Youku's "mistake"

Author | Salad sauce

Edit | Tang Fei

On July 22, Surging News reported that some users found that after buying Youku members, they needed to buy the episode on TV to watch it, and they needed to buy additional cool meow members, and they could not directly cast the screen. Although this measure does not constitute infringement, it has attracted "criticism" of consumers. Netizens have said, "I buy video products, what device to watch is my right, and the second charging is really ridiculous." There are also even more excited netizens who directly said, "Eating is ugly and never enter the pit."

Topic#话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话 话#Do you think the charging model like Youku is reasonable? It also attracted more than 1.17 million onlookers.

Just a few days ago, the news of long video cooperation with short video also caused heated discussions.

On July 19, Douyin and iQiyi announced their cooperation to explore the second creation and promotion of long video content. Among them, the iQiyi Award Douyin Group authorized its content assets to have the right to spread the right to communicate and transfer to the long video content, including the "Mist Theater", which is used for short video creation.

On the day of the news, Tencent also came with news with Kuaishou. It is reported that "Tencent Video is also negotiating with fast -handed strategic cooperation with Kuaishou. According to people familiar with the matter," the sincerity of the cooperation between the two parties is full, and it is currently in the close stage. It is estimated that it will soon be announced. "

However, the news was quickly rumored by Tencent. At noon on July 19th, Tencent Video's official Weibo post stated that the news about the cooperation with Kuaishou was a false rumor.

When everyone was "lively", Youku was "quiet".

In fact, according to the surging news report, a person familiar with the matter revealed to the surging news reporter that the cooperation object of Douyin's first selection was Youku. The relevant person in charge of Youku initially promised to "talk", but later failed to do it. Finally, Douyin chose to cooperate with iQiyi. Value Planet (ID: ValuePlanet) to verify from the person in charge of Youku. As of press time, Youku Fang did not respond.

Youku, who was silent in business, was pushed to the cusp in this way, which could not help but sigh.

Why did Youku lose the hearts of the people?

Don't look at Youku being pulled out today, "group laugher". In the early years, Youku was the leader of China's long videos.

According to public data, in March 2013, Youku mobile daily video playback reached 150 million, the traffic quarterly increased by 50%from the previous month. Daily independent access users reached 20 million, the per capita daily visits were 70 minutes, and the monthly coverage of 100 million users reached 100 million.

Referring to the data of station B in the first quarter of 2021, the average daily stay of the user is 95 minutes. It can be imagined that Youku, which can allow users to stay more than an hour a day in 2013, is undoubtedly "favored".

However, why does Youku now change from "10,000 people" to "10,000 people abandon"?

"I don't need Youku around 2019. I was still a relatively loyal fan before. I browsed almost an hour almost every day." Netizens Xiaoyu said to the planet. "It doesn't seem to be a big deal to say the reason for giving up, but a little bit of things keep my sense of use, to the end of the last abandonment."

For example, Xiaoyu said, for example, if you were not a member of the year, the video was very stuck, and the smoothest clarity could only reach 720P, and the downloaded videos could not be played offline. "Also, the advertisement seems to be endless. ' "

And while walking in place of Youku, other video platforms were rising. "In 2019, the film and television resources of station B have gradually matured, and UGC that Youku gave up in the early days seemed to be gradually picked up by station B, plus short video The "temptation ', I have never used Youku anymore, and now Youku has been completely unloaded by me." Xiaoyu said.

Not only users, but also creators attracted by other video platforms.

"I made a game video on Youku many years ago. In the current words, I was a game 'UP Lord'. But later, UGC strategy began to be abandoned by Youku." Fifi recalled.

At the beginning, it was the personal self -introduction function of Youku homepage offline, and then the homepage background customization function was also offline. After that, all the messages from my homepage message board fans were "offline", and tens of thousands of messages suddenly disappeared. Later, the video profile could not be posted again, which completely lost the sense of creative atmosphere.

Compared with Youku users earlier, the reason why younger Internet users do not choose Youku seem to be simpler and rude.

"Because Youku didn't have a drama." Netizens said straightforwardly. "I have no loyalty to the video platform. Whoever looks good, I will buy who members, and I almost only buy a month when watching the show, and I will pay for another explosive drama. "

Picture source: Tiger Securities

According to data from Tiger Securities, from the perspective of monthly living scale, the video industry pattern has shifted from the traditional "3+2+N" to the "2+3+N" pattern in the new era.

Among them, the head platform is iQiyi and Tencent videos, which is based on Baidu and Tencent. It has a rich source of film and invested high costs to continue to attract and retain users. The number of monthly activities exceeds 500 million, while the number of daily active users is about 90 million to 100 million.

