Bilibili is once again cutting creative income, where will UP hosts go?

This article explains the current income dilemma of B Station up from three aspects. It is recommended to read and watch for friends who are interested in B Station creation.

It has almost become a consensus among UP hosts that they can no longer rely on platform incentives to make money. In April, the new version of the "Video Creation Incentive Plan" of Bilibili was implemented. The plan focuses on helping individual UP hosts who have no monetization ability, that is, individual UP hosts whose average monthly income on the platform is less than 5,000 yuan in the past six months. In short, the original UP hosts either can no longer get incentives or their income will be reduced.

On the other hand, data recently released by Bilibili shows that advertising and live streaming have become the most important channels for UP hosts to earn income. More than 1.8 million UP hosts earn income through live streaming, and more than 950,000 UP hosts have joined various advertising programs. The number of UP hosts who earn income through videos and live streaming has increased by 133% year-on-year.

On the one hand, it cuts incentives for creation and raises the threshold, while on the other hand, it encourages diversified monetization such as live streaming with goods - Bilibili is no longer hiding its idea of ​​allowing UP hosts to become self-reliant.

01 What is the impact of the new version plan of Bilibili?

Last month, Bilibili launched a new version of the "Video Creation Incentive Plan", which was officially implemented in April and has been in effect for half a month. During this period, many UP hosts complained bitterly.

Details of the new incentive plan of Station B:

The details of the incentive plan of Station B can be summarized into the following four parts:

First, the UP host must publish original articles within 90 days and cannot have any commercial promotional nature;

Second, the income of UP hosts is composed of basic video incentives, advertising revenue sharing, and activity incentives. The basic video incentives have been capped at a maximum of 2,000 yuan per month.

Third, the monthly incentive activity invites UP hosts whose average monthly income on the platform is less than 20,000 in the past six months, and rewards them based on the viewing time of the articles participating in the activity, fan interaction and other data;

Fourthly, the hot-selling small-target activity is aimed at UP hosts with less than 100,000 fans. Different playback and coin-operated levels are set according to the different fan levels of the UP hosts.

The incentive plan focuses on UP hosts who have no monetization capabilities yet, that is, individual UP hosts whose average monthly platform income in the past six months is less than 5,000 yuan.

What impact did the adjustment of this plan bring? The answers from the UP hosts on the platform are the most convincing.

As soon as the news about the "incentive plan" was released, many UP hosts on the site specially made a video to conduct a detailed analysis of the plan, breaking down the plan policies and discussing the impact of this change.

The positive impact is that it can support some small UP hosts who are not diligent in updating or are amateurs, reduce the content of live broadcast slices, let the UP hosts return to the state of content creation as the core, leave the traffic pool to high-quality creators, and no longer let the matrix of brushing traffic "fleece" them.

The negative impact is that mid-level and above UP hosts will face survival difficulties after losing their guaranteed income.

UP host "Xingbai Kunt" also mentioned the negative impact of this move in the video. Faced with the 2,000 yuan basic video creation reward cap in the new version of the plan, some "hardworking" small UP hosts will lose the motivation to work hard, and in the future, more UP hosts will no longer tend to make super-long videos of more than 20 minutes.

Small UP hosts are supported by the plan, big UP hosts do not care about that little bit of "coin", and mid-level UP hosts are greatly harmed.

The mid-level UP host "Serious Ah Zhen" also posted a video to complain to everyone, telling everyone about the difficulties he is facing and how it is difficult to find a way out. He said that he is almost unemployed. The UP host "Ziv Ziwei" with 1.424 million followers also said in the comment area that he has not received any business orders and a large part of his income is obtained by creative incentives.

The people most affected by this incentive plan are the UP hosts in the film and television area.

UP hosts in the film and television area mainly produce long videos, most of which are about explaining movies or TV series. They are usually operated by a team and have always relied on high-traffic videos every month to get higher rewards to support the entire operation team or studio. In addition, it is difficult for UP hosts in the film and television area to receive commercial orders, and now they have lost the basic incentives for videos, which is worse than ever.

After the implementation of the new plan, a large number of UP hosts in the film and television section faced difficulties in operating their accounts and had no choice but to stop updating.

Among them, the film and television UP host "丸子叨叨叨" with 1.774 million fans posted a video on the site on March 30 to announce that it would stop updating. When "小片片说大片", another film and television UP host, saw this news, he couldn't help but feel a sense of grief and also posted a message on the dynamic, but the dynamic is no longer visible.

02 Support originality and encourage diversified monetization

Why did Bilibili adjust its incentive plan and raise the threshold?

One of the reasons is to reduce the number of pure marketing accounts that increase the number of daily updates to earn creative incentives.

In 2022, after B station "went out of the circle", a large number of marketing accounts began to pour in to increase the number of views of videos. Now, many platforms such as Tiktok, Douyin, and Kuaishou have appeared to carry videos, and they can get millions of views in just two days.

The lower-level ones are to copy or move the original video, and after a little editing it becomes a low-creativity video. The team can send out forty or fifty videos a day, winning by quantity. The more advanced marketing accounts will resort to "plagiarism". In this way, it is difficult for the platform to determine that the account's video is in violation of the rules, and it is difficult to report and protect rights.

