Since June 2014, the General Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued a notice to the Internet TV licensee to issue a channel for the closure of illegal video software downloads in Internet TV terminal products. The related policy restrictions have been more stringent in the past two years. The content of the video website must have an integrated broadcast. The license control unit landed. Up to now, SARFT has issued seven Internet TV integration service licenses, which are obtained by CCTV International CNTV, Hangzhou Hwas, and Shanghai Wenguang BesTV.
Now, if you want to circumvent system restrictions or have a way, such as connecting the box to a USB computer, these live applications can still be installed. But it is foreseeable that in the future you want to watch those paid content for free, it will only get harder and harder.
This curiosity lab focuses on the content provided by various internet boxes. We want to make it clear that if the Internet box policy continues to tighten, what impact will it have on the video website business, and how much can a user see if they want to watch TV using a box?
We chose seven boxes and a TV
The content on the TV box is not enough to see, mainly to see the video website to launch the TV box. Hardware vendors such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Micro-Whale, depending on the amount of content they provide on the box, still have to look at how the specific vendors and content providers cooperate.
In terms of the content of the evaluation, we focus on three types of content: movies, TV shows, and variety shows.
The overseas movie reference content is the top 20 global box office rankings in 2014 and 2015 each year.
Local movies are the top 20 movies in China every year in 2014 and 2015.
TV dramas and variety shows have a greater relationship with timeliness, so we selected Top 50 dramas and Top 50 variety shows according to Baidu’s search rankings.
Since the Top 50 contains almost no repertoire of American dramas and Korean dramas, we added the Top 10 Korean dramas and the Top 10 American dramas to the search list.
Add up to a total of 200 movies/TV series/variety shows. The experimental method is to search these 200 boxes in these boxes to see if they can be watched on each box and if they need to pay extra.
The curiosity lab purchased several top-ranked TV boxes according to sales on Jingdong, plus the Lynx box purchased from Tmall.
The newly-created Internet TV brand, the micro-whale, has only TVs and does not release individual boxes like LeTV, so its tests are conducted directly on television.
These devices are:
Millet box three generations, 318 yuan;
Huawei Glory Box, 298 yuan, mainly with GICV and Mango TV;
Haimeidi Mango Q, 299 yuan, mainly with Mango TV;
Skyworth Q+, 199 yuan, mainly with Tencent;
Skyworth iQiyi box, 299 yuan;
LeTV TV New 1S, $499;
The second generation of Lynx Box, 299 yuan, built-in Youku potatoes, Tmall cinema;
The micro-whale TV 43 yuan, 2088 yuan, mainly cooperation with Tencent, Sohu, and some of its own copyright content.
The following is a specific experiment report:
Overseas movies are not so full, even if you spend money
The part of the TV box that requires extra payment is mainly the movie. But you don't want to buy a box to see the world's most popular movies.
We found Top 20 at the box office every year for 2014 and 2015. Even if you buy a member at most, you can only see half of 2014 and 2015 two years.
Judging from the free content, Tencent ranks first. Most of the contents of the micro-whales are in cooperation with Tencent, so free content is consistent with Tencent.
In addition to glorifying movies that have absolutely no extra charge, if you want to watch more Hollywood movies on several other boxes, you still have to buy extra members. When paying for membership, Tencent (Skyworth Q+) and iQiyi (also Skyworth Production) cover the most.
If you do not care about the cost, Xiaomi TV box sees the most content, but the premise is to buy three types of members provided by Xiaomi (to add up to 75 yuan per month), and then save the money for the new film alone - many still buy members on other platforms. Can easily see, such as speed and passion 7, Xiao Huang Ren big movie. In short, it is not worth it.
Chinese popular movie, can see half of it without spending money
China’s box office charts have some overlap with the global box office. But from the box's point of view, there is more free content to watch.
The best performance here is micro whale. Half of the movies are free to watch. You can watch more than 3/4 of your monthly pay.
Followed by Huawei glory, Tencent, Xiaomi and iQiyi, but glory did not pay to see the part, Iqiyi, Tencent and millet are more similar.
