The two live concerts, which were held almost at the same time, not only brushed the screen of the circle of friends, but also ignited the long silent science and technology circle. On the evening of May 27, "the godfather of Chinese music" luodayou and "Singapore Diva" Stefanie Sun started singing almost at the same time. Music fans switched back and forth between the video number and Tiktok "in" pain and happiness ", discussing whether to enjoy" the sword is not old "or watch" singing while chatting ". Many people even took to the battle with mobile phones, tablets and projectors, cheering" Yeqing Hui "and at the same time, they would also roast about the" slag technology "that suddenly fell off the line.
Discussion degree represents traffic. As of the end of the concert on the same day (May 27), 35million people had "seen" Luo Dayou's concert on the video number. As of 0:00 on May 28, the number exceeded 40million; Stefanie Sun's Tiktok live studio broke through 100million people as soon as it was broadcast, and 240million people saw it at the end of the live broadcast. However, the statistical caliber of the two sides is slightly different. The video number can be simply understood as UV (user traffic), while Tiktok can be simply understood as PV (page traffic), but this does not hinder the influence of the two concerts.
In fact, online concerts have not appeared only in recent years. So, are the popular online concerts a short-lived special event or a business model that can be replicated continuously? What changes will the video number and Tiktok behind the two concerts bring to the music industry while competing for the market share of short video?
Publicity poster of Stefanie Sun's Tiktok singing and chatting concert and luodayou's video Number concert / provided by the interviewees
Video number and Tiktok "Gang" front? Hide differences in details
This is luodayou and Stefanie Sun's "challenge" in the space. It is also a positive game between the video number and Tiktok. However, if you carefully observe the details of these two concerts, you will find that there are still differences between them.
At 19:30 on May 27, Luo Dayou's "childhood" video online Concert (hereinafter referred to as "Luo Dayou concert") began to warm up, and the number of "viewers" (the statistical unit of the video Number) in the live studio exceeded 5million. Half an hour later, Luo Dayou, who had gray hair but ruddy complexion, wore his trademark black frame glasses and began with his masterpiece "wild lilies also have spring". Although the venue of the concert was set on the outdoor lawn, and even insects and birds could be heard, the sound, harmony and band were very professional. Besides the short time with Mai, the 68 year old luodayou "played" all over the concert. By the end of the concert on that day, 35million people had "seen" it; By 0:00 on May 28, more than 40million people had "seen" the concert.
Similarly, at 20:00 on May 27, "Tiktok sun's online singing and chatting meeting" (hereinafter referred to as "tanyin sun's singing and chatting meeting") was launched on time. Dressed in a white overalls suit, she started by chatting. Sitting on the sofa, she talked about sports, skin care and other topics like a friend. It took more than 15 minutes before she sang the first song. In the process of this song, the number of people watching the live broadcast room (the statistical unit of Tiktok) exceeded 120million. Different from luodayou's concert, Stefanie Sun adopts the method of singing and chatting, and also sets up a host, which makes the rhythm more gentle. At about 22:00 on the same day, at the end of the singing and chatting session, the live broadcasting room showed that 240million people watched it in real time.
Just as the statistical caliber of the video number and Tiktok is different and cannot be directly compared, the positioning of luodayou concert and Stefanie Sun's singing and chatting concert is also different. In a written interview with the reporter of shell finance, the relevant person in charge of Tiktok said that the May 27 singing and chatting meeting of Stefanie Sun was an interactive live broadcast of chatting and singing with netizens, and companionship and sharing were the core of the meeting.
The above person in charge further added that Tiktok hopes to use this "instant light interaction" method to let singers and listeners participate together, so as to achieve "cloud" companionship and create a better future. In the future, Tiktok will continue to explore more diverse ways of expression in online concerts, bringing more beautiful music experiences to users.
From Xicheng boy to Mayday, and then to several concerts of Leslie Cheung and Jay Chou, the video Number pursues professional online concerts, and strives to be professional in dance beauty, sound, lighting, etc. Tencent music's "TME live" team, which has cooperated with the video number for many concerts, told shell finance that "live broadcasting" can be free and easy, and any performance of TME live, regardless of its form, insists that each performance is concert level live (live music). In the view of the "TME live" team, resources, technology and team are indispensable. They are three forces that keep pace. Only in this way can we ensure the perfect combination of high-quality content and advanced technology.
