In-depth analysis UP hosts, can’t get out of the commercial siege?

This article mainly discusses the in-depth analysis Up masters on Bilibili and how they overcome commercial difficulties when facing rapid fan growth.

In-depth interpretation of content is becoming an important part of Bilibili's content.

According to the "2024 Visible Fan Value - Five Major Platforms KOL Fan Analysis Research Report", among the KOLs with the fastest fan increase on Bilibili in 2023, @小翰可汗 and @木鱼水心 performed outstandingly. These history and film and television bloggers have become an important part of Bilibili's creators.

Specifically, in 2023, @木鱼水心's followers increased to 2.41 million+, and the current number of followers has reached 13.48 million+. @小翰可汗's latest 5 works in the past 180 days have a median playback volume of 4.022 million, which is higher than 75% of similar UP hosts.

However, the proliferation of in-depth interpretation content has not further promoted commercialization.

On the one hand, there are relatively few brand resources related to history and film and television, which is in sharp contrast to content areas such as life, beauty, and digital. On the other hand, these bloggers mostly create content without showing their faces, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of advertising placement.

For a long time, the content analysis and opinion interpretation of Chinese films, TV shows and books on the Internet have often been concentrated in text form.

As the interpretation content expands from "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "In the Name of People", "Do You Know" to "Journey to the West", "Water Margin" and "A Dream of Red Mansions", the length of in-depth video analysis continues to expand, just like constantly producing "fruits" of various shapes from a rich material library.

However, how to transform these in-depth contents into commercial value is still an issue that Bilibili and its content creators need to think deeply about and explore.

1. “Counter” views make UP masters popular

When UP host @木鱼水心 started posting content that lasted more than half an hour, few people would have thought that this would become the "starting line" for B station's in-depth analysis of content.

It has been observed that over the past year, B station's KOLs who provide in-depth interpretation of history and film and television have been very eye-catching, and a series of accounts such as @啊粥粥啊粥 and @渤海小隶 have gained followers rapidly.

@啊粥舟啊州's Journey to the West: Black Myth series has been updated since the end of 2023. Not only has it been on the hot list many times, the finale has also garnered an astonishing 12.12 million views.

Big IP + alternative interpretation + constant reversals - a series of hits is born.

In addition to these top UP hosts, there are many mid-level bloggers who focus on in-depth interpretation of film, television, literature or historical figures, such as @香芹又青了, who mainly analyzes domestic idol dramas, @飞奔啊蜗牛 and @貔柴, who became popular for their unique insights into classic dramas such as "Knowing or Not" and "The Legend of Zhen Huan", and @_风过大泽, who can analyze 14 episodes of content from a movie.

In terms of content, this type of content has certain commonalities.

First, this type of content often chooses content that is familiar to the public, such as classics such as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "A Dream of Red Mansions". The audience has a certain amount of content accumulation and the threshold for understanding is relatively low.

Second, the viewpoints are prominent and conflict with the general public’s cognition or are novel, which is often referred to as the content characteristics of “reaching a wide range of people and reaching a special angle”. Whether it is “blackening” myths or “whitewashing” negative characters… as long as the logic is clear and there is no factual contradiction, “explosive” remarks can also be loved by the public.

Moreover, most of this type of content does not show faces, and is mostly video editing + dubbing. The cost of each episode is controllable and the investment threshold is low.

With familiar content, new angles and low barriers to entry, it is not difficult to understand why in-depth interpretations of history, film and television will naturally emerge on current content platforms.

According to the changes in the TOP10 vertical categories that contribute to Bilibili's fan base in 2023, although games, animation, and music are still the TOP3 that contribute to Bilibili's fan base in 2023, the contribution of fans in the fields of film and television, knowledge popularization, etc. has also increased.

However, in-depth interpretation content only blooms in the history and film and television areas, which is also a helpless move. Current affairs hot spots have high traffic, but the corresponding videos are more risky and will cause more intense discussions and controversies. In the current Internet context, not following hot spots is an active choice and an environmental trend.

However, as the amount of this type of content increased, different voices began to emerge from the audience: With so many different viewpoints and tens of thousands of words of analysis, are they real opinions or false innovations?

On the one hand, there is a dispute over the proportion of citations. It is understood that some in-depth interpretations do refer to related books, such as @Elephant Screening Room's Turbulent Forty Years series, which partially refers to Wu Xiaobo's book of the same name. Many analysis contents related to the film and television drama "Do You Know?" also have some overlap.

On the other hand, it is about whether the content is consistent with the original intention of the creator and whether it involves excessive interpretation. "The author didn't think so much."

However, in any case, as an emerging cultural phenomenon, in-depth interpretation of content has already occupied a place on platforms such as Bilibili. It not only meets the audience's demand for in-depth, diverse, and personalized culture, but also provides creators with a new creative direction and value space.

As for controversy, perhaps the moment a video is released, it is destined to be judged by users. This is true for movies, TV shows, books, and in-depth interpretation videos as well.

2. 10 yuan to watch a video?

In addition to the above similarities, the more well-known common feature of this type of content is that it is difficult to monetize, which has been a chronic disease of Bilibili for many years.