Many variety shows can only be seen on the mango
Variety shows are the best category covered by various boxes and are basically free to watch. Even LeTV, which has relatively minimal content, covers nearly 60% of the searches on the Top 50 list.
Mango TV is not the most in number, but in recent years, more attention to variety shows are mostly produced by Hunan Satellite TV, Mango TV is also the exclusive network broadcast platform for many new programs.
For example, if you want to see the latest, I'm a singer in the fourth quarter, you can only see it on Mango TV.
The only exception is the millet box, which has a built-in Mango TV program, but you have to spend 30 yuan/month to buy a member to see it.
TV shows are also the main content of free content
Since Baidu’s rankings only provide the top 50, and the new eleventh eleven and eleven elders on the list point to the latest versions broadcast on TV stations and video sites, we actually only counted Chinese TV dramas. The top 49 in search of popularity.
The repertoire of Baidu's search for TV dramas in the top 50 is dominated by domestic TV dramas. If you don't count the paid portion, the content of the micro-whales is the largest, followed by Xiaomi and Iqiyi.
Korean drama can not be expected basically
Most of the top ten Korean dramas are not the latest episodes. For example, the descendants of the hit sun that was exclusively introduced by iQiyi did not enter the list.
Even so, the coverage of the boxes is not high, and the iQIYI and the whale, which are relatively good, cover only 30% of the top ten.
The new point of American drama is basically Tencent, LeTV and Microwhale.
The copyright of the US drama is concentrated on the LeTV and Tencent boxes. For example, Tencent purchased the copyright of the top ten American dramas in the top 10 search, and LeTV also purchased five mini whale TVs in cooperation with Tencent and Sohu videos. The copyright content of the home also covers 60%. In addition, these popular TV shows cannot be watched in the TV boxes of Xiaomi, iQiyi, Huawei Glory Box, and Mango TV.
In the statistics, if a drama has only an older episode and does not have the latest quarter, we will press "No".
The restrictions imposed on the US drama in the past two years have been increasing. Many of the latest hit dramas such as daring and Jessica Jones have never been introduced.
The era of buying a box to watch casually has passed
In general, the TV box is not the kind of positioning that first appeared in the market: When you buy a box, you can almost see all the movies and TV programs for free. The cable channels can also be watched through the box.
But today, there are not too many charging models for TV boxes and video websites on the market. Some of the contents can be viewed for free, and if you want to see the latest and hottest movies and TV, you still have to buy extra membership services.
So the result of the experiment is that each video platform has a part of special resources, but no TV box can satisfy all the classification requirements at the same time.
If the demand for imported movies and American dramas is relatively large, Tencent's TV box Q+ and Skywine TV are more suitable. Of course, if you do not buy members, you can only look at classic movies and older American dramas. Tencent members, the buy still have to buy.
Although LeTV and iQiyi are not sufficiently competitive in terms of quantity, they have invested heavily in single-play repertoires and home-made plays. In some solo dramas, you have to look at a specific box. For example, when the Shushan War period, the descendants of the Sun must be seen on the iQIYI box, and the Prince will be promoted to the position of the month, the month, and the rumor, you will have to Open LeTV.
If you only want to watch domestic variety shows and domestic TV dramas, Glory Box is the most suitable choice. There is no more content. The Mango TV box may be more suitable for Hunan Satellite TV fans.
Xiaomi is rather special. Three types of members cover the most, but the combined price of 75 yuan/month is basically 2-3 times that of competitors.
In addition to the content, there are some worth mentioning
Millet box three generations
Xiaomi is the most complex payment system in all evaluation boxes. They are a 30 yuan/month Mango TV member, a 30 yuan/month lychee member, and a 15 yuan/month CNTV merit Hollywood member. In addition, even if you buy the most expensive millet TV, don't give away members. From the experimental results, China's earliest box-making millet is also the most affected by the policy.
But the millet box also has merit, its software is fluent, and its appearance and workmanship are almost always the best.
The downside is that although the millet box supports the use of a mobile phone as a remote control, it can only simulate the arrow keys of the remote control, and cannot use the keyboard of the mobile phone to enter text to search.
