text │ Zhiyong
B website self-produced drama, and it is in its fourth year. Since
entered the self-produced drama, B station has maintained a stable output of 1-3 long video series (one episode length is more than 30 minutes) and 1-2 medium video series (one episode length is 5-30 minutes) per year. This is naturally incomparable to the list of hundreds of movies that iQiyi, You and Tencent every year, but it is not easy for the "small breaking site" with limited resources when it first entered the field of self-made dramas and .
Note: Data statistics time as of 11:00 today
html The new " Sanyue has a new job " was released at the end of September. It is the third long video self-produced drama of Bilibili this year. From the team , it is not difficult to see that B station has high expectations for this drama. Last year, Li Mo, director of the Mango TV small hit short drama " I'm pretty good in a foreign land", was directed by Li Mo. He won the Academy Award for Best Screenwriter and wrote You Xiaoying , which has written high-topic works such as " My Sister ". The behind-the-scenes lineup is already upstream in the self-produced dramas on Bilibili.starring . The deputy CP "Belly Pepper CP" in "Wind Dog" weeks, , Liang Jingkang second set to renew his relationship, and invited many old acquaintances in Chinese dramas such as Yang Xinming , Liu Jun and other old acquaintances in Chinese dramas. After "Goodbye Love", Guo Keyu, who appeared as an actor for the first time, made special appearances, with both topic and performance texture.
theme is a very rare professional drama with the theme of funeral industry. Since 2011's " World of People ", domestic dramas have not encountered this industry for 11 years.
In the traditional Chinese view of death, funeral homes are not only a taboo place for mainstream discourse to avoid, but also carry the profound sorrow that cannot be resolved by separation from life and death. But this year, the popularity of " Life Events " has brought idle practitioners into the public's vision. "The World of People" has also been broadcast on the Internet for the first time. Later, " Keep You Safe " and "I Am Not a Favorite Travel" that also focuses on the funeral industry are waiting to be released, which undoubtedly makes this mysterious profession a key topic in mainland film and television this year. The "Three Yues" that was born at the right time can also be regarded as riding on this east wind.
The right time, place and people, but the performance of "Sanyue" failed to make people shine. Currently, the average number of plays for episodes is about 10 million, which has just reached the average level of the previous videos of B-B TV series, and has not effectively driven growth. On the Guduo TV series rankings, this drama has been hovering around the 20th day list, and its presence is not high. On
, the reputation , the B station has a score of 9.6, and is temporarily ranked first in the B station's video self-made drama. It can be seen that the audience on B station is quite satisfied with this drama. Douban scores 8.3, which is also of the reputation of this year's Chinese drama, but there are still some comments questioning the drama's over-stack of social topics and full of blunt golden sentences. The comment gap between inside and outside this station directly points to the dilemma of retention of self-produced dramas on Bilibili.
"Sanyue" has a Japanese drama style:
"Xiao Que Sang" character, refusal to hunt curiosity, and frequent golden sentences
As the name suggests, "Sanyue has a new job" is based on the perspective of the heroine Zhao Sanyue, telling the ups and downs of the funeral industry. The beginning of the episode of
, Sanyue lay on the bed in the dark room with the curtains closed, and the dim light was covered with garbage. She crossed her legs and watched the show with her mobile phone. Many netizens called out in the barrage, "I am watching the show myself." After being kicked out of the house by her mother, Sanyue, who had once considered suicide, became the spiritual spokesperson of "Xiao Que San". She chose to live a lying day in Youth Hostel , and sent out a soul question about "Why can't people who like to work work? People who like to lie flat lay down, those who want to roll down, those who want to roll down, and those who want to lie down to the Buddha's heart's content", which aroused great resonance among netizens in the barrage.
As a rare domestic drama, the heroine who is as negative as a "Yazi who does not seek to improve", Sanyue's attitude towards life can't help but make the Generation Z who are struggling between lying flat and inclined. What led to her becoming what she is now is the experience of repeatedly failing to find a job for a year, encountering gender discrimination in the workplace, and not being understood by her family. This also makes people empathize with in the cold environment.
By chance, Sanyue was angry with her mother and joined the funeral home as a body beautician, and thus met all kinds of staff from the funeral home. The portrayal of them in the episodes avoids the outside world's horror and mysterious stereotype of funeral practitioners as much as possible. In Sanyue's daily interactions with them, they are restored to flesh and blood, and also dilutes the heavy feeling that they are inevitably trapped in when discussing the topic of death.
