Has live streaming become TVB’s iron rice bowl?

Recently, the "Hong Kong drama-style live broadcast" jointly created by Taobao and TVB has set off quite a stir in the e-commerce live broadcast industry, not only achieving super high sales, but also causing TVB's stock to soar. So, can live broadcasting become a stable job for TVB? Let's take a look at the author's analysis and interpretation, which is recommended for friends who are interested in e-commerce live broadcasts and TVB live broadcasts.

At 6 p.m. on March 7, the Taobao TVB live broadcast room achieved sales of 23.5 million yuan in six hours, ranking second on the Taobao live broadcast room real-time ranking, directly surpassing the popularity of Zhang Lan and Luo Yonghao's live broadcast rooms. Since then, TVB's stock price has soared, once rising by more than 98%, setting a record high.

Recently, Luo Yonghao, Zhang Lan, Nanpai Sanshu and others have successively entered Taobao Live, and TVB, which has been looking for a way out, has also tried to find a new position on Taobao.

At 6 p.m. on March 7, TVB Emperor Moses Chan and TVB's leading actress Sharon Chan took the lead in "entering Taobao" and launched TVB's first live broadcast on Taobao. The total sales of the six-hour live broadcast reached 23.5 million yuan.

In the live broadcast room, the two recreated the form of TVB's classic series "Heart of Greed" to sell goods together, starting a very innovative "Hong Kong drama-style live broadcast". During this period, the number of viewers continued to rise. 19 minutes after the broadcast, the number of online viewers exceeded 100,000, and by the end of the live broadcast at 24:00, the number reached 4.86 million. The Taobao account of "TVB Knows Goods" also gained 90,000 followers. Not only that, the capital market also gave positive feedback to this live broadcast. The next day, TVB rose 98% during the trading session, and Hong Kong film and television stocks such as Shaw Brothers and Emperor Entertainment Group also surged collectively.

After the market calmed down, TVB shares began to fall for several consecutive days starting from March 9.

TVB's high-profile live broadcast seems to be a win-win for the platform, capital and audience. However, TVB has been on the road of e-commerce for a long time. This live broadcast is just an outburst driven by the joint efforts of multiple parties. TVB's future in the e-commerce track is not optimistic.

1. Douyin and Kuaishou did not create a wave, but TVB made a high-profile entry into Taobao

TVB started to plan for the live streaming e-commerce track very early, but there has not been much improvement.

In April 2022, TVB has already settled in Douyin live streaming and opened 3 accounts for different product categories, namely TVB Knows Goods (Hong Kong Strict Selection), TVB Knows Goods (Delicious Selection) and TVB Knows Goods (Hong Kong Style Selection). The total number of fans of the three accounts has exceeded 938,000. According to Chan Mama data, the best performing of the three accounts is TVB Knows Goods (Hong Kong Style Selection), with a total of 59 live broadcasts in a month and an average sales of 100,000 to 250,000 yuan per show. The data performance of the other two accounts is weaker. The average sales of TVB Knows Goods (Hong Kong Strict Selection) is 50,000 to 75,000 yuan, and the average sales of TVB Knows Goods (Delicious Selection) is between 10,000 and 25,000 yuan.

In addition, TVB has also opened a corresponding account on Kuaishou. There are currently 11 products in TVB's Kuaishou store, including Maiduidui APP membership, TVB classic character blind boxes, glass cups and other peripheral derivatives, but the sales of these products are mediocre and there is no particularly outstanding sales performance.

Compared with the e-commerce layout of Douyin and Kuaishou, the cooperation between TVB and Taobao Live seems more courageous. Recently, Taobao Live has stepped up its efforts to support content-based live broadcasts on the site, encouraging merchants/anchors to capture more consumers by establishing differentiated personalities and professional product explanations. On March 1 this year, TVB officially announced that it had reached a cooperation with Taobao, and the two parties will jointly launch at least 48 e-commerce live broadcasts within the year.

TVB's decision to cooperate with Taobao Live to jointly develop in-depth e-commerce track has more in-depth considerations.

First, the e-commerce industry has entered the stage of interest-based e-commerce from search e-commerce. Compared with Douyin and Kuaishou platforms, the content attributes of Taobao Live are not outstanding. It urgently needs high-quality content to supplement the platform's diverse live broadcast ecology. Previously, Taobao Live supplemented the on-site anchor ecology by dividing the anchor groups, such as college students, flight attendants, and presidents. TVB has many well-known veteran actors who have their own traffic to divert traffic to the platform. With the fans' feelings for Hong Kong-style content and Hong Kong-style, it can indeed become a unique existence on the Taobao Live platform, which meets the platform's demand for content development.