Sea Medi Mango Q
This is a box that was jointly launched by Mango TV and Shenzhen Haimedi. Mango TV members cost 15 yuan per month, and some movies require additional pay-per-view orders.
If you are a fan of Hunan Satellite TV's self-made variety shows, buying it is enough. But in this box you can't see the American drama and Korean drama basically, and it is more convenient to bind the WeChat public number as a remote control.
Letv TV New 1S
With the box presented six months of LeTV super video members, a monthly renewals 42 yuan, presented PC, tablet and mobile phone end members.
After the LeTV box is opened, it is most like a TV. You first see the default carousel program instead of the usual operation page in the box.
Similar to the millet box, you can see the manufacturers' product placement in various places. The two companies that want to build "ecology" are quite similar in this respect.
In addition, we did not find the voice search button on the remote control, but the system prompt could be turned on. However, you can use the multi-screen interactive feature to directly push the video from the LeEco client on the phone to the TV for playback.
Skyworth Loves Fantastic Art Box
The price of the box is not cheap, and the membership is not too cheap. It costs 29.9 yuan a month.
After opening the Galaxy Film and Television member, the same account can also be used to watch VIP content on iQIYI mobile phones, computers and tablet clients, but it is still much more expensive than purchasing iQIYI VIP members.
Little Whale TV 43 å‹
A one-year membership service is provided with the TV. If the subscription is due, it will be 199 yuan/year. From our observations, the content of the micro whale is mainly from Tencent, and some of it comes from Sohu video. Voice search function is quite easy to use, it should be a built-in video content related corpus.
In the eight products we tested, the microwhale was the most demanding of the network. If the speed is slow, it may not open anything.
Skyworth Q+ Box
A 90-day penguin theater VIP card is provided with the box. The monthly renewal price is RMB 25/month. The software is not very smooth and easy to get stuck.
Tencent is also the source of content, Skyworth's Q+ box content library does not even have access to Tencent content. Some movie blockbusters need to be opened for penguin theater members to watch, but the two members are not interoperable. There are some movies that Hollywood members can watch on the client and they cannot be played on Q+ boxes.
Lynx Box II
Five-day Tmall Cinema members are provided with the box. The monthly purchase price is 39 yuan, and the annual fee is 365 yuan a year.
Tmall's problem is that although the second generation has been implemented, the system has also changed several rounds, but it is obviously not a perfect product. For example, some of the videos from Youku, you can't find it in the search interface, you can only look into the list.
In addition it can be used as a remote control despite its ability to bind WeChat. But on the phone, like Xiao Mi, you can't search using text input.
Huawei glory box
This is the only box in the test that does not expect you to spend money to buy members. Without any paid content, if you only watch domestic TV series and variety shows, Huawei's box is basically nothing to be punished. However, if you usually need more foreign movies and TV, don't buy it.
It's not easy for video sites to enter the living room
Internet TV and TV boxes are no longer hardware businesses. It is the content that determines the TV experience. It is most important that you open the box to find the program you want to watch.
In the Chinese company, the earliest box was made, and the millet with the largest amount of possession and the most complete product details was thrown away by LeTV and the Little Whale.
But under the influence of new policies and commercial competition, what you want to see in a box is basically impossible.
Judging from the experimental results, companies that cover a lot of content either have Tencent, micro-whales, or iqiyi to buy a lot of copyrighted content, or invest a lot of money to make homemade content, such as mango TVs that are backed by Hunan Satellite TV and make red. The wonderful love of Fantastic Art and the promotion of the Prince's promotion have attracted many paying members.
However, the purchase of copyright is a matter of burning money. In the past two years, video sites have been able to say that they have spent huge sums of money on purchasing program rights.
For instance, the descendants of the sun that was introduced to the Korean drama series by iQiyi recently reached a single set price of US$ 230,000. The company spent more than 200 million yuan on copyright for variety shows as early as 2014.
The most wealthy Tencent is also the most abundant library. In terms of TV dramas, Tencent’s video has won the rights to play on dozens of TV dramas such as Zhu Xian, Huan Cheng, and Haoyue Chuan. By 2016, Tencent’s movie library has exceeded 7,000. We can also see this from our experimental results: Tencent itself can provide the most content, whether it is a movie or a US drama.
