Source: snow Leopard Financial Agency

When the TV stars who only appeared on the screen in the past put down their posture and shouted to sell goods in the noisy live room, the market gave extremely eager feedback.

On the evening of March 7th, Chen Hao, the veteran actor of TVB, and Chen Minzhi, the leading actress, got off to a good start in the first show of live streaming on Taobao by bringing goods in Cantonese. As of 0: 00 the next day, the live sales of "TVB sense" exceeded 23.5 million yuan, the highest number of people online at the same time exceeded 30, 000, and the cumulative number of viewers exceeded 4.85 million.

This figure is more than 1.3 million higher than this year's "topic queen" Zhang Lan's live debut on Taobao the day before.

After this live broadcast, TVB's parent company$TVB (00511.HK)$The company's shares closed up 85% the next day, breaking the record 51% rise just set on Friday.

TVB, which has lost money for more than four years from 2018 to the first half of 2022, badly needs such a morale-boosting victory. In the face of this TV station, which is rich in artist resources and numerous classic Hong Kong TV series IP, Taobao has also given enough layout and placed a recommendation at the top of the home page of the live broadcast, hoping to turn popularity into purchasing power.

Since last year, TVB has significantly accelerated the pace of northward gold prospecting. On the one hand, they co-organize variety shows with mainland TV stations, using "love cards" to evoke viewers' memories of Hong Kong's pop culture, and on the other hand, layout short videos and live broadcasts, hoping to get a piece of the huge new cake. This year, TVB will cooperate with Taobao in more than 48 e-commerce live broadcasts. TVB defined the move as "a major milestone in the launch of live e-commerce" and hopes to earn tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars from it.

However, it is still unknown how many feelings can be converted into traffic. The scenery in front of the stage is infinite, which is inseparable from the wealth behind the scenes, and the entertainment dynasty for a while needs to find new vitality.

An old ship that can't dock.

Like a declining old-school aristocratic home, TVB, once the world's first Chinese-language commercial television station (Hong Kong Television broadcasts Limited, Television Broadcasts Limited), is now struggling to maintain superficial decency.

Li Ruigang, chairman and CEO of TVB, told the media not long ago that TVB's office has not been decorated for more than 20 years and there are only two digital microphones in the station. In the mainland, a multi-channel station, dozens or hundreds of digital microphones are the basic configuration.

Today, TVB's internal work management and artist management continue the "triple order" operation of the past: one document, with two pieces of blue mimeograph paper under it, written on the original document, copied to two copies of the document, one to the production department, one to the artists department, one to the human resources department, and each went back to register.

Even at several parties that tried hard to build up glossy shelves and strive to win popularity, sharp-eyed netizens saw through the camouflage from a variety of details.

"I have never seen an event that exudes such a strong sense of 'dying out'.... Those death colors and strangely ugly clothes that have become extinct on the red carpet in the mainland have been successfully re-employed on the red carpet on Hong Kong Island. " Gogoboi, a fashion blogger known for his venomous tongue, said of the red carpet celebrating TVB in 2022.

What is even worse for a former entertainment empire is that the stars on the stage have changed from "heavenly king" and "diva" to new faces. They are still beautiful or personable, but they can't get the traffic, let alone stimulate their emotions.

On January 8, TVB's annual drama "thousands of Star Flower Award ceremony 2022" was held, but Chen Shicong and Jiang Meiyi, who were seen as the emperor and the queen, were "unheard of" by many netizens, who thought they looked "fresh". Although there are many Weibo Corp hot searches on the relevant entries, the highest ranking is no more than 10 million, which is a big gap from the "real hot search" in the mainland.

For a long time, the once star-studded TVB has not been able to prop up a decent phenomenon-level popular style drama.

In 2004, the Golden Branch, produced by TVB, landed on Hunan Satellite TV, attracting 200m viewers and 2.82 per cent of viewers. This is also the final peak of the TVB show.

Since then, nearly 20 years, TVB has been born from time to time, but its influence is not as good as it used to be.

A Yi, a post-90s audience in Guangzhou, told Xuebao's financial society that TVB was the source of happiness in her childhood, "equivalent to all the short and long video platforms and Wechat public accounts added today". But she hasn't watched TVB much since 2010, because "shooting 12345 films back and forth on those themes is really aesthetic fatigue."

