Concentrate more to produce good content, incubate good works, and form a benign mechanism of two-way empowerment of "good works + good platform"
On July 27, Mango TV issued a price increase notice saying that from 0:00 on August 9, in addition to the annual card and continuous annual price, Mango TV members will increase the price of continuous monthly, continuous seasonal and monthly membership cards. , the increase ranges from 3 yuan to 10 yuan.
Once the price increase notice was released, it attracted a heated discussion among members and netizens: Is it reasonable for the video platform to increase the price frequently?
Some netizens complained about its "too many advertisements", and some netizens asked: "If you want to increase the membership price, you will increase it? Who has the courage to increase the price twice within the year?"
Although the voices of doubt are almost "overlording the screen", the reality is that not only Mango TV, but also "all kinds of princes" of other long video platforms are also frequent visitors to the tide of price increases.
In June of this year, Youku, which has not raised prices for five years, raised the price of members, and the price for consecutive annual packages increased by 40 yuan.
Earlier, iQiyi and Tencent Video had raised membership prices several times.
This is actually not surprising.
The profitability of long video platforms has always been a "big problem".
On the one hand, content production, copyright purchase and platform operation require a lot of capital investment. On the other hand, the profit point of long video is relatively simple, and its profit model mainly includes membership fees and advertising revenue.
In the early days of development, before users were used to paying to watch videos, the platform mainly relied on advertising revenue for revenue.
Since it is often difficult to cover high-cost platform operations by relying only on membership fees and advertising revenue, the long video market has formed a profit dilemma in the long run.
Previously, iQIYI had been losing money for 12 consecutive years. It was not until the first quarter of this year that it turned losses into profits and achieved a net profit of 169 million yuan. Industry insiders believe that they have seen the dawn of the industry.
But the profitability of iQiyi does not mean that other platforms can improve all the way. In essence, the dilemma of difficulty in making profits has not been reversed, otherwise the "Mango TVs" will not continue to increase prices.
The increase in membership fees will inevitably make new and old users dissatisfied.
If the video platform does not launch excellent works, but the advertisements are as "rich" as always, it is reasonable for users to complain.
But the problem is that since the price increase is decided, it is necessary to figure out how to deal with the user's voice and how to deal with the possible revenue fluctuations. It is not possible to turn a deaf ear to the user's voice, or even ignore their needs and feedback.
In the final analysis, to get rid of the revenue dilemma and rely solely on price increases to achieve it is doomed to not last long.
For long video platforms, the principle of "adhering to content as king" cannot be changed.
In the first quarter, iQIYI made profits mainly by relying on the top content to drive the increase of members, and launched popular series such as "The World" and "Heart", which attracted a large number of paying members.
With good content, members will naturally be attracted to join, the traffic pool will be large, and the revenue will naturally rise. Further, more funds can be invested to support the creation and output of high-quality content, thus forming a virtuous circle of lasting ecology.
Once a stable healthy content output ecology is formed, the profit dilemma is eliminated, and positive development is achieved, I believe it will not be difficult.
In the future, with the increasing acceptance of video payment by domestic users, there is still considerable market profit space for long video platforms.
Therefore, long-term video platforms should first look far ahead. While ensuring the stable operation of the platform, they should concentrate more on producing good content, incubating good works, and forming a benign mechanism of two-way empowerment of "good works + good platforms".
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News special commentator and student