The demand for content on video sites will only make the purchase of copyright more and more important. For popular episodes, each platform wants to obtain the right to broadcast, and the film side naturally will raise its prices accordingly.
At this time, China’s video site was broadcast for free in the early years, and the income model of advertising has not been able to keep up.
According to the latest quarterly earnings report of Iqiyi’s parent Baidu, iQiyi incurred a loss of RMB 3.65 billion throughout 2015.
We know that Baidu behind IQI is still the largest Chinese Internet advertising platform in China and Baidu's user data collected over the years has long been connected with Iqiyi. This is an advantage that no other video site can match.
Today, video sites have turned to the Netflix model: push exclusive original content, prompting users to be left behind as exclusive members. The recently-launched house of cards is a good example.
This principle is equally clear in domestic video websites. Tomb Raider Notes is an off-the-shelf example of the growth in the membership of iQiyi and the promotion of Prince Siddhartha to LeTV.
But to be a paid business in China is not as easy as the United States.
On the one hand, U.S. users have been accustomed to binding credit cards and paid services as early as when they ordered magazines and newspapers. They are automatically deducted each month.
This kind of automatic payment habit has never been accepted by the market in China. The challenge of video websites has been to convince users not to leave and become per month to persuade users to spend one time, and the difficulty has suddenly increased.
On the other hand, Netflix is ​​priced at US$9.99 per month, which is less than one-tenth of the package price of the Broadband+TV TV subscription. Users do not need to think of a supplement.
The price of China's cable TV is generally only more than 10 yuan, much lower than the membership fee for any video site. Under such stimulation, it is not surprising to see various video sharing website accounts.
In addition, membership fees were originally in conflict with advertising, and those who were most willing to pay for the experience were stripped out.
LeTV and Microwhale attempted to solve the problem with hardware tying members. Users could receive a one-year membership service when they purchased television. They hoped that users would continue to pay for the content after they had developed the habit of viewing paid content.
But whether it's a video site or a TV sale, to persuade users to renew their subscriptions one month after the other, these companies must be able to provide enough good content.
It's not easy to make good content, whether it's for oneself or for a big price. There will not be too much of a company that can persist until the end.
Now, if you want to circumvent system restrictions or have a way, such as connecting the box to a USB computer, these live applications can still be installed. But it is foreseeable that in the future you want to watch those paid content for free, it will only get harder and harder.
This curiosity lab focuses on the content provided by various internet boxes. We want to make it clear that if the Internet box policy continues to tighten, what impact will it have on the video website business, and how much can a user see if they want to watch TV using a box?
We chose seven boxes and a TV
The content on the TV box is not enough to see, mainly to see the video website to launch the TV box. Hardware vendors such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Micro-Whale, depending on the amount of content they provide on the box, still have to look at how the specific vendors and content providers cooperate.
In terms of the content of the evaluation, we focus on three types of content: movies, TV shows, and variety shows.
The overseas movie reference content is the top 20 global box office rankings in 2014 and 2015 each year.
Local movies are the top 20 movies in China every year in 2014 and 2015.
TV dramas and variety shows have a greater relationship with timeliness, so we selected Top 50 dramas and Top 50 variety shows according to Baidu’s search rankings.
Since the Top 50 contains almost no repertoire of American dramas and Korean dramas, we added the Top 10 Korean dramas and the Top 10 American dramas to the search list.
Add up to a total of 200 movies/TV series/variety shows. The experimental method is to search these 200 boxes in these boxes to see if they can be watched on each box and if they need to pay extra.
The curiosity lab purchased several top-ranked TV boxes according to sales on Jingdong, plus the Lynx box purchased from Tmall.
The newly-created Internet TV brand, the micro-whale, has only TVs and does not release individual boxes like LeTV, so its tests are conducted directly on television.