Tiktok's positioning for Stefanie Sun's singing and chatting concert is "singing and chatting" of "instant light interaction", while the video number's positioning for luodayou's concert is professional live. From this basis, it becomes understandable to see that "the host ran to the bathroom halfway" in Stefanie Sun's concert, and it may even be a "bridge" designed to adjust the atmosphere. However, the sound, lighting and stability roast of users really deserve the team's reflection.
Zhangzhaoyi, a senior practitioner in the music industry and founder of Jiujiang music, told shell finance that the difficulty of live online concerts is how to achieve real-time synchronization and effective audience interaction in case of delays in venues in different regions. However, the technical progress of recording and broadcasting concerts is not obvious compared with that five years ago. Moreover, due to factors such as bandwidth, the definition is even worse than that of Blu ray DVD. The technology for repairing old movies and concerts is also relatively mature.
Tencent no longer "backstroke" in the field of short video, driving a number of large manufacturers into the game
In fact, online concerts have appeared since 2000. Madonna is the first singer to hold online concerts. In 2014, Wang Feng also held a live online concert, and earned more than 2million box office. Both LETV music and shrimp music in their early years have tried online concerts. However, due to cost considerations, the previous online concerts stayed at the "water test" stage.
"The reason why the scale was not formed was that the cost could not be recovered". Zhang Zhaoyi, the founder of Jujiang music, told shell finance that in 2015, the live broadcast cost of the well-known European and American singer Taylor Swift was as high as $1million, and the relevant content needs to be offline two days after the live broadcast. It can no longer be used, and the ROI (return on investment) can not be calculated.
The epidemic became a turning point. According to the data, in the whole year of 2020, the total number of concerts was less than 1000. By the middle of 2021, more than 20000 offline music performances had been postponed or cancelled in China. As a result, offline concerts have shifted to online.
According to Tencent music, its "TME live" was prepared in 2019. It was originally planned to officially appear in the spring of 2020. However, under the epidemic, TME live met users in the form of the first round (beta) in march2020, and officially went online one year later. The live concerts of Xicheng boy, Mayday, zhangguorong, Cui Jian, etc. jointly broadcast by TME live and the video number, the total number of viewers reached 27.68 million, 16.81 million, 17 million and 46 million respectively, the total number of sharing was 3.409 million, 800000, 1million and 2.7 million, and the total number of likes was 160million, 32.14 million, 38million and 120million.
In the above concerts, TME live under Tencent music is the content provider and leader, and the video number is the broadcasting platform. However, according to people familiar with the matter, the live concert of Luo Dayou was dominated by video numbers. In addition, according to the investment invitation list of a video Number concert circulated on the Internet, the follow-up video number will also lead the concerts of backstreet boys, liuruoying, Wu Bai, Zheng Jun and the new pants band. The scheduling has continued until November this year. Obviously, the product model has been successful.
Coincidentally, a series of online concerts such as "doulive sofa concert" and "doulive on the spot" by Tiktok were also launched in the first half of 2020, following up on this track. From the beginning of August to the end of September 2021, Tiktok held seven consecutive online summer concerts, and invited bands and singers such as Stefanie Sun, yudingti, Zhanghuimei and Chen Li to participate, with a total viewing of more than 40million people. Among them, Stefanie Sun received an amazing 600million praise points less than an hour after her concert in early September. However, it is a relative pity that the popularity of Tiktok's online concerts is more among fans and circles, and there is no national discussion and large-scale "breaking circles".
Since then, many big companies have followed up the online concert track, such as modern sky and station B jointly launched the "house strawberry" online music festival; Netease cloud music has launched the cloud village bedroom Music Festival and hard live; Barley platform also launched "parallel wheat live" super concert.
At the end of 2019, Ren Yuxin, chief operating officer of Tencent and President of PCG, said when talking about the idea of making short videos that we should emphasize user driven rather than competition driven and reduce the "back attack" led by competitors. However, in fact, Tencent micro vision and other short video products had similar "backstroke" situations in algorithm recommendation, product strategy and operation strategy. The success of this video number online concert mode enabled Tencent to sweep away the previous haze.
According to the data of vision lamp Research Institute, as of December 2021, the wechat video Number dau (daily life) has reached 500million, with a year-on-year increase of 78%. Its user volume has been between Tiktok and Kwai (main station + super speed version), and the daily use time of users is up to 35 minutes.
