Author | Mingming
Editor | Wang Ruoye
Southeast Asia is becoming the "promised land" of the domestic entertainment industry.
Not long ago, Zhang Yixing , who has debuted for ten years, held the 2022 "Great Sail II·Nearly Land" tour concert at the first stop of Malaysia . His subsequent tour plans also include Singapore and Thailand. Another top star, Wang Jiaer , is driven by its new brand 88RiSing, which is positioned in "pan-Asia", and her first world tour plan for the end of this year to the beginning of next year is Bangkok, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore as the first three stops. In addition to offline performances of
, domestic film and television dramas, mobile games, etc. have always had a market in Southeast Asia, and domestic streaming media platforms have repeatedly mentioned the growth of the Southeast Asian market in their financial reports. In addition, recently, Chen Kexin established the "Pan Asia" film and television production company Changin' Pictures, and announced five projects from Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Japan. For a time, "entertainment going overseas" caused heated discussion.
The entertainment industry collectively migrates to Southeast Asia, which still has a large number of demographic dividends, and it is becoming a common trend. The domestic market is cold, and platforms and artists are going overseas to hunt for gold, looking for new vitality and possibilities.
Entertainment industry "gold-seeking" Southeast Asia
Chinese IP and Chinese stars are popular in Southeast Asia, and platforms are crowded with them to seize Southeast Asia, which has its unique advantages and inevitability. Due to its regional advantages and historical origins, there are many Chinese and overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore and other places, and are deeply influenced by Chinese culture. The entire Asian culture is integrated with each other, and the cooperation between cross-border platforms is deepened, providing diversified channels for works and artists to go overseas.
In addition, domestic censorship has become stricter, and Southeast Asia has become the film and television production Plan B. The movie " Murder Killing " and the online drama " Chinatown Detective " cleverly obtain a larger narrative scale by placing the background in Southeast Asia. The cooperation between China and Thailand, China and Vietnam and China-Malaysia will be deepened and will gain greater imagination space.
Thailand and other places have developed "corrupt culture". "Half Blown off " and "Explanation of My Love with Your Heart 1&2" have become popular in many countries, and the actor's pay and production costs are low. With many sensitive IP accumulation in China, may be conducive to the Dan-modification theme that has been closed in China to welcome the "second spring" , such as iQiyi's self-produced drama "The Gangster Master Falls in Love with Me" that became popular.
When the existing market tends to be saturated, it is necessary to expand emerging markets and sinking markets. This is the logic of many Internet applications launching the "speed version", and it is also the reason why big manufacturers are seizing Southeast Asia.
film and television dramas expand their overseas scale, the platform's deepening of the Southeast Asian market layout year by year. LeTV registered an account on YouTube in 2013, which is the earliest platform to go overseas. In June 2019, the overseas version of Tencent Video , WeTV, officially entered the Thai market. At the same time, iQIYI also launched the international version of IQIYI APP, reaching cooperation with Malaysia's No. 1 media brand Astro. The following year, WeTV officially announced its entry into many countries and regions such as Indonesia , Vietnam, India and Malaysia. In June, Tencent acquired Malaysian streaming platform iflix. Last year, WeTV achieved an exclusive cooperation with Malaysian media Media Prima. iQiyi and Changxin Media cooperated to establish "Pamper Entertainment" in Malaysia, committed to building the largest artist brokerage company in Southeast Asia.
drama conflict has a more intense, rich Chinese characteristics, and the story itself has a certain cognitive foundation in the local area. It was once the "vanguard" and "dominant force" of Chinese dramas going to Southeast Asia. When " Return to the Condor Heroes " was broadcast, it broke or approached the highest viewing record of Chinese-language TV series in various countries in history. "Story of Yanxi Palace", " The Legend of Zhen Huan ", " Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace ", etc. all have far-reaching influence.
In the past few years, the Dan-style and sweet pet themes have become the hottest, becoming the new "dear" of ratings after going to Southeast Asia. For example, " Untamed " dominated the list of Thai Twitter on WeTV, with more than 100 million views. The starring actor held a meeting in Thailand, while Xiao Zhan became popular in Thailand. Other popular dramas include "The Legend of Chen Qianqian" and " Three Life Three Worlds Pillow Book ".
In recent years, similar to Netflix's localized content layout in Asia, Domestic streaming media has launched a number of homemade dramas in Southeast Asia that cater to the tastes of the local market. iQiyi released 6 original Asian content film lists in 2020. "Saying Goodbye" and "Hello, Heart" are the first local language original dramas to be launched in Southeast Asia. Last year, it launched its first Southeast Asian self-made drama " Soul Ferry·Legend of Nanyang ". Tencent has launched "Mystery of the Dead" and "Cheng Xinchengyi", and it is rumored that its backlog of dan-modification projects may be launched locally.
Southeast Asian domestic dramas have been introduced from the initial copyright, and have been further upgraded to purchasing copyright remake . It is worth mentioning that this year's "This! The Vietnamese version of "Street Dance Vit Nam" was broadcast, and the Chinese online variety show achieved a "zero breakthrough" in the program mode.
