The Paper
The Paper 0The Paper embarks on a new journey.
htmlOn August 8, The Paper, which just celebrated its 8th birthday, announced that it had officially completed its Series B financing: Shanghai Cultural Industry Development Investment Fund (hereinafter referred to as "Shangwen Investment") has an exclusive strategic investment of 400 million yuan, and has increased its capital and stake in the operating entity of The Paper, Shanghai Oriental News Co., Ltd. After the capital increase is completed, the above investment will become the second largest shareholder of The Paper.As media convergence transformation and development enters deep waters and faces many challenges, the arrival of this financing of The Paper is of great significance.
"Complete the B round of financing and obtaining financial support can further accelerate our business layout. More importantly, the entry of the above-mentioned investment investment in market-oriented operations is of great significance to the further deepening of reform and once again surging forward." Recently, Liu Yonggang, President and Editor-in-Chief of The Paper, introduced in an exclusive interview with reporters that the comprehensive effect brought by financing is "a transformation driving force that is deeper, longer, and more self-driven than funds."
President and editor-in-chief Liu Yonggang, Pengpai News,
"Pengpai News' successful financing this time is also a major positive incentive for the media industry." Liu Yonggang said that he hopes that this successful financing will help Pengpai further expand its business model and continuously open up the ceiling of realizable value. The Paper will always focus on creating a new mainstream Internet media with global influence, and will continue to improve and strengthen the full-chain content ecological service provider and a better digital life empowerer.
As a pioneer in the transformation and development of media convergence, The Paper was officially launched on July 22, 2014. Over the past eight years, The Paper has been continuously iterating and has always been the leader in the transformation of domestic media integration. It has firmly ranked as the leading position of domestic mainstream media in various indicators such as communication and influence.
Why did The Paper conduct a Series B financing at this time? After the successful financing, where will The Paper go and how will it change in the future? Media integration development has entered a period of breaking the wall, where is the new momentum? Let’s see Liu Yonggang’s answer.
The iteration of The Paper
Reporter: From the new mainstream media in the Internet to the full-chain content ecological service provider, why has Pengpai been active at the forefront of media integration and transformation over the years?
Liu Yonggang: The birth and development of the surging world have the right time, place and people. Eight years ago, in accordance with the spirit of the central government on promoting the integrated development of traditional media and emerging media, under the care and promotion of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, Municipal Government and Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department, and with the careful preparation of the Shanghai Newspaper Group , we launched the overall transformation based on Oriental Morning News, which became one of the landmark events for Chinese traditional media to enter the mobile Internet and one of the landmark events for China's media integration development.
Over the past eight years, with the support and encouragement of all walks of life and parties, we have always adhered to the principle of adhering to integrity and innovation, and adhered to mainstream values. At the same time, we have used the latest communication technologies, means and methods to make serious current affairs news beautiful and pleasing, make monotonous text and pictures rich and colorful, and make one-way communication and indoctrination into conscious interaction.
We have never forgotten the original intention of the media and strive to make the media what it should be. We have always followed the latest technology, but we have always been careful not to be swept by technology and not fall into a formalistic carnival. We also emphasize "building hard villages and fighting stupid wars". For example, during this year's "Big Shanghai Defense War", we extended the service boundaries, launched the "fighting epidemic service" matrix, built three major platforms for fighting epidemic services, assisting enterprises services, and employment services, and took out the "nails" to solve the "urgent, difficult and anxious" problems for citizens.
Although the surging seems to be at the forefront, we have always had a strong sense of crisis and have always been anxious about unpredictability and uncertainty. We don’t know how technology will evolve, how user preferences will change, and we don’t know what kind of aggregation reactions will occur in the combination of policy, technology, and user preferences. Our way of dealing with it is to stay true to innovation, leverage strength and change.To this end, in the past eight years, we have further established the status of the new mainstream media in the Internet and further transformed into a full-chain content ecological service provider. We also introduced strategic investors twice in December 2016 and August 2022 respectively. While obtaining financial support, we also leverage external resources to promote surging internal reforms. From an internal perspective, we have been "torming" and are always seeking adaptability to change from strategy, content, monetization to management.
B round financing introduction above invested in
reporter: As you said, in the past 8 years, The Paper has been iterating and becoming one of the benchmarks for the development of Chinese media integration. For what reasons, The Paper has launched a B round financing? How to determine the introduction of the above investment as the investor?
Liu Yonggang: In September 2020, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the " Opinions on Accelerating the Deep Integration and Development of Media", proposing to give full play to the role of the market mechanism, enhance the market competition awareness and capabilities of mainstream media, explore the establishment of an operating model of "news + government service business", innovate media investment and financing policies, and enhance self-producing functions.
