After the “tide recedes”, where will live show broadcasts go?

The platforms change, but the anchors remain. What is show live streaming? How is it different from traditional live streaming? The author of this article starts with the development history of the anchor industry, and tells in detail the new chapter of show live streaming after the live streaming boom. Finally, he analyzes the new changes in show live streaming. Recommended reading for those who are interested in e-commerce live streaming, show live streaming, etc.

On February 26, YY held its 2022 annual ceremony in Hangzhou. However, compared with Huya's "Extraordinary Night" which topped hundreds of Weibo hot searches and Douyin hot lists, YY's annual ceremony did not seem to create enough momentum. The annual stage ceremony also presented a superficial and sloppy annual meeting-style performance, and the overall performance was a bit deserted.

Ten years ago, YY held its first grand ceremony. The anchors competed for seats through annual votes and had many fierce talent competitions on the stage. At that time, the YY annual grand ceremony still played an important role in the entire Internet industry, and show live broadcasts were also very popular. YY even shouted the slogan of "anchors become stars, and stars become anchors". The anchors who joined YY early also tasted the traffic dividend. A Leng, who later became the number one anchor on Douyu, started her first live broadcast on YY using the online name Siwei.

However, with the development of mobile Internet and short video content, traditional live show broadcasts have gradually declined. On January 31 this year, Ah Leng conducted the last live broadcast of her live broadcast career in Douyu Live Room, officially bidding farewell to her fans. When she sang the song "How long will you love me", fans frantically swiped "forever" under the barrage.

A Leng is not the first anchor to leave Douyu. With popular anchors such as Zhou Erke and Chen Yifaer stopping broadcasting one after another, the popularity of Douyu's show live broadcast is much lower than before.

The live show broadcasts of other traditional platforms such as Huya, Huajiao, and Inke are also gradually becoming "cool". These platforms are shifting their business focus to other areas, while short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have come from behind and redefined live show broadcasts by introducing diversified content such as lion dance, suona, and Errenzhuan.

When the live broadcast boom came, thousands of broadcasters competed on the same stage. When the entire live broadcast boom is over, what new stories can show live broadcasts tell?

01 The platforms change, but the anchors remain

When live show broadcasts were just emerging, the Internet was in the era of traffic and the threshold for anchors was relatively low. Early show anchors mainly relied on their looks, singing and other talents to interact with fans, which attracted a large number of fans to give gifts and rewards, and then share the profits with the platform.

From the perspective of the operating model of show live streaming, show live streaming establishes connections between anchors and fans, focuses on stranger social interaction, and earns reward income. The "number one brother on the list" was once the most popular "sponsor" among anchors.

In order to stimulate users to give rewards to the anchors and increase the platform's profit income, major live broadcast platforms will also hold a live broadcast PK ranking competition ceremony every year. The platform will provide traffic and cash rewards to the anchors who win the PK ranking championship, and will even support the anchors to participate in film and television projects.

In order to earn tips and increase their popularity and exposure, the anchors have tried their best to perform their talents on the stage and canvass votes for themselves in various ways. It is reported that a well-known YY ​​anchor who won the ranking championship earned tens of millions of tips from fans and also invested more than 20 million yuan. The total amount distributed by YY to guilds and anchors in 2017 reached 5.6 billion yuan.

From the outside, the hosts of live shows look glamorous every day and can easily make money just by singing and dancing in the live broadcast room. This emerging profession is therefore extremely attractive to young people. According to media survey data, host ranks first among the emerging professions most desired by those born after 1995.

When live show streaming was at its peak, a war of thousands of broadcasters took place among the major live streaming apps. Platforms such as Douyu, Huya, and Inke all raised funds and went public with the help of capital, and live streaming for the whole people also emerged.

According to Tianyancha APP, Douyu completed its B, C, D and E rounds of financing in 2016-2017, with each round of financing exceeding RMB 1 billion. Huya completed its Pre-A, A and B rounds of financing in 2017-2018, with the highest round of financing being US$460 million. Panda, Zhanqi, Longzhu, Bohe, Chushou and other platforms followed closely behind. Relevant data show that in 2016, there were more than 300 mobile live streaming apps on the App Store at the same time.

Since the core of show live streaming is the anchor, in order to expand their own content matrix, major platforms have adopted mutual poaching of anchors as the main means of competition. Douyu, Huya, and Panda spend over 100 million yuan almost every year to sign new anchors.

As the top anchor of Momo, A Leng was poached by Douyu for 30 million in 2017. In addition to A Leng, Douyu also poached eight anchors at once, including Penguin E-sports anchor Zhang Daxian, Bilibili anchor Nadou, Huya anchor Youyi, and Panda anchor Xuanzi Ju2tu.

