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　　The variety show that never lacks topic attention makes people feel that this spring is like "the sun is waning." The law of industry development is superimposed on external factors, so that the era of "a phenomenal variety show can be produced with money" is gone forever, and the market is cold and chilly. The insiders believe that this is the inevitable pain of the industry during the transition period, and content innovation and model innovation are the inherent requirements for the healthy development of variety shows.

　　In the past, no one would have thought that variety shows that created topics attracted people’s attention because they had no topics.

　　Two days ago, this happened. Wang Hailin Fa Weibo, a screenwriter, said that the "fine variety" of the long video platform has been dying. He also disclosed that this year Tencent’s head variety "Half-cooked Lovers" did not get brand sponsorship until it was broadcast.

　　These days, Wang Hailin’s Weibo, together with several variety shows broadcast by Loneliness this spring, has triggered discussions in the industry.

　　The market is cold

　　Why can Weibo in Wang Hailin resonate so widely in the industry? The answer is the coldness of the variety market in the first quarter of this year.

　　According to Yunhe data, in the first quarter, only the second season of Hahahaha, the half-baked lover, the detective and the annual comedy contest had an effective broadcast volume of over 100 million, which was 5 fewer than the same period in 2021, and the overall broadcast volume decreased by 33% year-on-year.

　　As far as a single program is concerned, Half-cooked Lover has gained more than 1 billion broadcasts on the whole network. As a contrast, in 2020, Sister who braved the wind and waves had more than 5.1 billion broadcasts that year.

　　Compared with this data, what makes the industry feel the chill more intuitively is the difficulty of attracting investment and the difficulty of finding "golden owners". As the head love variety of Tencent’s video, Half-cooked Lovers has its own theme and production, and it is the most discussed variety in the first quarter with the longest popularity. However, it is such a variety show that has been in a state of "naked broadcasting" and has not received brand sponsorship. The second season of another billion-dollar variety "Hahahahaha" did not have a title, but only received sporadic sponsorship.

　　This is in stark contrast to when the market is booming. 2017 is considered to be a year of "super network synthesis" era, and the number of network synthesis programs with more than 100 million hits began to catch up with TV copyright variety shows. At that time, iQiyi created Hip-hop in China, which quickly became the "toon" of advertisers. By the second quarter, the investment amount exceeded 1 billion yuan. The data shows that from 2017 to 2019, the scale of China’s network variety market has always maintained a growth rate of more than 20%, and more than 90% of the income of the network comprehensive comes from advertising investment.

　　Turning point Since 2019, the data released by the third-party advertising data platform Digi Insight shows that from 2019 to 2021, the number of variety shows with implants in the domestic variety market has declined year after year, from 635 to 513. Since the beginning of this year, the number of variety cooperation projects in various industries has decreased across the board.

　　"Gone are the days when money was spent on a phenomenal network synthesis." Wang Hailin said.

　　Wind direction change

　　The market chill felt by professionals is an intuitive feeling that "variety shows are getting worse and worse" for the general audience. "Compared with the scores of more than 8 points in the past, it is not bad to find a variety show with a passing score." Li Ran, who has experienced the crazy era of network integration, said with emotion, "I don’t know if it’s the audience ‘ Well-informed ’ However, the quality of variety content has declined. "

　　Compared with the improvement of the audience’s aesthetic needs, the low quality of program production has been discussed for many years. However, factors such as the "wind direction change" of the industry development law, the impact of epidemic situation and policy changes have attracted more and more attention.

　　Last year, "National Variety" and "Happy Camp" stopped broadcasting after 24 years. This triggered a discussion on the life cycle of variety shows. Generally, domestic variety shows will be exhausted in four or five years. Even in foreign markets with highly developed entertainment industries, it is difficult to maintain the novelty of variety shows for more than 10 years.

　　At the same time, the long-standing tendency of excessive entertainment and commercialization of variety shows has not only been criticized by the audience, but also further strengthened supervision. Last September, the "Clear Action" launched by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television was a continuation of a series of regulatory measures, demanding that idol-cultivating programs should not be broadcast, resolutely resisting the "rice circle" culture and opposing the flow-only theory. This also made the "draft" variety show of big traffic households disappear this year.

　　On the one hand, the variety carrier naturally changes from TV to network. On the other hand, the audience’s age has changed from long to young, and the aesthetic cycle of the screen has changed round after round, and the traditional variety show mode is being brutally eliminated. With the development of the Internet, the "micro-variety" backed by short videos seems to be gradually accepted by more viewers than the "long variety" that takes several hours: on the short video platform, topics related to micro-variety can easily gain tens of billions of hits.

　　How to innovate

　　How does variety develop healthily? Pessimists believe that "confusion is long-term", while optimists see that domestic variety shows are undergoing various intense and subtle changes, which may cultivate a healthier future.

　　The consensus of the industry is that the variety show now tries to meet the diverse and changeable needs of users with the rational allocation of limited resources, and the way to achieve it is innovation.

　　In the second half of last year, a survey that accounted for more than 80% of the post-80s and post-90s showed that more than 90% of the respondents expected more quality products in domestic variety shows. As for the characteristics of a fine variety show, 65.5% of the respondents think that it is continuous innovation, high program quality and distinctive features, and 64.2% of the respondents think that it is to stick to the bottom line and promote positive values.

　　"Innovation" is not only content innovation, but also model innovation. Based on the concept of Internet community, at present, the community model of variety shows has attracted a lot of attention. In bilibili, where young people gather, variety shows such as Rap New Generation and Dance Millennium are considered as the embodiment of this model. Some people also summarize this model as: through the community to understand users’ aesthetic taste, effectively guide content creation, through the advantages of platform content fermentation, and with the help of stable user habits such as spontaneous communication and second-generation play, promote the spread of works and achieve continuous communication. In Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker and bilibili, the development of this model is worthy of attention.

　　Wang Hailin believes: "Creating high-quality content, including high-end demand and layered creation of popular tastes, may be the next direction. How to make entertainment and commercialization play a role under the current management mechanism is also an unavoidable problem in front of the platform."

　　Zhao Hao, a variety director, believes that the crisis facing the whole variety industry also means opportunities. "The era of mud and sand and mixed content is slowly passing, and the audience is verifying the sustainable development of good content. Good money will eventually expel bad money, eliminate inferior variety and retain high-quality content. This is an inevitable process." He believes that the dilemma faced by the current network variety show is precisely the pain that the industry must go through during the transition period.