupulous ugliness and vulgarity, and many former popular top anchors have been banned. While continuing to purify the content ecology of the live broadcast room, Douyin has also continued to strengthen the management of live broadcast rewards for minors and improve relevant mechanisms.

Not long ago, Douyin Live launched a special campaign in Changsha to regulate outdoor live broadcasts in summer 2024. Data shows that since the beginning of this year, more than 1.4 million outdoor live broadcast violation accounts have been punished on the entire platform, of which 210,000 accounts have had their live broadcast permissions revoked.

In fact, content platforms cannot survive forever by relying on popularity and topicality. The curious nature can indeed attract many new users. If you desperately pursue vulgar curiosity, you will sooner or later touch the high-voltage line. This is obviously not a healthy development model. If you want to survive for a long time, you must have content that pays more attention to quality and value.

On the other hand, through various support programs, such as the "Quality Anchor Support" program and the art troupe support program, Douyin has also helped high-quality content, especially niche local art, to break through the circle in terms of resources, traffic, and services. If the governance of vulgar content is to loosen the soil and weed for the growth of high-quality content, then various support programs are equivalent to watering and fertilizing to help it grow rapidly.

As we all know, many traditional operas originally had a very narrow range of dissemination, mostly concentrated in the small circle of professional amateurs, and had a hard time surviving. However, through the traffic amplifier of the live broadcast room and the support plan initiated by the platform, more and more people can be exposed to opera, thus having more opportunities to like opera. Grassroots troupes such as Qianshan Huangmei Opera Troupe and Ji'an Pingju Troupe have attracted fans from all over the country through live broadcasts.

On this basis, the Art Development Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Douyin Live recently jointly launched the "Spotlight Plan-Douyin Live Grassroots Art Troupes Support Special Project", opening up cooperation to state-owned grassroots art troupes, inviting them to start online live broadcasts and other businesses, and by providing corresponding support, further supporting grassroots art troupes to explore new paths for online performances.

It can be foreseen that as more and more professional troupes receive support and expand their income, they will also have more sufficient funds to invest in the updating of performance equipment and the training of talents. Such a virtuous cycle will not only further improve the content ecology of the live broadcast room, but also activate the energy of the entire grassroots cultural market.

Written by Chen Tong, edited by Meiqi. This article is written by the author [Cultural and Entertainment Value Officer] of Operation Party, WeChat public account: [Cultural and Entertainment Value Officer]. It is originally created/authorized to be published on Operation Party. Reproduction is prohibited without permission.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.