Panda CEO Wang Sicong spent 100 million yuan to poach PDD, Zhou Erke and other anchors from Douyu, and poached more than a dozen anchors at once. He also spent 20 million yuan to sign Korean female anchor Yin Suwan, and spent 100 million yuan to sign Korean girl groups EXID and T-ara, creating enough momentum for the platform. Public data shows that the cumulative number of anchors participating in the major live broadcast platforms has exceeded 3.5 million.

However, the good times did not last long. The survival environment of traditional show live broadcasts began to take a sharp turn for the worse. Although major anchors spent huge sums of money to build their own star anchor lineups, under the influence of the "Internet winter", the financing environment quickly became bad, and the "hot" of traditional show live broadcasts was as short-lived as a flash in the pan. In 2017, Guangquan Live, a live broadcast platform valued at 500 million yuan, faced the risk of a broken capital chain and was quickly shut down.

Subsequently, dozens of live streaming platforms also faced the situation of bankruptcy. In 2018, 360 even considered acquiring Panda Interactive Entertainment to offset the debt relationship between them. In 2019, Wang Sicong was in debt of 150 million yuan. Panda Live's anchor Shen Zihan also posted a circle of friends that year: "The server will be shut down tomorrow. If you have favorite anchors, you can go and take a look." This became her last live broadcast notice on Panda, and this move also foreshadowed Panda's sad departure. Under such circumstances, the top anchors of major platforms also began to seek other ways out.

According to the 2019 China Mobile Internet Autumn Report released by QuestMoblie, Douyu ranked first in the industry with 49.84 million mobile MAUs, Huya ranked second with 32.45 million MAUs, and Inke and Huajiao ranked third and fourth. The combined MAUs of Douyin and Kuaishou reached 680 million, which also caused anchors to start moving across platforms and move to Douyin, Kuaishou, and Bilibili.

Liu Yuning of Modern Brothers joined YY Live in 2015 and became famous through cover songs, earning him the title of "cover harvester". Later, Liu Yuning switched to Douyin, where his popularity was comparable to that of first-tier stars, and he gradually transformed himself into a singer and actor.

Tuziya, the top anchor of Kugou Live, became popular on Douyin with "Little White Rabbit Meets Cappuccino" and joined Douyin in 2019, continuing to be active in the field of live show broadcasts. Now, Tuziya has more than 22 million fans on Douyin, making her one of the top anchors.

Feng Timo was signed by Bilibili for 50 million yuan and became one of the top 100 UP hosts on Bilibili. She also transformed from a host to an artist by participating in many variety shows. At the same time, the hosts who changed jobs also helped to activate the content ecology of the platform by continuously outputting content on the new platform.

Yu Dan, co-founder and vice president of Huajiao, once said: "Anchors are the core competitiveness of live streaming platforms, but with the development of the live streaming industry in recent years, problems such as resource monopoly and head effect have gradually become prominent. It is difficult for mature anchors to innovate and for new anchors to grow." Due to the large-scale migration of anchors, platforms that lack head anchors naturally fell into a bottleneck in increasing fans and had to struggle to transform and survive.

"A thousand ships pass by the side of the sunken boat, and a thousand trees bloom in front of the dead tree." Live streaming is a war without the smoke of gunpowder. Some people stand out in this war, while others are lost in the tide of the times. No one can always stand at the forefront, but there will always be new outlets, which will attract a new round of fans.

02 From wild growth to declining popularity, what has live show streaming experienced?

From being all the rage to fading away, the reasons why the traditional live show track has fallen out of favor are complex and include limitations of the content itself as well as the impact of changes in the external environment.

Judging from the content of the show live broadcast, the duration of the show live broadcast is often two or three hours, which not only tests the physical strength of the anchor, but also the patience of the audience. Moreover, more and more content output by anchors has become homogenized, making it difficult to retain existing fans and attract new ones.

Take Aleng as an example. When other anchors of the same period jumped ship to seek transformation, Aleng Leng continued to operate his own live broadcast room according to the previous model. It was only a matter of time before he withdrew.

From the perspective of the business model of show live broadcast, the revenue model of show live broadcast is relatively simple, mainly relying on fans to give gifts and rewards in the live broadcast room, and then the platform and the anchor share the profits. In the golden age of show live broadcast, the top anchors are often the biggest contributors. However, when the fans of the top anchors gradually disappear, the platform's revenue also decreases. In addition, as the industry becomes more and more standardized, some of the income from "taking advantage of loopholes" in the past has gradually disappeared.