Eve, who lives in Hong Kong, is a loyal fan of variety shows on the mainland. She told Snow Leopard that there are not a small number of young Hong Kong people watching mainland variety shows and dramas online, and that the content of the mainland fire will basically spread to Hong Kong. Like many young people in the mainland, she seldom watches live TV after she goes to college.

On the one hand, the rise of the mainland film and television industry has greatly squeezed the space of Hong Kong's entertainment industry, the share of dramas and variety shows produced by TVB in the mainland market is getting smaller and smaller, and the streaming media App "buried pile" has not improved. TVB, whose creativity is declining, has lost its ability to attract attention. Mainland audiences will miss Hong Kong's golden age of TVB, but there is a lack of interest in today's TVB.

On the other hand, Hong Kong Viu TV and US Netflix are also challenging the market position of TVB in Hong Kong. Li's Viu TV has soared in popularity among young people in Hong Kong in recent years, and its men's group Mirror, launched through talent shows, is as popular as Andy Lau.

In Li Ruigang's words, the TVB is "an old ship that wants to continue in the wind and waves." although it looks barely decent, the power system and parts need to be replaced immediately. The old ship could neither stop nor dock because of the constant wind and waves.

History of the rise and fall of Entertainment Empire

To some extent, TVB, which ruled Hong Kong's television industry for nearly half a century, can almost be equated with Hong Kong's entertainment industry. The ups and downs of TVB over the past few decades are also related to the rise and fall of the Hong Kong economy.

In the 1960s, when the Hong Kong film industry was booming, Shaw run run, the founder of Shaw Pictures with a keen business sense, turned his investment target to the fledgling television industry. In 1965, the then Hong Kong government issued a terrestrial television licence, and the winning bidder was the Hong Kong Television Group, which was formed by Shaw Brothers and several consortia.

Two years later, TVB officially launched.

In 1980, Shaw, who is in his 70s, became the largest private shareholder of the Hong Kong Television Group and served as chairman of the board. At that time, Shaw Film, which once monopolized the Hong Kong film market, was losing ground in the competition, and the outdated Shaw decided to shift the focus of his career from film to television, thus ushering in the golden era of TVB. The entertainment empire at the helm of him has also changed from "Oriental Hollywood" to "the world's number one Chinese-language commercial radio station."

With the rapid development of Hong Kong economy, the influence of TVB has penetrated into almost every corner of the Chinese world.

TVB has long had more than 80 per cent of the local market in Hong Kong. From the 1980s to the beginning of the 20th century, the era drama "Shanghai Bund", "always Love in thousands of Rivers and Mountains", martial arts drama "The Demi-Gods & Semi-Devils", "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "Divine Swordsman", "The Deer and the Cauldron", criminal investigation drama "authenticated record", "Sister Tuo Gun", commercial war drama "Genesis", "Great Times", palace drama "Jinzhi desire", "Imperial mind" and time travel drama "search for Qin", etc., have affected several generations of audiences.

At its peak, TVB has more than 300 million households in Asia, Australia, North and South America and Europe, and is the only Chinese-language media in the world with full coverage in Hong Kong, Macao and the mainland market.

In the early stage of development, in order to solve the problem of performing talents, TVB continued Shaw's concept of star system and established a "training class for artists". Graduates of the training course will be sent to various positions in TVB, such as Stephen Chow, Tony Leung, Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, Carina Lau and so on. It can be said that this "artist training class" supported half of Hong Kong and even the entire Chinese performing arts circle in the 1980s and 1990s.

At that time, it was also the golden age of the Hong Kong economy.

After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Hong Kong's economic recession lasted until the end of 2003, which was exacerbated by the outbreak of SARS. The era of the four Little Dragons is over, and TVB is in decline.

In 2000, before the aftermath of the financial crisis, the Internet began to impact the traditional way of entertainment, the living space of Hong Kong dramas was squeezed, and the profit situation of TVB deteriorated.

Run run Shaw's second wife, Fang Yihua, served as vice chairman of TVB's board of directors and began to improve profitability, including reforming the pay of artists. In the face of the platform in a monopoly position, artists do not have much bargaining power. Under this extremely cost-cutting operation, TVB shares hit an all-time high of HK $85.25 in 2000, with a market capitalization of more than HK $37 billion.

In 2010, run run Shaw officially stepped down as executive chairman of TVB and only served as non-executive chairman of the board of directors. The following year, run run Shaw transferred his equity, and TVB officially bid farewell to the era of run run Shaw.

