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Countless heroes fell here, from Yu Yongfu to Yang Weidong, from Gao Xiaosong to Song Ke, they came passionately and left lonely.
Author | Miao Yue
Recently, entertainment media headlines are full of voices such as actors not shooting, film investment declining, box office diving and so on, and the entertainment industry is showing a trend of overall contraction.
The latest figures show that the domestic box office fell 2.21% in the first three quarters of 2019 compared with the same period last year. Due to the decline in film investment last year, there were fewer releases of high-quality domestic films, and the box office of domestic films fell 11.54% in the first three quarters compared with the same period last year.
In the same period, a total of 646 TV dramas were filmed and produced nationwide, down 27 percent from 886 in the same period last year, and 24617 episodes were filmed and produced, down 30 percent from 35209 episodes in the same period last year.
Not long agoAli PicturesThe mid-term 2019 (April 1-September 30) performance report is once again a testament to the miserable wind and rain of the industry.
During the reporting period, Alibaba Pictures's total revenue was 1.501 billion yuan, of which Internet distribution revenue was 1.18 billion yuan, content production revenue was 205 million yuan, and comprehensive development revenue was 116 million yuan. The net loss attributed to the owners of the company further expanded to about 390 million yuan, an increase of 210% over the same period last year.
As for the expansion of the net loss, Alibaba Pictures explained that it was due to the provision for impairment of investment and the exchange gains recognized during the period were lower than in the past. It disclosed an adjusted EBITA (loss before interest, tax and amortisation), which was a loss of 276 million yuan, down 44 per cent from a year earlier. Alibaba Pictures explained that the index helps investors to eliminate the impact of projects that management believes do not reflect operating performance.
At present, Alibaba's main business includes core business, cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, and innovation business. Digital media and entertainment businesses include Youku, UC browser, Barley, Ali Music, Ali Pictures,AliSix items of literature.
After Alibaba Pictures became a merged subsidiary of Alibaba Group on March 5, 2019, it further coordinated with the big entertainment sector. Taobaopiao and Youku were connected through the membership system, with more than 40 million members in double-end movie scenes.
For a long time, entertainment income is only a sector of Ali, accounting for about 7% of the total income, but the proportion of losses is relatively large.Youku Tudou, music, games, film and other major entertainment sectors are regarded by many investors as the "drag bottle" of Ali's performance.
Internet publicity accounts for most of the time.
According to Alibaba's previously released first-half results, Alibaba Pictures' revenue in the six months to September 30, 2019 was 1.501 billion yuan, down 2% from the same period a year earlier.
According to the financial report, the Internet has become the most important revenue section of Alibaba Pictures, with revenue of 1.18 billion yuan in half a year and 1.172 billion yuan in 2018. Taopaipiao Youku dual platform movie scene members have exceeded 40 million, and ticketing service revenue has reached 514 million yuan. an increase of 2% compared with 505 million yuan in the same period in 2018 Revenue from the content promotion and investment business was 459 million yuan, an increase of 6 per cent over the same period last year, while gross profit margin fell 20 per cent because there was no production / distribution of popular films with similar volume in the reporting period.
In addition, driven by Aliyu, a derivative licensing development platform, Alibaba Pictures' comprehensive development business grew by 136%. At present, Aliyu has formed a sub-section of IP authorized business and entertainment e-commerce, connecting the entertainment and e-commerce industries in Alibaba's system respectively. During the reporting period, the average realized income of all kinds of IP of Aliyu reached 1.65 million yuan, an increase of 50% over the same period last year.
In December 2018, Alibaba Group increased its stake in Alibaba Pictures, injecting HK $1.25 billion into it, increasing its shareholding from 49% to 50.92%. Alibaba Pictures officially became a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. This means that the future performance of Alibaba Pictures will be incorporated into the financial report of Alibaba Pictures. Alibaba also intends to say to the outside world through this move that the group's support for big entertainment has not changed.
In March 2019, Ali Pictures became the merger subsidiary of Alibaba Group. According to Ali Pictures, in the future, Alibaba Pictures will play a boosting role in the process of comprehensive coordination of Ali Entertainment, continuously building a new infrastructure of the whole industry chain from content production, Internet distribution, and derivatives to film and television investment services. at the same time, it will launch more influential and positive high-quality film and television works for the market.
In terms of the market share of China's online movie ticketing platform, the Chinese market is only cat's eye entertainment (01896-HK)'s online ticketing platform and Ali Pictures' Taobao ticket each hold sway.
According to Maoyan Entertainment Financial report, Maoyan Entertainment is the largest online movie ticketing service platform in China in terms of total film ticketing transaction value in the first half of 2019, with a market share of more than 60%.
Alibaba Pictures ranked second, but Alibaba Pictures said in its 2018 / 2019 results that Taobaopiao would continue to consolidate its market share and achieve steady growth during the reporting period, and wanted to become one of the largest decision-making platforms for cinema users in China.
It is worth noting that under the general trend of regulatory authorities requiring ticketing platforms to reduce ticket subsidies, Taobaopiao has greatly reduced the intensity of burning money to subsidize movie tickets, which has directly led to a substantial reduction in Ali Pictures' losses. After Ali Pictures merged its financial statements with Alibaba, it had little negative impact on the latter.
A person close to Ali said that Ali will not give up great entertainment. Their current plan is to narrow losses, make small corrections, and take their time.
Increase investment in content area
2019年Tencent、iQIYIThe frequency of outbound investment in entertainment and entertainment has slowed down, but investment in the content sector is still increasing.