The chaos in the industry is also overdrawing the audience's trust in live show broadcasts. The poaching of anchors by major platforms has caused a series of business disputes between the platforms and the anchors, which has affected the development of the anchors while also affecting the output of content.

In March 2022, CCTV's 315 Gala also exposed the inside story of rewarding live shows. Some female anchors and male operators teamed up and used various means to deceive fans into rewarding them. The Qiao Biluo incident in the past refreshed the audience's perception of anchor filters. All these situations have laid the groundwork for the decline of live show broadcasts.

The emergence of short video platforms is undoubtedly the "last straw" that broke the camel's back for traditional live show broadcasts. After the Thousands of Broadcast Wars, traditional live show broadcasts gradually declined, and the surviving platforms such as Douyu, Huya, Yingke, Huajiao, and YY are facing a difficult situation of survival. With the rise of short videos such as Douyin and Kuaishou, more and more fragmented and diversified content that meets the needs of the audience is growing wildly like mushrooms after a rain, and the audience's attention is rapidly shifting.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, Huya's MAU was as high as 116 million. Now, according to Huya's 2022Q3 financial report, Huya's MAU is only 86 million, while the monthly active scale of WeChat Video Account has exceeded 800 million, Douyin is 680 million, and Kuaishou is 390 million; according to Douyu's 2022Q2 financial report data, Douyu Live achieved a total revenue of approximately 1.833 billion yuan in the first half of 2022, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 21.6%, and a net loss of approximately 38.8 million yuan. The diversion of user attention by short video platforms is evident.

In the final analysis, show live streaming has gone from wild growth to a decline in popularity. On the one hand, due to the departure of a large number of top anchors, the platform has found it difficult to maintain the output of high-quality content. A large amount of homogeneous singing and dancing content has long caused the audience to fall into aesthetic fatigue. On the other hand, live streaming with goods has become a new trend, dividing the attention of show live streaming. Show live streaming has become a thing of the past. Although show live streaming has tried to transform into live streaming with goods, its main audience is men with weak purchasing power. In addition, the tens of millions of daily active users on Huya and Douyu platforms are not as many as those on Douyin and Kuaishou.

Today, live streaming shows on platforms such as Huya, Douyu, YY, and Inke have lost their former glory, and these platforms are also facing acquisitions or mergers. It has to be admitted that the golden age of live streaming shows has passed.

03 Live show, keep warm together

The traditional live show business is not only showing signs of decline on one platform. The early pioneers of live show YY, Momo, Huajiao, and Inke have all adopted different ways to survive. At its peak, Huajiao Live merged with Liujianfang in 2019 to form Huafang Group. However, in June 2020, Huajiao Live was summoned for uploading vulgar content and was ordered to rectify its content.

Today, Huafang Group owns a total of show live streaming platforms including Huajiao Live, Naitang, and Liujianfang. In the early stage of the merger, 90% of Huafang Group's revenue came from rewards for Huajiao Live. The prospectus shows that from 2019 to 2022, the revenue of Huajiao Live platform was 1.976 billion yuan, 2.165 billion yuan, 2.826 billion yuan, and 2.23 billion yuan, accounting for 99.2%, 76.5%, 76.7%, and 75.3% of the total revenue.

In terms of business transformation, Huajiao is also actively exploring. In terms of content layout, Huajiao's anchors are involved in music, dance, talk shows, outdoor activities, games and other fields. In order to improve the professional skills of the anchors, Huafang Group also held online competitions with programs such as "The Voice of China". However, it is still difficult to stop the trend of declining monthly active users year by year. In 2018, Huajiao Live had a total of 41 million monthly active users, and only 30.62 million in 2022.

The development of YY Live is not optimistic. In November 2020, Baidu spent US$3.6 billion to acquire YY Live of Joyy Group. As a result, not long after, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Management of Online Show Live Broadcasts and E-commerce Live Broadcasts", and directed the spearhead at the industry chaos of YY Live.

The report mentioned that YY forged about 90% of the live broadcast business data through internal network virtual robots, external virtual robots and anchors giving gifts. This report directly caused the share price of Huya to plummet 26.48% on the same day, and the market value evaporated by about US$2.1 billion.

After YY was acquired by Baidu, it also made some transformation moves. In September 2022, YY and Baidu jointly held a metaverse concert on the Xirang APP. The viewing location was in the Xirang Metaverse, and customized gifts and other gameplay were launched, but the response was average. And YY's revenue has also been declining year by year. According to the financial report, YY achieved revenue of 1.917 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 48.21%, and a loss of 15.2287 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 103.05%.