These devices are:
Millet box three generations, 318 yuan;
Huawei Glory Box, 298 yuan, mainly with GICV and Mango TV;
Haimeidi Mango Q, 299 yuan, mainly with Mango TV;
Skyworth Q+, 199 yuan, mainly with Tencent;
Skyworth iQiyi box, 299 yuan;
LeTV TV New 1S, $499;
The second generation of Lynx Box, 299 yuan, built-in Youku potatoes, Tmall cinema;
The micro-whale TV 43 yuan, 2088 yuan, mainly cooperation with Tencent, Sohu, and some of its own copyright content.
The following is a specific experiment report:
Overseas movies are not so full, even if you spend money
The part of the TV box that requires extra payment is mainly the movie. But you don't want to buy a box to see the world's most popular movies.
We found Top 20 at the box office every year for 2014 and 2015. Even if you buy a member at most, you can only see half of 2014 and 2015 two years.
Judging from the free content, Tencent ranks first. Most of the contents of the micro-whales are in cooperation with Tencent, so free content is consistent with Tencent.
In addition to glorifying movies that have absolutely no extra charge, if you want to watch more Hollywood movies on several other boxes, you still have to buy extra members. When paying for membership, Tencent (Skyworth Q+) and iQiyi (also Skyworth Production) cover the most.
If you do not care about the cost, Xiaomi TV box sees the most content, but the premise is to buy three types of members provided by Xiaomi (to add up to 75 yuan per month), and then save the money for the new film alone - many still buy members on other platforms. Can easily see, such as speed and passion 7, Xiao Huang Ren big movie. In short, it is not worth it.
Chinese popular movie, can see half of it without spending money
China’s box office charts have some overlap with the global box office. But from the box's point of view, there is more free content to watch.
The best performance here is micro whale. Half of the movies are free to watch. You can watch more than 3/4 of your monthly pay.
Followed by Huawei glory, Tencent, Xiaomi and iQiyi, but glory did not pay to see the part, Iqiyi, Tencent and millet are more similar.
Many variety shows can only be seen on the mango
Variety shows are the best category covered by various boxes and are basically free to watch. Even LeTV, which has relatively minimal content, covers nearly 60% of the searches on the Top 50 list.
Mango TV is not the most in number, but in recent years, more attention to variety shows are mostly produced by Hunan Satellite TV, Mango TV is also the exclusive network broadcast platform for many new programs.
For example, if you want to see the latest, I'm a singer in the fourth quarter, you can only see it on Mango TV.
The only exception is the millet box, which has a built-in Mango TV program, but you have to spend 30 yuan/month to buy a member to see it.
TV shows are also the main content of free content
Since Baidu’s rankings only provide the top 50, and the new eleventh eleven and eleven elders on the list point to the latest versions broadcast on TV stations and video sites, we actually only counted Chinese TV dramas. The top 49 in search of popularity.
The repertoire of Baidu's search for TV dramas in the top 50 is dominated by domestic TV dramas. If you don't count the paid portion, the content of the micro-whales is the largest, followed by Xiaomi and Iqiyi.
Korean drama can not be expected basically
Most of the top ten Korean dramas are not the latest episodes. For example, the descendants of the hit sun that was exclusively introduced by iQiyi did not enter the list.
Even so, the coverage of the boxes is not high, and the iQIYI and the whale, which are relatively good, cover only 30% of the top ten.
The new point of American drama is basically Tencent, LeTV and Microwhale.
The copyright of the US drama is concentrated on the LeTV and Tencent boxes. For example, Tencent purchased the copyright of the top ten American dramas in the top 10 search, and LeTV also purchased five mini whale TVs in cooperation with Tencent and Sohu videos. The copyright content of the home also covers 60%. In addition, these popular TV shows cannot be watched in the TV boxes of Xiaomi, iQiyi, Huawei Glory Box, and Mango TV.
In the statistics, if a drama has only an older episode and does not have the latest quarter, we will press "No".
The restrictions imposed on the US drama in the past two years have been increasing. Many of the latest hit dramas such as daring and Jessica Jones have never been introduced.
The era of buying a box to watch casually has passed
In general, the TV box is not the kind of positioning that first appeared in the market: When you buy a box, you can almost see all the movies and TV programs for free. The cable channels can also be watched through the box.