Second, for TVB, the most important thing in entering the e-commerce market is to turn its influence, popularity and public sentiment into real transaction volume and sales. Taobao Live itself has a strong e-commerce foundation, which can provide support for it at the "goods" and "venue" levels. In addition, Taobao Live has recently introduced favorable policies to support anchors, such as the New Star Program, the New Pilot Program and the New Talent Program. The platform also emphasized in the recent overseas purchase recruitment conference that it would provide anchors with services such as traffic guarantee, which also means that TVB will receive stable traffic support when it broadcasts on the Taobao Live platform, and the transaction volume and sales of the live broadcast room can also be guaranteed to a certain extent.

2. The live broadcast room was innovative, but the product selection lost the public’s support

With the strong support of the platform, TVB’s first live broadcast naturally triggered a surge in traffic.

This "Hong Kong drama-style live broadcast" is very eye-catching. In addition to explaining the products in pure Cantonese, the two anchors also restored famous scenes and scenes from classic Hong Kong dramas during the live broadcast. Through the "Cantonese + classic Hong Kong drama + TVB actors" model, the live broadcast room was drained and the popularity of the live broadcast room was converted into purchasing power. The total sales of the six-hour live broadcast reached 23.5 million yuan. That night, Chen Hao took the "seafood shop opening and customer rewards" as an opportunity to sell "Heart of Greed" abalone, and said "the better ones are not available" and "check the next one with me" and other classic lines from "Heart of Greed", which triggered a large number of memories. The live broadcast room had a maximum number of online users of over 30,000. Fans expressed their willingness to pay for this "feeling" with their actions. Topics such as #Chen Hao live broadcast selling abalone dreaming of Heart of Greed# once rushed to the hot search of major social platforms.

However, this live broadcast also has shortcomings and imbalances. Although the live broadcast method is innovative, the product selection does not highlight the personality of the live broadcast room. According to relevant statistics, in the live broadcast on the evening of March 7, the two anchors Chen Hao and Chen Minzhi launched a total of 131 products, covering multiple categories such as snacks, cosmetics, luxury clothing, 3C electronics, and travel packages. The 9.9 yuan flash sale of small bread, cola, and AD calcium milk, and the 4,899 yuan iPhone14 mobile phone were basically sold out in seconds, and the live broadcast room was very popular. However, selling well does not mean that the product selection strategy is also successful.

Because from the preheating to the start of the broadcast, TVB's first live broadcast has been focusing on "emotional" marketing, and the "emotions" brought by the two Hong Kong stars have formed a strong attraction. However, the selection of products in the live broadcast room is similar to that of other live broadcast rooms. In the case of a particularly prominent style of the live broadcast room, the selection of products is slightly inferior and does not highlight any "Hong Kong" characteristics. It has neither made good use of the fans' psychology of "paying for emotions" nor highlighted the personalized label of the live broadcast room's product selection.

Now, live broadcast e-commerce has gradually evolved from the past hawking-style discount promotions to a new content field driven by content and experience. The audience of the live broadcast room not only needs discounts and benefits, but also needs to meet their needs for new content and social communication. In this regard, "Hong Kong drama-style live broadcast" is indeed new to consumers, but "feelings" are not the secret to long-term success . What really supports the long-term operation of the live broadcast room is the joint effect of product strength and content strength. If TVB wants to deepen its e-commerce track in the long term, how to select products that fit its live broadcast room style is an unavoidable problem.

3. Can e-commerce really become TVB’s iron rice bowl?

Now, live streaming has become an e-commerce infrastructure, and phenomenal anchors are accelerating their iteration. Will live streaming e-commerce become a turning point in TVB's destiny like the Eastern Selection, or will it become a flash in the pan?

According to TVB’s financial report data, from 2018 to 2021, TVB’s parent company has suffered losses for four consecutive years, with cumulative losses exceeding HK$1.4 billion.