Douyu and Huya have experienced ups and downs. On October 12, 2020, Douyu and Huya, who had been fighting for many years, simultaneously announced a merger. At that time, both Douyu and Huya were stuck in a development bottleneck. The "2021 Game Live Industry Insight Report" by Xiaohulu Data Research Institute shows that in terms of the number of game anchors, Huya has dropped from 3.016 million to 2.348 million, a decline of 22%, and Douyu has dropped from 1.926 million to 1.596 million, a decline of 17%.

It was thought that the merger might create a new situation, but in July 2021, the merger between Douyu and Huya was put on hold by the regulatory authorities, leaving Douyu and Huya with no choice but to fend for themselves.

Inke Live has long shifted its core business to the fields of social networking, marriage and love, and even the video account has weakened its layout for the show live broadcast business. In December 2020, the video account launched live broadcast rewards, microphone connection, beauty and other functions, intending to prepare for the show live broadcast. The show live broadcast field covers categories such as the same city, good night radio, appearance, shopping, etc. The anchor can choose to live broadcast after classification. In February 2021, the video account was revised again, adding live broadcast entrances for Yinyuehui and Sanrenxing, but removing the talent channel, which to some extent means that the show live broadcast is being weakened. Subsequently, the video account expanded the audience circle through the planning of multiple online concerts, and gradually introduced live broadcasting with goods. The development hope of the already "cold" show live broadcast became even slimmer.

04 New changes in show live broadcast

When live show broadcasting entered a new stage of development, Douyin accelerated the diversified layout of live show broadcasting, involving cloud tourism, cloud fitness, cloud disco, cloud education and other fields. This type of live show broadcasting not only drove the number of viewers, but also promoted the development of corresponding industries.

In order to support high-quality anchors, Douyin has also increased its layout of live broadcasts of performing arts shows, and has successively launched the "DOU Has Good Shows" plan, the "DOU Has National Music" plan, the "Dance Inheritance" plan, etc. According to the "2022 Douyin Performing Arts Live Broadcast Data Report", there are more than 32 million live broadcasts of performing arts such as opera, dance, and drama on Douyin, with an average of more than 3,900 viewers per show.

Kuaishou has launched customized live variety shows "Xu Zhiyuan and Friends" and "Sofa Comedy Show" and invited Jay Chou to join the live broadcast room, which has expanded the boundaries of show live broadcasts to a certain extent. In 2021, Kuaishou also released the list of Kuaishou's top 100 anchors in 2021, focusing on supporting niche traditional arts in the field of show live broadcasts, such as lion dance, Errenzhuan, and suona.

In order to cultivate high-quality anchors, Kuaishou also specially produced a reality show variety show "Sounds Like Summer Flowers". 18 anchors competed fiercely in the show, and finally 9 anchors made their debut. Relevant data shows that the main film of "Sounds Like Summer Flowers" has been played more than 1.6 billion times, and the total exposure of the whole network has exceeded 15.1 billion times. This move is enough to show that Kuaishou is feeding back to the show live broadcast ecosystem by cultivating a new generation of anchors.

Compared with traditional live streaming platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou have more daily active users, so it is easier to stir up the traffic pool by developing live streaming. In terms of content creation, Douyin and Kuaishou have tapped a large number of new anchors from the source, aiming to build a young live streaming ecosystem and integrate activities that young people are interested in, such as disco and fitness, into live streaming. In addition, Douyin and Kuaishou have also introduced traditional art into live streaming, enhancing the cultural heritage of live streaming.

In summary, a new pattern is taking shape in live show broadcasting. The live show broadcasting ecosystem of Douyin and Kuaishou is more active, the overall content is more diversified, younger, and more interesting, and the forms of expression are also becoming more novel, successfully achieving resonance with young people.

The show live broadcast model in which hosts used to sing and perform their talents in the live broadcast room is gradually being replaced by new content. It is an indisputable fact that traditional show live broadcasts are gradually declining. In order to retain fans, show live broadcasts still need to continue to explore content and commercial models. Otherwise, they will unfortunately become the tears of the times and no one will care.

References:

Daily People: "Panda TV fell, Sicong was the reason for its success and Sicong was the reason for its failure"

Entertainment Capital Theory: The Renaissance of Chinese Music in the Live Broadcast Room

Geek Park: "Live show broadcasts have become the pioneer"

Alphabet List: "Baidu acquires YY: The third live broadcast war begins"

Author: Rain and Smoke; Editor: Ji Nan

Source: TopKlout