This further strengthens our confidence. We are more convinced that we should, and have the ability, and we are also very excited to promote the deepening of institutional and mechanism reform through a new round of financing through market-oriented mechanisms and further stimulate the vitality of innovative development.
Pengpai's financing took more than a year before and after this round of financing. It should be said that in the current environment, it is not easy to successfully complete this round of financing, but this may just prove the characteristics and value of surging.
Pengpai Over the years, there will be new products or major iterations almost every July, but we are increasingly feeling the arrival of a bottleneck.Pengpai must break through itself and the existing model, put itself in a broader background, and change itself more bravely and profoundly. The deeper the transformation of media integration develops, the more new driving force is needed.
Therefore, we are very looking forward to promoting the integration of The Paper with the market closer by introducing new strategic investors, keeping up with new technologies, fitting more firmly with new trends, and forming a joint effort to push The Paper to move beyond itself. The reason why
chose the "Shangwen Investment" is because of its deep conceptual compatibility. The "Shangwen Investment" team has a very understanding of Pengpai, fully recognizes the unique value and influence of Pengpai News, and is also full of confidence in the future development of Pengpai. In addition, the above-mentioned Wentou is an industrial guidance fund approved by the Shanghai Municipal Government, and it is also a market-oriented fund. We all believe that their mission and understanding of cultural media, their strategy and resource coordination, and their requirements and pressure on the Shanghai are precious to the development of the Shanghai.
new projects and new strategies are released: Pengpai has been trying to go out of the circle to develop
Reporter: In addition to announcing the completion of the B round of financing, Pengpai News has also released a new round of development strategy, with five new sectors involving content, technology and operations fully launched. Pengpai News has also simultaneously launched government and business service projects such as the "China Urban Cultural Brand Plan" and the "New Consumer Brand Partner Plan". What does the full launch of the new sector mean for The Paper?
Liu Yonggang: "Smart Media Open Platform" is a newly created smart media technology brand by The Paper. Relying on the technical strength and transformation experience of The Paper, it provides the media and content industry with one-stop solutions including content production, review, distribution, commercialization and ecological construction.
"Pengpai Mingcha" Chinese and English website platform will be based on the website, radiating the account operation matrix of major social platforms, mobilizing a wide range of professional social forces to participate in the verification and reporting, and shaping a real and colorful China in the verification and reporting.
"Digital Content Ecological Laboratory" initiated by The Paper aims to create a digital content security and governance research and service organization that integrates industry, academia and research, carry out research on the evolution mechanism of content ecology and its regulatory countermeasures mechanism, and provide theoretical research support, decision-making references and technical support for digital content ecology innovation and governance.
At the same time, our China Urban Culture Brand Plan will focus on urban IP, reevaluate the value of urban cultural brand, explore new paths for urban cultural brand shaping, encourage the production and investment of urban cultural products, and serve the new circle of urban cultural consumption. New Consumer Brand Partner Program will empower growth brands, accompanying the joint growth of new consumer brands, and promote the resilient growth of China's manufacturing under multiple challenges.
For Pengpai, "it is better to die than to develop" because we have no reason or capital to lie down. These new sectors and projects are our efforts and attempts to always stick to ourselves, while constantly looking for vitality and breakthroughs. We have always hoped that the media should insist on being a good media, and at the same time, the media must surpass the media.
completed the B round of financing. Where will The Paper go?
Reporter: Back to the B round of financing, with the entry of the B round of market-oriented investors, what is the significance of the future development of The Paper?
Liu Yonggang: Web3.0, NFT, and metaverse are deeply affecting the development process of the global media ecosystem. The Paper wants to do a lot of things, and time is endless.
At this moment, we must accelerate the comprehensive layout in production tools, copyright materials, content risk control, aggregation and distribution through capitalization and marketization, and further strengthen existing advantages. We must also continue to innovate and change, expand more development space, and practice more long-term exploration.
completed the B round of financing, on the one hand, to obtain financial support, so that the business layout of The Paper's business can be accelerated, the implementation of planning, and the scale can be achieved. More importantly, the requirements for market-oriented operation and pressure on future development brought by the above investment will surely promote Pengpai News to further deepen reforms and move forward again.