But today, there are not too many charging models for TV boxes and video websites on the market. Some of the contents can be viewed for free, and if you want to see the latest and hottest movies and TV, you still have to buy extra membership services.
So the result of the experiment is that each video platform has a part of special resources, but no TV box can satisfy all the classification requirements at the same time.
If the demand for imported movies and American dramas is relatively large, Tencent's TV box Q+ and Skywine TV are more suitable. Of course, if you do not buy members, you can only look at classic movies and older American dramas. Tencent members, the buy still have to buy.
Although LeTV and iQiyi are not sufficiently competitive in terms of quantity, they have invested heavily in single-play repertoires and home-made plays. In some solo dramas, you have to look at a specific box. For example, when the Shushan War period, the descendants of the Sun must be seen on the iQIYI box, and the Prince will be promoted to the position of the month, the month, and the rumor, you will have to Open LeTV.
If you only want to watch domestic variety shows and domestic TV dramas, Glory Box is the most suitable choice. There is no more content. The Mango TV box may be more suitable for Hunan Satellite TV fans.
Xiaomi is rather special. Three types of members cover the most, but the combined price of 75 yuan/month is basically 2-3 times that of competitors.
In addition to the content, there are some worth mentioning
Millet box three generations
Xiaomi is the most complex payment system in all evaluation boxes. They are a 30 yuan/month Mango TV member, a 30 yuan/month lychee member, and a 15 yuan/month CNTV merit Hollywood member. In addition, even if you buy the most expensive millet TV, don't give away members. From the experimental results, China's earliest box-making millet is also the most affected by the policy.
But the millet box also has merit, its software is fluent, and its appearance and workmanship are almost always the best.
The downside is that although the millet box supports the use of a mobile phone as a remote control, it can only simulate the arrow keys of the remote control, and cannot use the keyboard of the mobile phone to enter text to search.
Sea Medi Mango Q
This is a box that was jointly launched by Mango TV and Shenzhen Haimedi. Mango TV members cost 15 yuan per month, and some movies require additional pay-per-view orders.
If you are a fan of Hunan Satellite TV's self-made variety shows, buying it is enough. But in this box you can't see the American drama and Korean drama basically, and it is more convenient to bind the WeChat public number as a remote control.
Letv TV New 1S
With the box presented six months of LeTV super video members, a monthly renewals 42 yuan, presented PC, tablet and mobile phone end members.
After the LeTV box is opened, it is most like a TV. You first see the default carousel program instead of the usual operation page in the box.
Similar to the millet box, you can see the manufacturers' product placement in various places. The two companies that want to build "ecology" are quite similar in this respect.
In addition, we did not find the voice search button on the remote control, but the system prompt could be turned on. However, you can use the multi-screen interactive feature to directly push the video from the LeEco client on the phone to the TV for playback.
Skyworth Loves Fantastic Art Box
The price of the box is not cheap, and the membership is not too cheap. It costs 29.9 yuan a month.
After opening the Galaxy Film and Television member, the same account can also be used to watch VIP content on iQIYI mobile phones, computers and tablet clients, but it is still much more expensive than purchasing iQIYI VIP members.
Little Whale TV 43 å‹
A one-year membership service is provided with the TV. If the subscription is due, it will be 199 yuan/year. From our observations, the content of the micro whale is mainly from Tencent, and some of it comes from Sohu video. Voice search function is quite easy to use, it should be a built-in video content related corpus.
In the eight products we tested, the microwhale was the most demanding of the network. If the speed is slow, it may not open anything.
Skyworth Q+ Box
A 90-day penguin theater VIP card is provided with the box. The monthly renewal price is RMB 25/month. The software is not very smooth and easy to get stuck.
Tencent is also the source of content, Skyworth's Q+ box content library does not even have access to Tencent content. Some movie blockbusters need to be opened for penguin theater members to watch, but the two members are not interoperable. There are some movies that Hollywood members can watch on the client and they cannot be played on Q+ boxes.
Lynx Box II
Five-day Tmall Cinema members are provided with the box. The monthly purchase price is 39 yuan, and the annual fee is 365 yuan a year.