As a professional drama, the professional attributes of funeral home work are also slowly brought out in Sanyue's daily work. While ensuring the freshness and topic of the theme, the episodes always refuse to be curious and present the working status of funeral practitioners peacefully. lists the remains, preside over the funeral, and repairs the remains. With the help of his master and colleagues, Sanyue gradually understood the various rules in these seemingly "unlucky" work, and also discovered the sacred significance of funeral practitioners as ferrymen for rebirths, which also helped the audience to remove prejudice and fear towards them.
episodes adopt the unit drama mode, each episode presents the story behind 1-2 reeds, and then extends the breadth of the subject matter and explores the various aspects of the world with death as an incision. The exploration of the afterlife points to the reshaping of the concept of death itself. Only by facing death and understanding the meaning of death can one live toward death. The drama thus transforms heavy weight into healing in thinking about the ultimate topic of ending life, and relieves urban people's survival anxiety with ease, providing an outlet for the suppressed emotions of the times.
However, in the presentation of various aspects in the world, "Sanyue" is indeed suspected of hitting popular social topics in a contingent manner. has been published in 6 episodes, and topics such as gender discrimination, parental abandonment, doctor-patient disputes, feminist concepts, empty-nest elderly people have all appeared, which inevitably gives people a sense of pile up topics and excessive force. Due to the length and size, the series' discussions on these topics are just a flash of the water. They often introduce direct sensational passages that can attract the audience's emotions. When it comes to value at the end, they only use a few golden sentences to summarize the statements, which is really a bit empty and patterned.
's excessive obsession with golden sentences is also reflected in the daily lines of all kinds of people in the play. Although it is not inconsistent for everyone to think about the topic of death in the context of funeral themes, the characters always appear a little stiff when they blurt out some golden lines that are too written or even dramatic. Especially the performance rhythm of this drama is slow, and when those too solemn golden sentences suddenly appear, they all seem a little embarrassed.
Whether it is the heroine's "Little Que Sang" character, or the strange and alien temperament brought out when she tells the heavy subjects peacefully, and the frequent lines writing methods, they all make the style of "Sanyue" and the Japanese drama style. Although this drama is an original script, it always gives people a feeling that it is adapted from a Japanese drama, which is difficult to fully fit the domestic context, and even some are not adapted to the local environment. I believe that this style positioning is related to the user positioning of B website for its audience's favorite Japanese content. , and this is not the first time that a self-produced drama on Bilibili has been rated as a "like a Japanese drama".
B website's self-produced drama style exploration:
Top topics, strong character design, imitation of overseas
As early in the Douban short review area of the first long video self-produced drama "Wind Dog", many people were impressed by the exaggerated style of the Japanese comic style in the early stage of the series. The Taiwanese drama "The Algorithm of Justice" co-produced by Bilibili this year with Disney+ also made the audience call it "Taiwanese version of Li Gouhi (transliteration of the Japanese drama "Legal High" with legal theme)" due to its exaggerated performance, golden sentence output, and strong topicality. The benchmark target of
B website's self-produced dramas is not only Japanese dramas. Last year, " Sudden Holiday ", which focuses on the theme of female growth + memorial, was compared with the British drama " London Life " because of its heroine's character and mouth-browed lines.
A number of self-produced dramas on B stations have style convergence with overseas dramas. This is by no means accidental, but the inevitable result of B station catering to its own audience's preferences. "Legal High" and "Life in London" are both popular dramas , which are highly discussed on B station (although B station does not have the copyright of "Legal High", a large number of drama behind-the-scenes and editing still occupy the popular film and television area). 's love for Japanese comics, Japanese dramas and other Japanese content is also an important label for the majority of B station's second-dimensional users.
Based on the imitation of the style of overseas dramas, most of the self-produced dramas on B station focus on youthful and realistic themes. "Wind Dog" and "Best Friend" tell the youth story of the present generation; "The Algorithm of Justice" and "Sanyue Have a New Job" take the legal and funeral industries as the starting point, leading to multiple social hot topics; "Sanyue" and "Sudden Holiday" shape the strong heroine with "small and sadness" and full of attributes, which resonates with the audience of Generation Z. " Double Mirror " and "Treasure Record" which are not realistic, also use the novel setting of "killer X writer" Lily CP, sweet pet + food, to make innovations in the themes of the Republic of China and ancient costumes.
