Why did Bilibili "cowardly" cancel the reform of playback time?

Recently, Bilibili announced its decision to "cancel the revision of the external display of the playback time indicator". So why was this revision aborted? What are the considerations behind the cancellation?

"The change from playback volume to playback time has not been implemented for a year. This move by B Station is really confusing." A TEST, a UP host of B Station, posted a video criticizing the product direction of B Station, which directly triggered an official response from B Station.

On May 21, B station's well-known UP host @阿TEST正经比比 posted a video titled "B station said it would change the playback time, but it has not been changed for a year?", complaining about the difficulty of implementing this major strategy and other product complaints. On May 22, Fang Fang, the head of B station's community and product, responded in the comment section, saying "We have decided to cancel the revision of the explicit playback time indicator."

This revision strategy was proposed by Chen Rui, chairman of B Station, at the 14th anniversary celebration on June 26 last year. It was originally planned to be implemented in July last year, but it has been delayed again and again and has never been launched. Yesterday's official response directly announced that the product was "aborted."

It is worth noting that today, Bilibili released its first quarter financial report, and its advertising revenue continued to soar, reaching 1.67 billion yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 31%, of which performance advertising revenue increased by more than 50% year-on-year.

I still remember that when the plan of "playing time replacing playback volume" was proposed, it was regarded by the industry as a statement by Bilibili to encourage the creation of medium and long videos and maintain a high-quality community atmosphere, which attracted widespread attention. Why has the playback time indicator never been implemented in the past year? Behind the cancellation, is Bilibili a compromise to ensure commercialization? Or is there another reason?

1. Bilibili’s minute reform: an idealist’s battle to defend the community?

"Why did Bilibili change the playback time? Actually, it just wants to encourage medium-length content." In the video of A TEST's complaints, he pointed out the core purpose of Bilibili's official announcement a year ago. It is precisely because of this that countless creators have been looking forward to this revision.

You can still search for the speech video of Chen Rui, the then chairman of Bilibili, on Bilibili. When he announced on the stage that "the product change of replacing the number of playbacks with the number of playback minutes will be implemented in the next few weeks", he received cheers and applause from the audience.

At that time, Bilibili was in a difficult period of commercial exploration. The opening of information flow advertising interfaces, brand cooperation, and e-commerce in the water were all advancing, but in the public opinion field, it encountered multiple crises such as "UP host income decline" and "creator monetization difficulties". In particular, the vertical screen video promoted since 2021 and the greatly improved short video content recommendation priority have caused this content community, which started with high-quality horizontal screen medium and long videos, to fall into the "long and short dispute" many times in the past two years.

For this reason, this revision is more like an official response of Bilibili to the core creators and users of the community: the playback time replaces the playback count function, which can give high-quality medium and long content more display opportunities. Under the premise of consistent playback volume, videos with higher "average playback time" will have higher playback minutes, which will not only have a traffic tilt, but also allow high-quality UP hosts to have a stronger advantage in commercial monetization.

As Chen Rui said in his speech: "Whether it is popular content, vertical content, or even niche content, as long as the quality is good, the number of minutes played can better reflect the quality of the video than the number of times played. For those contents with poor quality, which attract users to click through exaggerated titles and misleading covers, the number of minutes played will be a much smaller number than the number of times played."

To some extent, this change attempts to build a new standard: using the average viewing time to screen out high-quality content with a higher probability. And all of this is directed to only one thing, which is to maintain the most unique and important existence of Bilibili - the community.

I still remember Chen Rui's speech in 2016: "Bilibili may go bankrupt, but it will never deteriorate." In 2021, Chen Rui also said, "Bilibili is not a tool, but a community. Compared with the growth of scale, we attach more importance to the health of the Bilibili community." After announcing this new rule last year, Chen Rui reiterated at the end of his speech: "This is the path that Bilibili has taken in the past 14 years, and it is the only path to take in the future - to make you willing to loudly recommend Bilibili to your friends and make you feel that the time you spend on Bilibili is worthwhile."

Obviously, the existence of playback minutes is like an idealistic fence woven for the community atmosphere. Inside, Bilibili stands firmly on the side of medium and long content creators to fight against the irreversible wave of short videos in the industry.

2. Difficult grayscale testing and "implementation dilemma", why don't brands recognize it?

"At its core, it is intended to encourage medium and long videos, but it happens to involve the most difficult issue of caliber." The summary in the ATEST video is also the reason why this new regulation failed to be implemented as scheduled "within a few weeks" and was delayed again and again.

From the perspective of data capabilities, although the statistical standards for average viewing time are more complicated than those for playback volume, Bilibili had already started grayscale testing before June 26 last year. In the second half of last year, many UP hosts were also able to see the playback time of the content in the background. It is obvious that Bilibili already has the capabilities in the data replacement dimension.

What is preventing this number from being released is the different voices coming from the brand side.

"The video recommendation logic that Bilibili has been using before is to calculate the weight based on the front-end playback volume. The higher the playback volume, the more popular it is. After this data changes, Bilibili's community ecology will change greatly, and it also means new rules and challenges from the perspective of choosing a cooperative account." Axing, a fireworks service provider at Bilibili, told Doujiao.

"Moreover, this pursuit of medium- and long-length content does not meet the needs of many brands for Bilibili. The trend of short videos is irreversible, and even many brands I serve regard Bilibili as a younger short video platform. When many brands target mid- and low-level UP hosts, they even explicitly prefer to target content that is less than 5 minutes long, has a faster pace, and outputs more direct content," said Axing.