It is understood that Youtube, also a long video creation platform, has joined the Google Ads Alliance, which means that as long as the conditions are met, bloggers can share the advertising fees earned by the platform, with the share ratio being as high as 55%. Although it has repeatedly supported UP hosts who have no monetization capabilities, the video incentive level of Bilibili is obviously not comparable to that of Bilibili.

Therefore, most of the current accounts on Bilibili make profits in the form of business orders.

The content in the history area and film and television area is more special. Due to the long production cycle of videos and the quality of the content, there are relatively few brands that can connect with this type of content, and the speed of business orders is very slow. It is understood that the biggest cost of this type of content is manpower. And the production cycle is relatively long.

@啊粥粥啊粥也 revealed in the video that although the video traffic was not bad before, the account creator had always been one person, and only recently began to form a team.

In April last year, @木鱼水心动态 even stated that it had not received any advertisements in the four months of 2023. Since then, related entries have become hot searches, putting the monetization issues of such accounts on the table.

The current answer to this problem is charging.

Last year, we mentioned in our article on knowledge bloggers that more and more bloggers in the history and knowledge areas have started to make paid videos. Half a year has passed, and according to observations of the content on the Bilibili platform, more and more paid videos have appeared and run smoothly.

Take @木鱼水心 as an example. In May 2024, @木鱼水心 appeared in person and announced that it would launch the paid column "Starry Sky Reading Club". Fans can watch the video by subscribing to a monthly subscription of 12 yuan (10 yuan for consecutive monthly subscriptions). It is observed that the related books that appear in the video will also appear in the window of Bilibili.

At present, 47,110 people have opened charging accounts, with a monthly income of about 470,000 yuan. Considering the update frequency of 1-2 issues per month and 1 hour per issue, it can be considered a good business.

In addition, @食贫道, @啊粥粥啊粥 and other UP hosts also opened charging columns. Among them, @食贫道's videos such as "Lost in Tokyo" and "Why Danggui" also received many praises.

We interviewed some paying users. Xiaobai is a media person. She decided to pay almost immediately after watching Lost in Translation. "I have watched Uncle Bing's previous content and know their camera and copywriting abilities. I am very interested in documentaries, so I paid."

For some users who watch a wide range of similar content, paying is not a must. There are many alternatives, and you can always find relevant content. "There is no need to watch someone's content."

After talking to many paying users, we found that for many deep fans, charging is even more acceptable than inserting ads. Of course, this is based on the premise that the content is guaranteed.

It has been observed that many monthly columns are updated 1-2 times a month. If spread out, each video costs about 10 yuan. If you charge multiple UP hosts at the same time, it can hardly be said to be a small amount of money.

At the same time, for those mid-level and tail-end bloggers, it is difficult to start paid services without a fan base, and the process of accumulating fans seems particularly long.

3. Why is commercialization so bumpy for Bilibili, which wants to satisfy everyone?

An in-depth interpretation of the awkward positioning of UP hosts is also, to a certain extent, the dilemma of Bilibili.

Compared with the long video platforms iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV, Bilibili's long drama production and IP capabilities are quite different. Compared with the platform's self-produced content, it is the content of UP masters that mainly supports Bilibili.

Bilibili's positioning as a domestic video platform is unique. It is one of the few medium-length video platforms currently. Although it also has short video content, there is still a gap in content quality.

Although platforms such as Douyin and Video Account have also made arrangements for medium and long video content, the user habits that have already been cultivated are difficult to change. At least for now, most creators of medium and long content meet on Bilibili.

Clour’s “2024 Visible Fan Value - Five Major Platforms KOL Fan Analysis Research Report” also shows that compared with 2022, the number of mid-level creators on Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu has increased the most, reaching 5.84%. This means that Bilibili’s content still has a significant increase in creators.

Compared with the content, the real problem of Bilibili lies in commercialization. Bilibili’s in-depth interpretation of the embarrassment of content commercialization is, to a certain extent, an extension of Bilibili.

In response to this, Bilibili started to focus on live streaming in 2023 and made popular UP hosts such as @迷懵, @鹰梨. However, the emergence of live streaming also made many users feel uncomfortable, "Why do you keep pushing it to me?"

On the other hand, there are also many accounts that are constantly exploring the possibility of commercializing their own accounts.

Take the video of the film and television hurricane as an example. The video of the self-made variety show under its matrix account @悸多多StormCrew has outstanding data once it is released, and has become the best content in the current account. It is observed that it has received advertising placement from McDonald's.

Whether it is platform support or the creators themselves, Bilibili’s commercialization can’t wait any longer.

As for long videos, Bilibili sticks to its promise of "no interstitial ads". In 2016, Bilibili added a 15-second ad at the beginning of an animation, which attracted a lot of criticism. Chen Rui then apologized to users and promised never to add interstitial ads again. While maintaining Bilibili's content ecological positioning, it also made its own commercialization extremely difficult.

There will be many more commercial tests for Bilibili in the future. Can Bilibili, which wants to satisfy everyone, find a path that suits itself?

Reference article: 1. Paid content is increasing! On Bilibili, we have to look down on videos? | TechFox