When the OTT robbed the television channel of the television industry to build the channel where to go

In recent years, although TV industry has spared no effort in content investment and planning, even the vast majority of its energy and resources have gathered content, but after entering 2014, an increasingly clear market situation is that the television industry is more pressing. The problem is not simply a matter of content. The reason is that television has undergone two phases of development in the construction of content, and it has basically clarified what to do in the future.

The first phase mainly occurred in 2013. Due to the intensified competition within the industry and the emerging new media pressure, in order to expand revenues, Zhejiang and Hunan as the representative platforms have found content methodologies that fully exploit traditional advertising effectiveness. That is, content based on conventional viewing is fragmented.

Although this kind of revenue efficiency is based on the extensive mode of focusing on packaged sales, after social marketing and word-of-mouth communication, the attentional flow pool formed by individual content is very impressive, which has contributed to the explosive growth of the television industry.

This phenomenon is mainly reflected in the rapid growth of the first-line platform in 2013 and 2014. Even with the video joining the competition, it has gradually established a new content market centered on television. In the words of Li Wengang, who is at the helm of Shanghai Wenguang, high-quality content has begun to be shaped as a traffic portal.

The second phase occurred in 2014. Thanks to the successful effects of Hunan Satellite TV and Zhejiang Satellite TV, the methodology of traditional advertising effectiveness was promoted in the television industry. Brought two results:

1. The distance between the TV stations behind and the distance between them is getting more and more difficult

Like a war, in the case of similar strategies and tactics, to win a battle, it often becomes a competition between basic strength and basic strength, and the advantaged platform has an unrivalled first-mover advantage.

2. Based on this methodology, the value scale of traditional advertisements for high quality content is very clear

Since the high growth rate of this wave of TV is based on the old soil (traditional ratings), although high-quality large-scale movies have obtained considerable traffic, it is already clear where the efficiency ceiling is. Therefore, with the sophisticated use of the methodology in the entire television industry, coupled with intensive cultivation and full exploitation in 2014, the high growth potential of traditional advertising effectiveness has already bottomed out in 2014.

At the same time, the rise of independent content producers and the gradual formation of open content markets have also slowed down the advantages of content platforms in comparison to second-tier Taiwanese and commercial videos. As content production has begun to become market-oriented and mature, It is full of risk that TV stations will continue to regard it as the only core strength.

Under such circumstances, in order to maintain high growth and quickly escape the potential crisis brought about by the new media environment and new media, TV must give full play to its current advantages in terms of content and use this time difference to start building an extension chain of content value. It is the current hot IP industry that has become an industry consensus to establish sustainable first-mover advantage.

The television industry is involved in mobile games and e-commerce, creating hardware and making movies. Therefore, deep-growing the surrounding industries is an important way for content planning to continue.

Therefore, after going through these two stages of development, at least in the field of television, their future construction of content is not as confused as that of other media. Instead, it is very clear. Therefore, although the TV industry has spared no effort in content investment and strategic planning, and even most of the energy and resources have been gathered into the content, the more urgent issues in the television industry at this stage are no longer simply content issues.

Outside the content, the construction of the channel is a problem

If the current problems in the media industry are categorized as content and channel disputes (Li Ruigang), then for the television industry, beyond the content, it is really time to start planning channels.

The television industry has several stages of understanding channels:

√ In the first phase, four to five years ago, Dragon TV took shares in the network with a defensive mentality. In the words of Dragon TV, it was not particularly clear at the outset, but the loss of television advertisements to the Internet is a general trend. In order to retain the lost value, the behavior of holding a share of the Internet became popular. Strictly speaking, Dragon TV's move is a defensive tactic and has little to do with strategic planning.

√ In the second stage, in the last two years, under the background of close cooperation between TV industry and commercial video, Dragon TV has increased its popularity in the Internet, even to the last full acquisition. The television industry has gradually realized the importance of channels in the transition of the television industry, especially how to cultivate its own network broadcasting channels. At this time, the television industry slowly showed some kind of initiative. Although it was still a very small number of television stations, it was at least a sign.

√ In the third phase, in 2014, during the integration of BesTV and Oriental Pearl, Li Ruigang proposed to focus on exploring the strategic direction of OTT and smartTV, including Hunan TV’s strategically designed mango TV video platform.

However, Hunan Satellite TV believes that Mango TV will be the next channel of Hunan Satellite TV in the future, and Li Ruigang’s mouth will be equally important. Although there are still certain differences in the understanding of channels, at this stage, at least in the television industry, The first-line advantage platform basically clarified what role the network broadcasting channel should play in TV transition. This is fundamentally different from the previous content-only theory.