At about the same time, mainland satellite TV entered the era of variety blockbuster. Zhejiang Satellite TV's "The Voice of China" and Hunan Satellite TV's "I am a Singer" and "where are my Dads going?" have spread their influence to Chinese communities, including Hong Kong.

Mainland streaming media represented by Youaiteng (Youku, iQIYI, Inc., Tencent) also began to develop rapidly, and began to make efforts to make self-control, not satisfied with copyright procurement. With the entry of Internet giants, the mainland film and television industry is advancing by leaps and bounds, production investment is constantly rising, and copyright prices are rising.

But TVB does not have enough financial resources and resources to keep up with the tide of the times.

According to the financial report, TVB's total revenue in 2015 was 4.455 billion Hong Kong dollars, less than half of the advertising revenue of Hunan Satellite TV, the leading mainland satellite TV station, while TVB has to undertake the production of a number of TV dramas, dozens of news items, variety shows, science and education programs and evenings. The user migration caused by the difference in content investment quickly became apparent.

"those who should have invested long ago have not invested all the time, resulting in serious backwardness and failure to pick up." Mr Li admits that the severe lack of investment over the past 10 or even 20 years is a serious problem for TVB.

If you have no merit, you will make mistakes; if you do not change, you will die.

Many papers and reports on TVB have repeatedly mentioned that the crisis of TVB comes from its long-term monopoly position.

The 55-year-old TVB is in such an embarrassing situation, not only because of the changes of the times and the invasion of external wind and rain, but also from the internal crisis that has long been lurking. Due to the lack of strong competitors, the former television kingdom slackened from the high speed to become conservative, cautious and content to maintain the established model.

The initial development and growth of TVB is closely related to the assembly line operation implemented by run run Shaw during the period of Shaw Pictures. He built Shaw Studios, implemented the blockbuster studio system, and took care of the production, distribution, release, release and other links, thus realizing the "vertical integration" of the film industry.

Run run Shaw also created a complete industrial closed loop for TVB-cultivating stars, producing programs and running television stations. It is not only a broadcast platform, but also a production company, but also covers the artist brokerage business. Through this model, TVB can strictly control costs and maximize profits.

In order to improve profitability, TVB will make the whole production process detailed and templated, and as long as the script comes out, other supporting devices are ready to boot at any time. In the course of decades of development, TVB has repeatedly strengthened this model and system.

Bao Weicong, editor of TVB's "No.1 Imperial Court" and "Love of Heaven and Earth", said in an interview with the Variety News that the success and failure of Hong Kong dramas are also smooth operations. Working in a working environment for many years, the screenwriter has become a skilled type of work and has a habitual routine. Although the screenwriter wants to make some innovations, he finally deletes it when he reviews and revises it. "some things happen again and again because TVB works in a more traditional and conservative way."

At the same time, the struggle within TVB is fierce, with many hills, and there is a risk of being on the wrong side or even hiding in the snow."pull one faction, fight one faction" is the management style of run run Shaw, in his view, there is competition within the enterprise to make progress, acquiesce in or even encourage factional struggle. But the infighting in the style of "palace plan" eventually leads to internal friction. Suffering from low salary and "mountain culture", artists and creators are constantly leaving.

In Li Ruigang's view, TVB has been essentially a conservative mentality over the years: only know how to save money, only talk about cost control, do not think about strategy, have no vision for development, have inertia all the way, and do not lay out the future. "in the past few years, we have made profits. On the surface, it looks good and the stock price is good, but it has aged and declined internally." Only focus on the present, regardless of the future, the final result is that when the new storm comes, you will find that the original power system has completely failed to keep up.

Compared with Shaw Brothers in the 1980s, today's TVB is in a more difficult situation: the mainland film and television industry is on the rise, the Chinese entertainment center has shifted from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the mainland, the market share of Hong Kong dramas and Hong Kong variety shows has plummeted, and artists, directors, writers, and screenwriters have left their nests for the north. At the same time, Netflix and Hong Kong Viu TV are also eating into the local market of TVB in Hong Kong.

In the context of the outbreak of the film and television industry, the income growth of TVB has almost stagnated in the past ten years.

At the end of 2016, TVB issued its first profit warning in 30 years, saying it expected its annual net profit to fall 55% to 65% from the previous year, mainly due to a decline in advertisers' marketing spending due to the downturn in Hong Kong's retail industry.