In fact, Pengpai News has established an enterprise-oriented and market-oriented operation path since its launch. After the A round of strategic investors entered in December 2016, it has substantially promoted Pengpai's operational changes, and Pengpai has basically established a governance structure for new mainstream media companies in the Internet. But we also feel that although the architecture has been gradually established, there has not been a fundamental change in the core of corporate culture and operating mechanism. As media integration transformation enters the deep stage, reform has also entered the deep waters, and it is necessary to face more deep-seated conflicts of concepts, cultures, inertia and interests. Therefore, we also hope that with the entry of more market-oriented investors in the B round, it can bring us new impetus. We believe that this impetus is more effective than capital and is a heartfelt and self-driven transformation driving force. For the long-term development of The Paper, this vigorous internal motivation must be available.
Reporter: What is the significance of the 400 million yuan B round of financing for The Paper?
Liu Yonggang: Media convergence transformation has been underway, and everyone is facing many new challenges. If from 2014 to 2016, many media were hesitating whether to transform from traditional media to new media in the mobile Internet era, the troubles that everyone is facing now is: reform has entered the deep waters, how to chew the "hardest bones".
After so many years of development, the first step of integration and transformation in the physical and technical sense is basically completed. But this is just a shallow transformation, which has only completed the transformation in media, which to a certain extent has allowed traditional media to keep up with the pace of the times and enhanced a certain degree of influence and communication.
But media convergence is only in progress but not completed. When we were lamenting that the media and users were in different rooms, today we are facing a situation where although the media and users are in the same room, most users either wear headphones or are chatting privately. The integration and transformation of mainstream media still requires continuous solution to old problems and face new problems.
In addition, unlike the previous rise of evening newspapers and urban newspapers, which solved the distribution, influence and revenue, the current mainstream new media still has not formed a stable and effective business model and still cannot form a self-benefit and sustainable development.
Therefore, the successful financing of The Paper is a positive incentive event for the entire industry.This reflects the firm determination of top-level design for media integration transformation, and also represents the confidence of the capital and market levels in media integration transformation. We also hope that this successful financing will help Pengpai further broaden its business model, continuously open up the ceiling of realizable value, and blaze a way for the entire industry.
Reporter: Looking ahead, after completing the B round of financing, what new development plans does The Paper have? What kind of path will The Paper take in the future and what kind of goal will it take?
Liu Yonggang: In the future, The Paper will continue to deepen its professional fields and strive to become a global influential all-media content supplier, a full-chain content ecological service provider, and a better digital life empowerer. Starting from the four aspects of content production, technical support, platform construction, and ecological services, we will comprehensively strengthen the content supply, public opinion leadership, industry empowerment and market competitiveness of The Paper.
We have always emphasized the "four modernizations" and "three types". The "Four Modernizations" refer to mainstreaming, platforming, ecologicalization and globalization.
From the perspective of mainstreaming, as a new mainstream media in the Internet, The Paper, facing the ever-changing network technology and communication pattern, adheres to mainstream values, constantly innovates voices and expressions, and continuously outputs "phenomenological" new media reports, and uses good works and good voices to spread the positive energy of the Internet. In terms of platformization, in 2016, the Sixth Tone (Sixth Tone) English communication platform was officially launched; in 2017, the official authoritative government platform of The Paper "Ask for Government" was launched; in 2018, the "Paike" platform was launched, marking further exploration of the platformization direction of The Paper. In 2019, The Paper launched the "Pengpai" channel, which is an open platform for integrated media content aggregation and openness, bringing together outstanding creators in the three major fields of government affairs, media accounts and Paike accounts, and mass-producing rich high-quality content. In terms of ecologicalization, we believe that media integration transformation is not only the business of our media, but also requires participants in the entire chain to learn from their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, we have cooperated with many companies in the industry to output our capabilities, supplement our shortcomings, empower Pengpai News and relevant units in the content industry to use new technologies and new applications, and promote the formation of a larger content ecological matrix.
In addition, we are determined to be a global media, which is not only a strategic need to strengthen the construction of international communication capabilities, but also a realistic need for technological progress to promote news dissemination to become more and more transcend national boundaries.
If the "four modernizations" are our methodology, then the "three types" of "leading", "empowering" and "global" are our goals. First of all, The Paper should insist on being the leader of mainstream values, the leader of public services, the leader of professional abilities, and the leader of media integration and transformation. Secondly, The Paper hopes to become an enabler and service provider in more industries, based on media, expand the boundaries between content and government affairs and business services, deeply intervene in all aspects of the Internet content industry, and strive for a better digital life. We will put the integrated development of media into global coordinates and the entire Internet content industry to think, unswervingly promote, and integrate The Paper into all aspects of the digital age. We also believe that globalization is irreversible, and expanding to the world and pursuing a larger stage is necessary and possible.
Editor in charge: Shi Dongdong Photo editor: Shi Jiahui
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