If the popularity of Chinese dramas in Southeast Asia is due to the advantages of cultural similarity, then the popularity of games in Southeast Asia is due to the talent and technical advantages of the domestic game industry. Its market is still in its infancy and has not yet produced monopoly gaming giants. Its local games still have certain phenomena such as "borrowing copycats". "2021 Southeast Asian Mobile Game Market Insights" released by Sensor Tower shows that the total download volume and revenue of mobile games in the Southeast Asian market in 2021 increased by 6% and 15% respectively compared with 2020, among which Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines became the three highest downloads in Southeast Asia with downloads of 3.1 billion, 1.7 billion and 1.4 billion respectively.
data statistics show that the celebrity products of domestic manufacturers such as Tencent, Mihayou , Lilith, Motong, Chaoxi Guangnian have entered the top 10 annual revenues of the Southeast Asian mobile game market. A total of 48 Chinese mobile games were shortlisted for the Top 100 best-selling list in Southeast Asia, attracting a total of about US$980 million, accounting for 54.0% of the total revenue of the Top 100. In the post-epidemic era, the home economy is sweeping, and leisure mobile games are more favored by the local government.
digital music, Tencent’s music streaming media JOOX and Byte’s Resso. Taiwan's KKBox fights with giants Spotify and Apple Music locally. The above-mentioned "going out to sea" mainly stays at the upper level, and the concert means real offline going out to sea.
Past Xue Zhiqian and many other stars will also use Southeast Asia as a tour station. The current Southeast Asian tour is different from past performances, which lies in the "survival" and "change" under the epidemic for three years. The "2021 National Performance Market Annual Report" shows that last year, the performance market size decreased by 41.31% year-on-year compared with 2019. Southeast Asia, as a "transfer station" and "springboard", has generated greater radiation capabilities in business meetings, offline performances and other fields.
In summary, new competitive and cooperative relationships are constantly emerging in various cultural and entertainment fields in China and Southeast Asia.
What other pains do you have when going to sea?
According to statistics, as of the end of 2021, the number of netizens in Southeast Asia was about 440 million, ranking third in the world. It is the fastest growing Internet market in the world from 2015 to 2020, and its market size will exceed US$360 billion in 2025. Data shows that the consumption time of online video in major Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand more than doubled in the first quarter of 2021 to 25.7 billion hours, and climbed to 27.7 billion hours in the fourth quarter.
Southeast Asia currently seems to be able to reflect the "past years of China": Digital economy is in full swing, the Internet population is growing sharply, and there is still a lot of room for growth in smartphone coverage, video coverage, and payment habits. As a major e-sports country and a large population, Indonesia has considerable potential for the development of the game industry.The blue ocean market of is very attractive, but it also has many challenges.
First of all, the domestic platform of goes overseas in Southeast Asia, facing the same-stage competition from multiple international competitors such as Netflix. statistics show that among the online streaming media in Southeast Asia in 2022, the most popular content types are Korean dramas (30%), American dramas (23%), and Chinese dramas (14%). The number of paid users of Disney+ ranks first in the local area. Hong Kong OTT platform Viu has surpassed Netflix by the end of 2021 to become the second largest streaming media service provider in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. User payment ability is limited and the platform competition is fierce, so "low price" will inevitably become a weapon to compete for the market.
From the content level, the strength of costume dramas in going overseas has exposed the weakness of Chinese dramas in urban themes. Of course, this situation has been improved to a certain extent with the advancement of national drama , but in general, more popular products are still needed, and the inherent labels are removed.
, like the popular female group portrait urban drama " thirty only ", has been popular in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, becoming the Chinese TV series with the highest new media on-demand rate in 2020, and was bought by South Korea and Vietnam. The popular suspense drama "The Beginning" was bought by Netflix at the beginning of the year and was also broadcast in many Southeast Asian countries.
In addition, domestic dramas are cheaper than American dramas overseas copyrights, and their bargaining power is weaker. Although going overseas has become a must-have option for most Chinese dramas in the early stages of development, they are mainly used to promote their own influence and do not bring actual large-scale coverage to the cost - it is estimated that they usually only account for one tenth or less, which are issues that need to be improved.
In addition, Southeast Asian countries have a large population density, numerous ethnic groups, and their economic development level is not similar to government policies. They have complex and differentiated religious beliefs, living and cultural customs, which means that during the overseas trip, it is necessary to pay attention to localization and content compliance, so as to avoid stepping into the "minefield".
As the number one market for domestic entertainment industry to go overseas, Southeast Asia, which has a high cultural closeness, should not be the only place to go overseas with a strong sense of existence. Southeast Asian market can "proof" the expansion of film and television and games in other markets such as Japan, South Korea, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, and provide lessons. The differences between different cultures will always exist, only universal values and universal empathy can break this difference and barrier.
From a positive perspective, China has in-depth cooperation with ASEAN , and the entertainment industry has gone overseas, which has the significance of "telling Chinese stories and spreading cultural confidence". From another perspective, we need to think about how to learn from our strengths and weaknesses in the process of going global, learn from excellent local experience, and avoid the loss of domestic talents.