In Tencent's financial report for the first quarter of 2022, the commercialization of video numbers was also mentioned for the first time. According to the first quarter report of Tencent holdings in 2022, the revenue from live broadcast service of wechat video accounts increased, driving the revenue of social networks to increase by 1% to 29.1 billion yuan. At the performance teleconference, Tencent's management emphasized that "video numbers are very important to Tencent's overall business, and we hope to consider how to realize video numbers in the future. The successful realization of video numbers will be a very important driving force for the company's profit increase, but it will maintain control, so we can refer to the advertising in the circle of friends."
Epidemic catalysis online concert market? Still not confident to cash in on tickets
According to the report on China's online music industry released by AI media consulting in 2021, affected by the COVID-19, online music received development dividends. In the first half of 2020, the number of users watching online music performances exceeded 80million.
Although the scale of users is huge, the commercialization path of online concerts is still in the exploration stage.
From the perspective of current online concerts, they are mainly divided into free concerts and paid concerts. The realization mode of free concerts is mainly advertising investment, gift rewards, peripheral sales, etc. Take the video number as an example, Pepsi Cola appeared on the social accounts, APP posters and other publicity positions of the host platform as the exclusive title merchant at Jay Chou's concert on May 20; In the concerts of Cui Jian and Luo Dayou, Jihu automobile, as the title merchant, appeared in the concert. The wechat index at its peak was 54 times higher than that before the event. A total of 1.04 million customized gifts were given by Jihu; Cui Jian also received a gift of 6million beans in his concert.
Different from the commercialization of video numbers, online concerts of Netease cloud music used to sell tickets, that is, the above paid concert mode. Take the seventh anniversary concert of tfboys "sunshine travel" launched by Netease cloud music as an example. The number of tickets sold in this concert exceeded one million, of which the lowest ticket price was 30 yuan and the highest was 860 yuan. At the same time, the peak number of online people was 786000. If the lowest ticket price is used, the organizer may have a gross ticket revenue of more than 30million yuan (including channel cost). However, it should be noted that the fans of tfboys are more viscous and willing to invest, so the ticket revenue is also higher than that of other singers in the industry.
Peripheral sales and advertising sponsorship map of Jay Chou's 5.20 video Number concert / map provided by respondents
A musician who wanted to remain anonymous told shell finance, "at present, online concerts are more about traffic business. Whether it is advertising for investment, peripheral sales or online rewards, they are all consuming the original IP. However, if you really want to pay, you will not have such an impact. At present, the platform has no confidence and confidence to open ticket sales", "In his opinion, the value of IP to the platform now far exceeds the value of the platform to IP. This is where the platform needs to work in the future."
For example, he said, if Jay Chou's concert was paid for, with 150 yuan per person, would it still have the current influence? It is known that you can buy a set of Blu ray DVD with higher definition for about 200 yuan, and the ordinary version is even cheaper. After payment, the insufficient viewing volume of users will lead to chain reactions such as insufficient exposure of sponsors.
"They still think in terms of traffic. They think that users' consumption of music is no different from the advertising, orders, even takeout and taxi in the consumption information stream. What they are trying is the Internet model, and they don't know where users' consumption of movies and music comes from. In fact, different content segments are different, and even the playing methods of classical music and pop music are different," said the above musicians.
In terms of cost, according to a number of musicians interviewed, the music copyright is very complex. There are several types according to major categories, and there are more subdivisions. The music network broadcasting rights owned by major platforms and the concert copyright need to be negotiated and paid separately. However, at present, there are also platforms trying to package video copyright, project copyright, online concerts, offline ticket sales, and even the development of peripheral interests when renewing the network broadcast copyright. The overall project cooperation package may cost hundreds of millions to billions of yuan per year for each music company.
Talking about the development direction of online concerts in the future, Zhang Zhaoyi, founder of Jiujiang music, judged that it was socialization and virtualization. "I don't know if you have noticed that the interface for sharing music in the circle of friends has become larger, and the larger cover shows a stronger impact, which is the concrete manifestation of socialization. In the future, music will be more exposed on social platforms and generate more connections," Zhang Zhaoyi, founder of Jujiang music, told shell finance.
According to him, virtualization means working hard on the experience of online concerts to provide an atmosphere and realism closer to offline concerts through the application of VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and other technologies. However, he believes that the current technology is not enough to achieve this experience, which requires the joint efforts of music enterprises and platforms. In addition, the radio, signal and interactive access of online concerts also need to be further improved.