However, even so, the television industry's perception and understanding of channels, including how to plan and use the channels, has so far no consensus strategy for the entire industry. Although Hunan Satellite TV has formed its own channel value concept by focusing on the video, Hunan's understanding and use of the channel still harbors certain doubts, and this scheme does not have universal applicability.

At Perstorp's merger with the Oriental Pearl, an investor exchange meeting, Li Ruigang also referred to channel construction as a strategic height. He also believed that the channel and content should not be neglected and should go hand in hand.

Therefore, when the market played a bloody leap-like posture and carried out excessive investment and over-planning in terms of content, it undoubtedly gave the whole industry a wake-up call, and this understanding is undoubtedly very clear-headed.

However, according to the disclosed information, even if Li Ruigang did not propose a better plan for the specific use and planning of the channel, he only used the “emphasis on OTT and SmartTV” in a general way.

Obviously, there is no clear path for what kind of guidelines the channel should follow. However, there is no doubt that after the path of content is established, the planning and use of channels is becoming a problem for the television industry. Therefore, the future construction of channels is basically described using “exploration”.

Media integration, not simply building various media channels

A fact that is easily overlooked: The media industry in the traditional media period has a very typical feature. That is, the so-called "media" in the commercial market is basically equivalent to the "media." The media also tends to monopolize information channels by building "media." Traditional media such as television, newspapers, and radio in the usual sense are based on this logic. External ports are difficult to intervene and users are almost included in a few channels.

Therefore, the number of "media" channels at that time was also basically equal to the number of "media". The media also used this complete monopoly of the "media" to constitute a very stable channel advertising model. However, this situation is hardly established by the current new media environment.

On the one hand, the lowering of the threshold resulted in a drastic reduction of “institutional media”. On the other hand, the technology “connects everything”, leading to the proliferation of media channels, making the number of information channels in the commercial market much larger than the number of media, breaking the “media” in the traditional media era. This is the one-sided, two-faced community relationship of the "media."

Simple "concern", "send", "recommend", "search" and other functions have broken down the number of traditional media once required a lot of funds and manpower input, and through the strict organization of division of labor and agency operations, can constitute a media channel. As a result of this phenomenon, the “media” coverage of users’ attention has been drastically reduced, and the “media=media” market methodology of the traditional media era has basically lost ground in the commercial market.

In order to remedy this loss, the media industry reversed the idea of ​​"integration of the media" by building more media channels with more numbers and attributes to reach out to users more extensively and try to re-aggregate the user traffic pool in the front-end of the media to return attention. economic. This is also the core of the media industry's all-media strategy.

However, the so-called all-media strategy of the media industry at this stage has not achieved results. The so-called “integration” is more about establishing microblog accounts, WeChat accounts, APPs, websites, and video channels. It is believed that there are various media channels and that is All media.

Undoubtedly, this is only a more extensive channel covering various attributes. It is more of a form that is more than substantial in nature. The institutional media have created a large number of channels that are hard to set up. They are also scattered, chaotic, and separate. Imagine which newspapers and TV stations do not have dozens or even hundreds of APP, Weibo, Wechat accounts, etc. under the newspapers. But will they bring revenue and survive independently?

We take Beijing TV Station as an example, and the new media accounts of various programs belong to a variety of individual APP applications, including only 112 microblog accounts and 150 WeChat accounts, including independently constructed IPTV, program official websites, and television stations. BTV media, etc., can be described as extremely impressive.

However, the use of these fragmented channels may not only be a problem for Beijing TV stations, but also a problem for the entire media industry. Therefore, Jiang Hu, the director of the New Media Development Center of Beijing TV Station, did not unreasonably assign the traditional media to the problem of how to implement new media.

Although Jiang Hu did not explicitly put forward the so-called “media integration”, he gave a very good commentary on the “media integration” of the current media industry. That is, “integration” is not to build as many channels as possible. Instead of covering users in different channels, it is a medium to use various attributes. How to integrate and reasonably construct channel matrix is ​​one of the important topics for the media industry to regain the threshold. Of course, what is more crucial is how to integrate and use it?

Based on the idea of ​​"Central Kitchen", integrate channels

In April 2014, the Mango TV video platform launched by Hunan Satellite TV undoubtedly had a milestone significance. It broke the unilateral penetration of commercial video into the television industry. The television industry for the first time in turn involved in the hinterland of commercial video.