The existence of these videos will encroach on the original incentive amount of Bilibili, squeeze the secondary creation space of UP masters on the site, affect the ecological environment of the platform, and gradually deteriorate the user experience, leading to a belief that the quality content of the platform is decreasing.

On April 3, the official account "超绝可爱激大礼" released the "Announcement on Cracking Down on Obtaining Incentives through Low-Quality, Low-Innovation, and Black Industry Brushing Behaviors", stating that since 2024, 732 accounts have been subject to measures such as video incentive demotion and termination of video incentive settlement, and some accounts have been permanently cleared.

The second reason is that Bilibili has pushed the platform's UP hosts to broaden their monetization models and achieve self-reliance, rather than relying on platform subsidies.

In 2023, news about Bilibili's difficulty in commercialization and UP hosts stopping updates due to inability to afford the costs have repeatedly become hot searches.

On March 7, Bilibili released its 2023 financial report, which stated that with the improvement of operating efficiency, Bilibili's gross profit in the fourth quarter increased by 33% year-on-year, and its gross profit margin continued to increase for six consecutive quarters to 26.1%. The adjusted net loss for the whole year narrowed by 49% year-on-year, and achieved positive operating cash flow for the whole year.

Bilibili was launched in 2009 and is now in its 15th year, but it will not achieve full-year positive operating cash flow until 2023. When asked by reporters when Bilibili will start to make a profit, Bilibili CEO Chen Rui replied that it is expected to be after adjusting operating profit in the third quarter of 2024.

The core goal of Bilibili now is to make profits. In order to accelerate the realization of its revenue or increase its profits, Bilibili is now trying...

03 Bilibili and UP hosts seek change

On the last page of the "Video Creation Incentive Plan (2024 Edition)", the six monetization methods provided by the platform to UP hosts are stated, namely, joining the Bilibili Fireworks Platform, participating in bounty sales, starting live broadcasts, participating in the recharge plan, and joining the Bilibili classroom.

On April 9, Bilibili released the "2023 Environmental, Social and Governance Report". The report showed that in 2023, the average daily number of active UP hosts on Bilibili increased by 24% year-on-year, and the average monthly video submissions were nearly 21.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 46%. More than 3 million UP hosts earned income, a year-on-year increase of 30%.

Among them, advertising and live streaming have become the most important channels for UP hosts to earn income. More than 1.8 million UP hosts earn income through live streaming, and more than 950,000 UP hosts have joined various advertising programs. The number of UP hosts who earn income through videos and live streaming has increased by 133% year-on-year.

In 2023, Bilibili began to actively participate in the e-commerce track and support UP hosts on the site to participate in live streaming and selling goods.

In June 2023, the B-station UP host "Bao Jian Sao and Yu Ge" launched their first live broadcast of selling goods, which was called the most "high-profile" live broadcast of selling goods in the history of B-station. Official data showed that the total transaction GMV of this debut reached 28 million yuan.

In August 2023, the B station UP host "Parrot Pear" (also known as "Ju Li Na") started his first live broadcast on B station. Among the 151 items on the shelves in the live broadcast room, more than 2/3 were women's clothing. The number of viewers of this live broadcast exceeded 700,000, and the GMV exceeded 30 million yuan. During the Double 12 promotion at the end of last year, "Parrot Pear" started broadcasting again, with a single GMV of more than 50 million yuan. The total GMV of the three live broadcasts launched within half a year exceeded 100 million. These data are no less than the top anchors in the industry.

To promote live streaming e-commerce, Bilibili’s current approach is to cooperate with e-commerce platforms and direct traffic to other e-commerce platforms through content seeding, which is the “big open-loop strategy.”

Some time ago, a small advertising card for Li Jiaqi’s “Fashion Festival” appeared on the homepage of Bilibili. Clicking on the small advertising card directly jumps to Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast room.

Bilibili provides traffic to e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com by selling advertising space, and is also able to reach cooperation with these e-commerce platforms. While obtaining advertising fees, it also participates in live streaming and promotes the "big open-loop strategy."

As for the "charging plan", the explanation given by Bilibili is that the audience pays for charging, and the UP hosts give back to the audience through exclusive videos, exclusive draws, etc. The audience has multiple options for charging the UP hosts, which can be monthly or customized for a single charging price.

The most participants in the "charging plan" are UP hosts in the tarot divination area, but the high consumption in this area also makes users feel that it is not cost-effective. The monthly charging plan of the tarot UP host "Dragon Girl" is 30 yuan, and the monthly charging plan fee of another tarot UP host "Grandma Li Tarot" is as high as 288 yuan. Due to the high charges, the reputation of these Western fantasy UP hosts has become polarized.

The monetization problem that has plagued Bilibili for so many years will not be solved overnight. But whether it is advertising or live streaming, Bilibili and the platform's UP masters have already begun to seek change.

The adjustment of the incentive plan may just be the beginning. It’s time for UP hosts to really support their families.

Author: Changmei; Source public account: Xinbochang (ID: 1093973)