China News Service, Beijing, April 9 (Reporter Gao Kai) A reporter recently observed that from the end of last year to the present, the prices of video memberships in many countries and regions around the world have increased to a certain extent.
In mid-March, Netflix announced that it would increase the price of membership subscriptions in the UK and Ireland, the second price increase for Netflix in this region in 18 months.
This comes after Netflix raised membership prices in South Korea for the first time in November and again in the U.S. and Canada in January.
In China, since the end of last year, video websites have also generally adjusted the membership price. Among them, iQiyi, Mango TV, and Migu Video have successively updated the membership price from December last year to February this year.
On April 9, Tencent Video announced that it will adjust the price of Tencent Video VIP and Super Video VIP members. The price of Tencent Video VIP ordinary monthly card will remain unchanged, the quarterly card will be adjusted from 68 yuan to 78 yuan, and the annual card will be adjusted from 253 yuan. To 258 yuan; continuous monthly package from 20 yuan to 25 yuan, continuous seasonal package from 58 yuan to 68 yuan, continuous annual package from 218 yuan to 238 yuan.
In addition, in terms of Super Film and Television VIP, the price of two packages of continuous monthly and continuous season packages has been adjusted to 35 yuan and 98 yuan.
The U.S. technology media website "The Verge" analyzed that the slowdown in user growth in recent years and the soaring content costs are the main reasons for Netflix's "renewed" subscription fees three times since 2019.
For domestic video platforms, the business situation is the same, even more difficult.
While content costs and operating costs continue to rise, revenue cannot cover costs, and the difficulty of making profits makes the platform's living environment worse.
On the whole, it is an urgent and effective way to adjust the membership price to improve the operating conditions of the platform.
On the one hand, in order to retain existing users or attract new users, the platform cannot stop the speed of content update, and the cost of content also continues to rise.
But at present, in order to ease the operating pressure of the platform, domestic video platforms have begun to reduce costs. According to iQIYI's fourth quarter financial report in 2021, its content cost is 4.9 billion yuan, down 5% compared with the same period in 2020.
In sharp contrast, Netflix's full-year content cost in 2021 will reach $17.469 billion (about 112.675 billion yuan), an increase of nearly $5 billion from the same period in 2020.
Sufficient content cost is the guarantee of the platform's content investment in original content production, copyright purchase and sports event authorization.
Therefore, although cost reduction can ensure the temporary stability of the platform, it is not a long-term solution. It is the right way to build a healthier industry cycle by expanding the user payment path.
On the other hand, although the scale of Chinese netizens is huge and the future of the online audio-visual market is promising, the price of video memberships is generally not high at present, and video platforms cannot fully bet on the income brought by the growth of new users.
Therefore, for video platforms that currently use membership business as their largest source of revenue, it is an inevitable choice to increase the ARPU value of members by raising prices if they want to get out of the predicament of loss and solve the problem of profitability.
The increase in user income will inevitably force the video industry to continue to produce more high-quality content to boost users' confidence and increase users' willingness to pay.
Regarding the increase in membership prices in the UK, Netflix said, "Our updated prices reflect the investment we have made in services and catalogues, which will allow us to continue to produce series, documentaries and movies for our members, and Invest in talents and creative industries.” The same is true for domestic video platforms. According to the 2022 film list announced by Tencent Video, iQiyi and other platforms before, various major dramas and top variety shows are listed, and content investment is still in progress. high.
At a time when the film and television industry is returning to rationality and sky-high remuneration is restrained, it is more necessary and effective to use a healthy business cycle model to stimulate the improvement of content innovation and quality creation capabilities in the domestic film and television industry, and then continue to create more high-quality content.
Of course, the price increase of members can relieve the difficulties of the current video platform to a certain extent, but it is not a once and for all.
If higher membership prices cannot bring better content and services, the loss of users will only happen sooner or later.
In the final analysis, after the membership price increase, the video platform must make more efforts to improve the user experience, and win the long-term attention of users with continuous excellent content performance, so that the video industry can truly move towards a better tomorrow.
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