The stock price also reveals that the market is not optimistic about it. Since 2017, TVB's stock price has fallen from more than 30 Hong Kong dollars to 3.8 Hong Kong dollars at the beginning of 2023. The market value has plummeted. Now compared with the peak period of 37 billion Hong Kong dollars, it has fallen by more than 90%. There are many factors such as the epidemic, but TVB's own organizational structure and corporate operating model have also shown fatigue and shortcomings.

In the past decade, TVB's revenue growth has almost stagnated . Now the market structure is adjusting at an accelerated pace. Only by actively responding to changes can it keep up with the times and achieve a turnaround. Li Ruigang once publicly talked about the lack of foresight in TVB's investment, which led to many problems and made it difficult to cope with market adjustments and changes.

Relatively speaking, the monetization channels for content such as movies, TV shows and variety shows are very limited. It is not cost-effective for TVB to release value solely by relying on copyrights, broadcasting rights, etc., but live streaming e-commerce can bring together the influence and popularity accumulated over the years and realize the conversion of various commodities into real transaction volume and sales, which is down-to-earth.

E-commerce has also become a life-saving straw that TVB is holding on to.

In 2018, TVB launched the online shopping platform BigBig Shop, which provides online shopping and life entertainment services. The platform is committed to promoting products for different types of merchants. At the end of August 2021, TVB spent HK$200 million to acquire the Hong Kong local e-commerce company Zto. Subsequently, TVB saw the potential of e-commerce business and began to focus on the live broadcast e-commerce market in the mainland.

TVB's financial report finally had something to shine in 2022. In the 2022 semi-annual report, the word "e-commerce" was mentioned many times, because TVB's e-commerce revenue growth was particularly impressive. E-commerce increased from 17 million yuan in the previous year to 461 million yuan, an increase of more than 25 times, accounting for 25% of the total revenue, which was mainly due to the revenue brought by TVB's acquisition of Hong Kong's local e-commerce company Zto Group.

TVB's latest announcement shows that its live e-commerce activities in mainland China are still in the early stages, and its future contribution to the group is yet to be determined. But at the same time, the announcement also mentioned that TVB's demand for its artists to host and hold e-commerce live broadcasts will continue to increase in the future, which also means that TVB will continue to develop the live e-commerce track for some time.

E-commerce business has gradually become an important source of revenue for TVB, which is inseparable from TVB's promotion of e-commerce platforms on TV channels during the epidemic: selling products through program placement and content integration, thereby expanding the group's revenue sources.

However, it is difficult to judge whether e-commerce business can become the key to TVB's transformation.

First, TVB lacks product advantages. Although some media reported that TVB is actively investing in supply chain and other businesses to deepen its layout of live e-commerce, from the first live broadcast, TVB's product selection has obvious shortcomings and has not yet formed the characteristics of the live broadcast room. Moreover, relying solely on Cantonese and old actors to attract attention with "feelings", the audience's enthusiasm can easily be exhausted. The long-term appeal of the live broadcast room cannot be sustained by "Hong Kong style feelings" alone.

Secondly, TVB's cooperation with Taobao Live also has many limitations. The dissemination effect of Taobao Live is not as wide as that of short video content social platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. TVB has obvious deficiencies in the secondary dissemination of content. Although Taobao will provide some traffic for new anchors to join Taobao, Taobao does not have more "live water" to guide anchors to live broadcast.

In addition, Li Ruigang also said in the interview that TVB itself also has outstanding problems in organizational structure and human resource management, such as aging creative thinking and aging operating mechanisms. TVB has serious aging problems, which leads to insufficient innovation of the group. In the internal management of the group, many contradictions have accumulated over the years between the many structures, and it is difficult for the team to form a joint force, resulting in insufficient driving force and execution of the team. Although e-commerce is a new field for TVB, if the "old disease is not cured", major decision-making mistakes may be repeated, and the group's operating risks still exist, which limits the long-term development of TVB.

IV. Conclusion

TVB's transformation into the e-commerce track cannot be completed completely by just one live broadcast. The live broadcast model that relies on artists to sell goods by showing their faces cannot last for too long. It needs more innovative live broadcast content to bring sustained and considerable profits. Now, it is still facing many problems such as unclear product differentiation and difficulty in maintaining the style of the live broadcast room. Live e-commerce can save TVB for a while, but for now, it is difficult for e-commerce to become TVB's "iron rice bowl".

Author: Zhang Lin; Editor: Shi Guang; Editor: Bandao

Source: Cultural Industry Review (ID: whcypl)