Although the content cost is not listed separately in Ali's financial report, it says bluntly that it will continue to attach importance to original content, and the investment in original content is also increasing, especially the investment in homemade content is still increasing. In the third quarter, the total revenue of Alibaba Entertainment exceeded 7.3 billion yuan, and Youku and Alibaba Pictures were the biggest contributors behind it.
The total revenue of Ali Entertainment has been growing steadily in the first three quarters. Alibaba Pictures and Youku are the core factors driving the growth of total revenue in the second and third quarters.
In the second quarter of this year, Alibaba incorporated Ali Pictures' financial data into the consolidated statement for the first time. Before the second quarter of this year, Alibaba Entertainment, including Youku, UC, Ali Literature and other digital media and entertainment business, excluding Alibaba Pictures.
Since it was incorporated into the financial data of Alibaba Pictures in the second quarter, Alibaba Entertainment has achieved rapid growth in performance for two consecutive quarters. Total revenue in the third quarter of 2019 increased 23% from 5.94 billion yuan last year to 7.296 billion yuan.
This is largely due to a series of adjustments to improve efficiency in large-scale entertainment since December last year. In December 2018, Alibaba announced plans to increase his stake in Alibaba Pictures, injecting HK $1.25 billion into Alibaba Pictures, increasing its shareholding to about 51%, and completing the deal in March 2019. Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba Group, called the increase a "vote of confidence".
Fan Luyuan, partner of Alibaba Group and rotating president of Alibaba Entertainment, after taking over as president of Youku, launched an all-round adjustment of publicity, product technology and content within the company.
Among them, the "big announcement" system, which fully covers Ali entertainment + e-commerce business, has taken the lead in completing the opening, with an estimated daily exposure peak of 2.6 billion people. Effectively improve the efficiency of the mobilization and use of internal resources. In addition, the team of nearly 200 people responsible for Ali marketing was merged into Youku and reported directly to Fan Luyuan.
Ali said in the financial report that it will continue to attach importance to the original content, and the investment in the original content is also increasing.
In 2019, with the popularity of word-of-mouth and content of "12 hours in Changan", Youku, which was slightly weak in Youai Teng pattern, turned around again. According to the latest financial data, the average number of Youku daily subscribers increased by 47% from July to September 2019 compared with the same period last year. This is mainly due to the pull of Youku's boutique series "12 hours in Changan" and the high-score variety "I am not Street Dance 2" this summer.
Although Alibaba did not clearly list content and procurement costs, the company's quarterly costs accounted for 53% of total revenue. It is precisely because Youku's content spending has been reduced to offset some of the increased inventory of its e-commerce business. Compared with bilibili, iqiyi and Tencent Video, Youku has been reducing new purchases in Japan in recent years.
On the one hand, Youku's content expenditure is decreasing, and Ali continues to invest in original content production capabilities, and takes systematic analytical measures to ensure content cost efficiency and return on investment. On the other hand, the integration of Ali Pictures' financial data has driven revenue growth.
However, driven by these two core factors, Ali Culture and Entertainment has not been able to turn losses into profits in the past two quarters. The operating losses of Q1~Q4 Ali in 2018 were 3.541 billion yuan, 4.29 billion yuan, 4.805 billion yuan and 7.097 billion yuan respectively. In the first quarter of 2019, Ali University Entertainment's adjusted EBITA loss was 2.828 billion yuan. In the second and third quarters, although the operating loss of Ali University Entertainment decreased compared with the same period last year, the loss was still as high as 3.159 billion yuan and 3.327 billion yuan.
Youhe Program 2.0
In order to reduce costs and increase original content, Youku announced "Youhe Plan 2.0" in the sharing model of the deepening platform.
On July 17, Youku content open platform also announced that the exclusive introduction of the network's well-known IP animation "Breaking the Sky dynamic Comics season 1" and "Chicken eating Battle season 2" also signed an exclusive contract with Youku and launched on July 30. Both projects cooperate with Youku in a "account-sharing mode". In addition to the coverage in the field of animation and children, Youku also implements an account-sharing model in the field of the Internet.
Ali has a dream of never giving up the platform, while constantly optimizing the operation of the platform, of course, there is no lack of external investment layout. In terms of Ali entertainment, like iqiyi, Ali's foreign investment companies are mainly film and television production companies. With the support of Ali's strong funds and resources, Youku has made 43 direct investments abroad in recent years. In terms of investment style, Youku prefers to set up a new company with directors and producers to achieve project cooperation and resource bundling.
For example, Youku and Yang Wenjun, Yao Jia, Cao Dun, Yang Wenhong, Liu Kailu and other well-known producers and directors have set up film and television content production companies.
Youku and Ali Pictures are owners of live-action film and animation companies, and Ali Literature has also increased its investment in animation and cartoon companies in recent years. For example, it invested in Divine House Animation and Animation in 2018.AuroraAnime.
Ali Department of other funds or companies in the film and television layout have provided a good boost to Ali big entertainment. And these resources will be the main production force of Ali big entertainment in the field of content production and solo dramas and customized dramas in the future.
On November 26th, 2019, Alibaba-SW (09988-HK) returned to Hong Kong for listing. Some market participants said that at present, Ali's big entertainment business is not so satisfactory to investors, but this is the area that Ali has to do in the whole commercial plate, because Ali is a flow black hole. At the same time, it is also a "flow realization machine", which is more efficient than games, but it needs traffic and is hungry for traffic, so it needs all kinds of traffic to acquire companies such as Gaode, Youku, UC and so on. Although so far these businesses do not reflect the function of contributing traffic, but in the long run, Ali may think this is part of what it needs.