Between 2018 and 2021, TVB lost money for four consecutive years and lost HK $224 million in the first half of 2022. Since 2017, TVB shares have fallen from more than HK $30 to HK $3.80 in early 2023, and the market capitalization has fallen by more than 90 per cent from a peak of HK $37 billion.

As writer John Brooks said: "the loss of power of the older generation is partly due to their own fault, both mentally and intellectually, they seem to be going downhill."

In a recent media interview, Li Ruigang once again sounded the alarm for TVB: do not advance or fall behind, no merit or failure, do not change or die, TVB is running out of time.

Go north, look at the money.

Going north to panning for gold has become a choice for TVB.

Recently, a group of TVB veteran stars gathered in the variety show "Infinite surpassing Class" jointly organized by Zhejiang Satellite TV, Youku and TVB. The program invited Jackie Chan as its convener, er Dongsheng, Hui Yinghong and Wu Zhenyu as supervisors, and flight instructors including Zhao Yazhi, Deng Suiwen, Tang Zhenye, Xu Shaoxiong, Zhang Keyi, che Paul and other TVB veterans.

The program attempts to train a group of actors with TVB's famous "training course for Wireless TV artists". The collision between TVB veteran actors and mainland traffic stars has become a frequent visitor to entertainment topics.

Over the past year, TVB has partnered with Hunan Satellite TV and Zhejiang Satellite TV in two programs, "endless Hong Kong Music season" and "Infinite beyond Class", in an attempt to awaken viewers' memories of Hong Kong culture that was once popular. Relying on Zeng Zhiwei's "facial scan", the "four heavenly kings" Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung and Liming were also invited back one by one to participate in TVB activities.

The 55-year-old TVB is trying to catch up with the pace of today's entertainment industry, though he is more or less faltering.

Since Chinese culture bought shares in 2015, Li Ruigang has carried out drastic reforms to TVB, and TVB has increased cooperation with major satellite TV and long video platforms in the mainland, gradually becoming large-scale. In 2015, TVB jointly launched Apostle 2 with Penguin, and in 2017, it launched Blind Artist with iQIYI, Inc..

Around the Spring Festival in 2018, TVB launched the official App "buried Stack" in the mainland, which features almost all the classic dramas in the company's history. The business model of burying pile is consistent with Youaiteng, which is also advertising + member income. The prices of monthly, quarterly and annual cards are 20 yuan, 40 yuan and 118 yuan respectively.

In early 2021, Zeng Zhiwei was invited to return to his TVB management position, focusing on variety business. TVB is still trying to build a drama production echelon, in order to form an open system in the future, not only to encourage internal competition, but also to constantly introduce live water from the outside.

In addition, TVB also entered Douyin, relying on its star "facial scan" to try to bring goods live. At present, three accounts have been set up-TVB (Hong Kong-style selection), TVB (strict selection of Hong Kong stars) and TVB (delicious selection), with a cumulative number of fans approaching 1 million. According to the 2022 interim results, TVB's ecommerce revenue surged more than 26-fold from HK $17 million to HK $460 million, accounting for 25 per cent of the group's overall revenue.

With decades of accumulated IP and brand effect, TVB is testing water in more and more areas. But if new fashions cannot be created in the future, how long can the old ship continue to sail in the wind and waves just by frying cold rice and selling feelings?

The topic of the variety show "Infinite surpassing Class" is only 3.8. in their comments, many netizens expressed disgust at the script and routines of the show, and even pointed the gun at TVB entertainers and the Hong Kong entertainment signboard behind them: "what can you learn from TVB's acting style a few decades ago?" "Hong Kong entertainment is in decline, and there are still people who don't open their eyes and hold their feet."

The heap, which is highly expected, has not publicly disclosed user data so far, but has been installed more than 6000 times in Huawei's App market. Among the many one-star reviews of this App, there is a five-star praise: the value of this App is not whether it is a good film and television App, but that it allows you to see some TVB films that you can't see anywhere else.

Wang Qi, who calls herself a "veteran fan of TVB", also downloaded the pile, but opened it less and less frequently, just to satisfy her heart's feelings for Hong Kong culture. For her, compared with other video sites, the content buried in the pile is not interesting enough.

Is there any hope for TVB to rise? Under this Zhihu Inc. topic, the comment area answered almost unanimously-no.

In this article, A Yi, Eve and Wang Qi are aliases. )

Edit / Corrine