The number of Youku users, which was originally the first echelon, was attenuated. It was close to the mango TV and Bilibili of the second echelon. The monthly living scale was about 200 million, and the number of daily active users was around 45 million. Youku's "dislocation time and space"

Yiming seems to have revealed the logic of this year's netizens to choose a long video platform -content -driven. And as Yiming said, Youku's vision of watching the show also seems to have to be improved ...

For example, the "Si Fu" who took the fire replaced "You Are My Call for Fortress". Come to the diversion of a lot of traffic; even the "You from the Stars" that year was the first to find Youku, but it was "passing by" by Youku. Later, the "Cheese Trap" bought by Youku Hua Chongchang was criticized.

If it is said that the vision of the drama is a metaphysics, then the strategic decision of Youku's opposite is another "mistake".

In 2014, the year of Youku was in full swing. Later, iQiyi bought the fire Korean drama "You from the Stars" and began to make the fiery variety show "Qi Qi". Tencent video started with Hollywood movies, bought a large number of Hollywood movies, and introduced the global phenomenon -level American drama "Game of Thrones".

In 2014, Youku was still adhering to the UGC strategy of its user production content.

In addition, after the daily life reached 20 million people in 2013, Youku began to launch an advertising business. In the press release of its advertising business, it said that it "leads the industry to enter the first year of mobile video marketing." Before the rise of KOL advertisements such as short videos, the display advertisements have gone through five years from 2013-2018.

However, these five years are also the five years of long -term videos and the rise of major entertainment content. While Youku did not have a stronger attraction, it began a patch advertisement earlier, causing the disadvantage of competition.

But it seems ironic that now the rise of Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and B Station, etc. has caused a huge impact on long videos on long videos, and this strategy is exactly that Youku gave up in order to "fight" with iQiyi and Tencent videos "struggle". of.

Youku seems to have a regrettable "misplace" in the contest of long and short videos.

Deceleration revenue

The screening fee is not the only "harvest" method in Youku recently.

Just last month, Youku announced that the membership price was adjusted at 00:00 on June 21. The monthly card was adjusted to 30 yuan, the season card was 78 yuan, and the annual card was 258 yuan. 88VIP was not affected.

According to public reports, this is the first price increase after five years after the membership price of Youku's ones in 2017. However, since last year, the membership price of the long video platform has increased -in December last year, iQiyi monthly card rose to 30 yuan, and the quarterly card rose to 78 yuan; The card rose to 258 yuan. Therefore, this time Youku's price increase does not seem to be unexpected.

However, behind the price increase is the pressure to increase income and profit.

According to Alibaba's financial report, from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022 (natural year), the revenue of Alibaba digital media and entertainment sectors was 8.047 billion yuan, 8.073 billion yuan, 8.081 billion yuan, 8.113 billion yuan and 8.05 billion yuan Yuan. There was almost no increase in a month -on -month, and in the first quarter of 2022, it decreased by 1.33%.

From the perspective of the year -on -year increase, compared with the same period last year, except for the main theme drama "Shanhai Love" and the short -term explosion "Shanhe Ling" launched in 2021, more than 10%of the year -on -year increase in the first quarter, until the first quarter of this year, this Some businesses have increased almost zero year -on -year.

In the case of increasing income, profitability is also a problem facing Youku. According to public news, Youku is still losing money.

However, there is no good content to make the foundation, but the increase in membership fees for income may be able to narrow losses by increasing hair profits in the short term, but it is not a long -term durability.

As the science and technology partner Wang Lei said, "the essence of all content products is the attention competition of users on the entire network."

Before the rise of short videos, long videos were the best choice for users, but with the improvement of the selection, the user's attention was dispersed. Long video itself takes longer time and attention. If the content quality cannot be "won", it will definitely be "abandoned".

This is not only Youku, but also a problem facing the entire long video platform.

Perhaps it is not difficult to see from the user's choice that the era of barbaric growth of long vision has long passed. There is no good content. In the long run, any operation may be "mistakes."

*At the request of the interviewees, Xiaoyu, Feifei, and Yiming in the text are all pseudonyms.

Reference materials:

[1] "Youku Line Mobile Advertising Patch System at the end of April", China -Guangzhou Internet

[2] "Youku mobile phone members cannot cast the screen, how high the video membership fee is? ", Cai Zhi Headline

[3] "Ali released 2022Q4 financial report: Youku daily average paid users increased by 14% year -on -year losses narrowing", TechWeb

[4] "Do you need to collect other money to cast the screen? Youku was searched by netizens! Response here ", surging news

[5] "Douyin holding hands iQiyi: Woning long video authorization for short video creation, once talked with Youku", surging news

*This article is based on public information, which is only used as information exchange, and does not constitute any investment suggestions

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