Therefore, if we consider Hunan Satellite TV's launch of Mango TV as the symbol of television transition in 2014, then there are still pieces that can be compared with the event, and even to some extent more open-minded is that proposed by Beijing TV at the end of 2014. The "big media" new media operating platform, and the implementation of the platform's operating strategy and guidelines for channel construction, may have some reference significance.

Beijing TV Station has established many new media channels according to different columns or operational purposes. However, the number of users gathered from a single common channel is very limited at first. If you do not design a special business plan, the commercialization method is very simple (usually a simple advertising display, or access to the Internet advertising alliance), can not effectively realize the flow, the value of the user's value mining is no doubt very shallow.

To take a step back, even if it were to carry out a separate business design, the high-cost commercial design would appear to outweigh the benefits. Limited to the size of the user, revenue cannot offset the cost, then can the users scattered on each port be aggregated into one large traffic pool. Then proceed to a unified commercialization.

Theoretically, it is feasible, but the problem is that due to the establishment of new channels such as various app WeChat microblog accounts, it is not for the purpose of harmonization. The attributes of users in each channel are not the same, that is, a food section attracts How can a user and a user of an outdoor section form a commercialization using the same commercial design? Even if it is possible, this conversion efficiency is very suspicious.

So there is not a central link, which can not only play the effect of the total flow pool, but also adjust the user attributes to match the unified commercial design. This will have to mention the establishment of the “Beijing TV New Media Cloud Platform” that will serve this entire system with the support of EMC, Tianyun Software and other partners in February 2014, thus forming a cloud computing model as the core The system of making, editing and broadcasting all media platforms.

In Jiang Hu’s words, the realization of new media is essentially a process of “dividing” to “combining,” but the realization of “conformity” requires a core technology platform. The “cloud platform” of Beijing TV is this kind of “ Together laid the foundation. "As long as there is such a foundation, it will be easy to play with any product or platform. TV, website, IPTV, Beijing website, broadcast television station, BTV media client, microblog, and WeChat matrix. The premise for launching these is "cloud platform." Based on this foundation, there is no matrix on this basis, and there is no way for the channels in each column."

Meaning cloud platform is open to all new media channels for effective integration of internal resources, not only to carry out the precipitation of the user in these new media distribution channels, diversion, traffic will be unified to the platform above, but also to use These channels maximize the advantages of traditional media, especially how to deliver the right content to the right terminal, and the processing and processing of content are all realized on the core platform and delivered to the various ports that are in need.

The essence is that this process of collating and collocating is also a process of realigning the attributes of the traffic in order to match the commercial liquidation plan of the back-end of Beijing TV Station so as to achieve the greatest degree of conversion. Therefore, for Beijing TV stations, all new media channels are equal, and all are centered on and docked at the most central core technology platform, thus forming a new media matrix for Beijing TV.

This point is different from Hunan Satellite TV's sudden progress. It will make Mango TV the most central point, and all resources will be concentrated on Mango TV. After all, it is still the channel to build this old road, and there is no play with commercial video. Too much difference. In contrast to Beijing TV, all resources are concentrated on the core platform. According to the attributes of externally docked paths, resources are matched and adjusted through the core platform.

Therefore, in essence, in the future transformation of Beijing TV station, there is no external channel that is unique, and there is no difference between traditional television channels and new media channels. His integration of old and new channels is actually for the overall platform. All are centered on the cloud platform at the center. This "central kitchen" idea is not only unique in the television industry, it is even new in the entire media industry.

In a sense, this understanding of the channel and the concept of value is in line with the development of media industry integration. It is at least a lot more rewarding than building several APP Weibo WeChat accounts.

Conclusion

The content is fundamental to the television industry. That's right, even if it's all in the media industry. However, in the face of flooding channels, even if the content has an entry point advantage, it will bring about a situation where the user can see the content does not mean that the content can also see the user. That is, for all users chasing the content, the content does not necessarily catch these users. Those who chase content will not all jump into the pocket you provided. The idea of ​​the central kitchen is to provide users with a small number of pockets in N, which is equivalent to a wide net, so that users who are more likely to be scattered and messy are loaded into pockets and then put on small ones. The user in the pocket is transported to the large pocket in the center, creating the user's scale effect.

This is not only a technical job, but also represents the farming of users in the television industry. It has begun to have a practical shift in values. It means that if you are too young, I will not eat it. Although it is small and very small, but with the accumulation of small pockets, it is also a matter of accumulating a large number of specially designed commercial filters to achieve full user satisfaction. Realize.