Tmall's problem is that although the second generation has been implemented, the system has also changed several rounds, but it is obviously not a perfect product. For example, some of the videos from Youku, you can't find it in the search interface, you can only look into the list.
In addition it can be used as a remote control despite its ability to bind WeChat. But on the phone, like Xiao Mi, you can't search using text input.
Huawei glory box
This is the only box in the test that does not expect you to spend money to buy members. Without any paid content, if you only watch domestic TV series and variety shows, Huawei's box is basically nothing to be punished. However, if you usually need more foreign movies and TV, don't buy it.
It's not easy for video sites to enter the living room
Internet TV and TV boxes are no longer hardware businesses. It is the content that determines the TV experience. It is most important that you open the box to find the program you want to watch.
In the Chinese company, the earliest box was made, and the millet with the largest amount of possession and the most complete product details was thrown away by LeTV and the Little Whale.
But under the influence of new policies and commercial competition, what you want to see in a box is basically impossible.
Judging from the experimental results, companies that cover a lot of content either have Tencent, micro-whales, or iqiyi to buy a lot of copyrighted content, or invest a lot of money to make homemade content, such as mango TVs that are backed by Hunan Satellite TV and make red. The wonderful love of Fantastic Art and the promotion of the Prince's promotion have attracted many paying members.
However, the purchase of copyright is a matter of burning money. In the past two years, video sites have been able to say that they have spent huge sums of money on purchasing program rights.
For instance, the descendants of the sun that was introduced to the Korean drama series by iQiyi recently reached a single set price of US$ 230,000. The company spent more than 200 million yuan on copyright for variety shows as early as 2014.
The most wealthy Tencent is also the most abundant library. In terms of TV dramas, Tencent’s video has won the rights to play on dozens of TV dramas such as Zhu Xian, Huan Cheng, and Haoyue Chuan. By 2016, Tencent’s movie library has exceeded 7,000. We can also see this from our experimental results: Tencent itself can provide the most content, whether it is a movie or a US drama.
The demand for content on video sites will only make the purchase of copyright more and more important. For popular episodes, each platform wants to obtain the right to broadcast, and the film side naturally will raise its prices accordingly.
At this time, China’s video site was broadcast for free in the early years, and the income model of advertising has not been able to keep up.
According to the latest quarterly earnings report of Iqiyi’s parent Baidu, iQiyi incurred a loss of RMB 3.65 billion throughout 2015.
We know that Baidu behind IQI is still the largest Chinese Internet advertising platform in China and Baidu's user data collected over the years has long been connected with Iqiyi. This is an advantage that no other video site can match.
Today, video sites have turned to the Netflix model: push exclusive original content, prompting users to be left behind as exclusive members. The recently-launched house of cards is a good example.
This principle is equally clear in domestic video websites. Tomb Raider Notes is an off-the-shelf example of the growth in the membership of iQiyi and the promotion of Prince Siddhartha to LeTV.
But to be a paid business in China is not as easy as the United States.
On the one hand, U.S. users have been accustomed to binding credit cards and paid services as early as when they ordered magazines and newspapers. They are automatically deducted each month.
This kind of automatic payment habit has never been accepted by the market in China. The challenge of video websites has been to convince users not to leave and become per month to persuade users to spend one time, and the difficulty has suddenly increased.
On the other hand, Netflix is ​​priced at US$9.99 per month, which is less than one-tenth of the package price of the Broadband+TV TV subscription. Users do not need to think of a supplement.
The price of China's cable TV is generally only more than 10 yuan, much lower than the membership fee for any video site. Under such stimulation, it is not surprising to see various video sharing website accounts.
In addition, membership fees were originally in conflict with advertising, and those who were most willing to pay for the experience were stripped out.
LeTV and Microwhale attempted to solve the problem with hardware tying members. Users could receive a one-year membership service when they purchased television. They hoped that users would continue to pay for the content after they had developed the habit of viewing paid content.
But whether it's a video site or a TV sale, to persuade users to renew their subscriptions one month after the other, these companies must be able to provide enough good content.
It's not easy to make good content, whether it's for oneself or for a big price. There will not be too much of a company that can persist until the end.