At the same time, due to the "innovation" of the measurement dimension of duration, many brands are actually in a cautious wait-and-see attitude. Although short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have also hidden the number of views and only displayed the number of likes, the logic of brand investment is still strongly related to the number of views and clicks.

However, according to Doujiao, when Bilibili proposed to use playback time instead of playback volume last year, it also planned to apply it to commercial products. That is, not only will the playback volume be cancelled at the front end, but the streaming products will also change from being priced by clicks to being priced by playback time. Huahuo will also replace the median playback volume for measuring UP host indicators with the median playback time, completing a very thorough transformation in commercial logic.

Joy, the marketing director of a 3C brand that has a close cooperation with Bilibili, once told Doujiao that she was not optimistic about this reform. "Youtube has never achieved such an indicator, so how can Bilibili achieve it? Moreover, replacing the number of views with the length of playback is essentially removing the reporting indicator that we care about most, which goes against the logic of advertising."

According to Doujiao, currently, brand commercialization teams are unable to obtain playback information when releasing content, and only long video platforms can display the numbers on the front page. However, due to its B+C business model, the cooperation between brands and long content has strong pre-positioning and strong team betting, and emphasizes the logic of brand rather than effect, which is naturally different from the short video influencer planting and performance advertising classified by Bilibili.

"To put it bluntly, I can use the playback report to let my boss know the exposure clearly. This indicator is more closely related to the number of people reached. But if it is replaced with playback time, it is equivalent to being one level further away from covering the population. And for us, a longer playback time does not mean a better reach effect." said JOY.

Doujiao also learned from many sources that the reason why this revision has not been implemented is because the feedback from the commercial side is not as expected. As Fang Fang said in her response, "After the announcement, I found that the feedback from all sides was not optimistic. Many people don't understand this indicator."

3. Why is Bilibili so brave to cancel the decision directly instead of considering both?

In response to this, many UP hosts expressed confusion: "Why can't we take both into account?" That is, while releasing the online playback time data, retain the playback volume, and reform the product in a way of coexistence rather than replacement. At the same time, on the commercial side, cancel the overly radical replacement change, and add new indicators, but still allow brands to place ads based on playback volume.

An insider close to Bilibili told Doujiao that this plan was also discussed by the team, but was ultimately rejected because it was too useless. "In addition to the long-term community atmosphere and the encouragement of high-quality medium- and long-term content, the change in data indicators at the commercial level is actually to enhance the brand's confidence in Bilibili. Although there have been some cases of vertical brands being popular on Bilibili before, from the perspective of general advertising, many brands have always believed that the ROI of Bilibili's advertising is low, and the cost-effectiveness is far lower than that of Douyin from the perspective of playback volume and exposure. This is also determined by the production cost of medium- and long-term video content and the number of platform users. The change from playback volume pricing to playback time pricing also considers highlighting the differentiated advantages of the platform."

However, during the promotion process, this indicator of Bilibili has not been recognized by brands as expected. "It is difficult to prove it with a single example. A new indicator cannot be applied to only one platform. Other platforms use CPM and CPC logic, but brands do not accept Bilibili's change of indicator to show playback time. If the original playback volume is retained, brands will still choose to use the old method. At this time, the new indicator may cause confusion, because the inversion of playback volume and playback time affects brand choice." said the insider.

At the same time, Bilibili, which is in the critical process of commercialization, cannot afford the major earthquake in UP hosts that may be caused by a radical change in the front-end recommendation logic. "Whether from the development node of Bilibili or the situation of the entire Internet, the current stage is not a period of radical reform, but a stage of deepening the advantages of the platform community and emphasizing brand services."

In the past two years, Bilibili has held high the banner of commercialization and made frequent moves in advertising and e-commerce. The adjustment of the human resource structure and the full opening of the commercialization entrance all demonstrate the platform's determination to "turn losses into profits". In particular, the advertising side is its core focus. According to its 2023 financial report, Bilibili's advertising business revenue increased by 27% year-on-year to 6.4 billion yuan, the fastest growth rate among the four core businesses. According to Bilibili's first quarter financial report just released today, Bilibili's advertising revenue continued to soar, reaching 1.67 billion yuan in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 31%, of which the performance advertising revenue increased by more than 50% year-on-year.

Such rapid growth is also closely related to its continuous upgrades in advertising products and intelligent delivery. In its first quarter financial report, Bilibili particularly emphasized its efforts in optimizing the fireworks delivery function, opening live broadcasts, dynamic business orders, and its attempts at intelligent delivery tools. This idea is also the direction that a large number of Internet platforms are aiming for.

Kuaishou's first quarter financial report also highlighted the convenience provided by the full-site promotion products for brands in the intelligent delivery link and the promotion of GMV by the intelligent hosting products in the live broadcast field. In April this year, Alimama launched a new product "full-site promotion", which also emphasized the improvement of brand efficiency through intelligent operation and intelligent delivery. Obviously, whether it is a short video platform or an e-commerce platform, at the current stage, relying on service improvement to create more efficient commercial products is the key to gaining brand favor.

For this reason, looking back at Bilibili, its choice to cancel rather than insist at this time also shows a more pragmatic change from an idealist "creating new rules" to joining the great era.

"It is difficult to take the initiative to give up a decision and admit mistakes, but it is also what Bilibili has to do at this stage," said an insider.

Of course, this does not mean giving up completely. As Fang Fang said in her message, "In the current recommendation algorithm, playback time has become a very important statistical factor."

Bilibili is still insisting on achieving a further balance between community and commercialization through relatively gentle optimization rather than reform.