is not difficult to summarize. attracts the attention of viewers with strong social topics and strong character settings to create novel stories, so as to get close to the interests of the Z-generation users on the site in style exploration. This is the current production methodology of self-made dramas on Bilibili. Most of the TV series such as
have good reputations, and their ratings on B station are at least 8 points. Dramas such as "Double Mirror", "Justice", and "Vacation" have even won more than 9 points. On the more stringent Douban, the scores of B station's self-produced TV series are also around 7 points. can already be considered stable quality control in domestic dramas. However, in the Douban comment section, there are many controversies about the "strike-up" overseas drama styles that are difficult to implement. The topics and golden sentences are too full of preaching, which leads to the strange and embarrassing controversy in the overall temperament. In terms of the playback performance of
dramas, in addition to "Wind Dog", which became a hit in the summer of 570 million views, most of the self-produced dramas on other B stations hovered between 100 million and 200 million. Currently, several dramas are small-scale short dramas with 12-26 episodes, and the average number of views remains at around 10 million. Although it can be said to be stable, it is really lukewarm.
shows that the production methodology of self-produced dramas on Bilibili is by no means omnipotent. The controversy and bottlenecks that a number of dramas have fallen into in terms of reputation and playback performance reflects the growth dilemma that Bilibili's self-produced dramas need to be solved urgently.
retention is difficult to attract new things. The growth dilemma of self-produced dramas on
B website
B website self-produced dramas on the current production methodology is obviously to cater to the preferences of existing users on the site, improve the retention rate of large members, and extend the length of viewing users' videos. B website's second quarter financial report this year shows that the average daily usage time of users on the site has reached 89 minutes, an increase of 9 minutes from the same period last year, and the retention rate of official members in the 12th month is as high as 83%. Although it is difficult to intuitively determine how much contribution the self-produced drama has made in it, it must have played a role.
However, although B station's drama style exploration has received a lot of praise among the users on the site, it has failed to gain greater acceptance on platforms with more diverse audiences. The drama circle is still relatively limited, and reputation is difficult to spread. It can also be seen from the number of views that the playback situation of self-produced dramas on B station has touched the ceiling, and the growth space is very limited, and key series like "Sanyue" is also difficult to pull. The content of
is not enough to promote it. In terms of drama promotion, B has already put a lot of effort into operating the site. homepage headlines continue to push widely. Based on the existing communication characteristics of the short video platform, it has produced a large number of short videos such as highlights of dramas, vertical screen theaters, etc., and designed special promotion activities for each drama to attract UP main players to produce drama comments and editing, etc., with the intention of forming a traffic self-cycle that is mutually beneficial to the UP main players and the drama. Although the operating model of
B website is very mature, the drama itself is not popular enough and can only attract existing users. If the ability to attract new users is lacking, everything will be in vain. After the small hit "Wind Dog", except for the doctor-patient conflict related to "Justice Algorithm", the second-chuang
video obtained 8 million views per video, and the second-chuang video in other series even exceeded one million views., in contrast, is the popular TV series " Beginning " and " Dream Hualu " of long-term video platforms such as iQiu and Tencent this year, and the popularity of dramas such as Erchuang Video in the film and television zone is easily over one million views. is in the context of iQiyi and Tencent sharing the seats between iQiyi and B station, and Douyin and iQiyi join forces to become the innovation position of film and television dramas. Bi station must also intend to use self-made dramas as a new growth point to resist, but the current situation is obviously unsatisfactory.
. In the publicity battlefields such as Weibo and Douyin outside the site, due to the positioning of B station’s short video platform and the difficulty of breaking the circle of dramas, it is difficult to produce the brand effect of B station’s self-produced dramas. The popularity of the public is limited, so it basically does not have the ability to attract new talents. Interestingly, when every self-produced drama on B station is released, there are comments that think it is the first self-produced drama on B station.
Looking overseas, YouTube, which is regarded as the benchmark for B station, also entered the field of self-made dramas and variety shows in 2015, intending to use original content to drive the growth of its own streaming members. This strategy has been implemented for less than four years. During this period, YouTube produced more than 60 self-produced dramas, and it is impossible to say that it is a waste of money. However, compared with giants such as Netflix and Amazon. The voice of the series has always been small, and its ability to pull new things is far less than expected. Ultimately, YouTube announced its withdrawal from the original content field in early 2019 and refocused on UGC video content.
YouTube's ambition of self-produced dramas failed to survive the fourth year. The self-produced dramas on Bilibili, which are also in the fourth year, is hard to say the road ahead. At the second quarter of this year's financial report conference call, CEO 3 Chen Rui
mentioned "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" many times, and said that he should "focus on doing less and do important things. If non-core things can be done, don't do them," claiming that "growth is still the most important task of B station."Under this strategy, it is difficult to attract new things by retention. Is the self-produced drama of B station that is in the dilemma of growth? Has it become a "non-core thing"? Will B.com choose to continue to try and explore in the field of self-produced dramas, or will it stop and retreat like YouTube? Just like the title of the first episode of "Three Yues", the self-produced drama on Bilibili may have to find "the reason to survive."
