The operation cost of the webcast platform is high, and its income mainly includes advertising revenue, rewards for users (including gifts and props), cooperation with game companies and peripheral manufacturers, etc. However, according to industry sources, advertising and other income can not fully cover the cost of most live broadcast platforms, and many live broadcast platforms still rely on "financing" support.
Recently, a survey report on webcasting shows that there are about 200 webcasting platforms in China, and almost half of netizens said that they have seen webcasting. Some netizens wondered, with so many webcasting platforms, does it mean that it is very simple or low-cost to make a live broadcast platform? What is the cost geometry of these live broadcast platforms? Where does the income come from? In the live webcast, millions of people watch it at the same time. So, are these audience figures true? What is the income of the anchors? In the interview, Beijing Youth Daily reporter learned that at present, most live broadcast platforms are still in a state of "burning money", of which the highest cost is the cost of anchor and broadband, and the highest anchor has an annual salary of 3 million.
phenomenon
Top anchor has an annual income of 3 million
There are many kinds of webcasts, and games are a major part of webcasts. Traditional game content, due to various reasons, rarely appears in the mainstream media, and there is no unified channel in the game digital charging channel. However, in the live webcast, the game has become one of the most important contents of several live broadcast platforms, attracting millions of users to watch it every day. Dong Rongjie, executive vice president of YY, once said, "Up to now, we are very optimistic about the live broadcast of the game. Although it faces a lot of problems as far as the status quo is concerned, we are still very optimistic about the live broadcast of the game from our mentality and strategy."
A "gold anchor price list of a live broadcast platform" circulated on the Internet shows that the highest anchor signing price of the platform has reached 2 million in January, equivalent to 24 million years. The anchors in this price list are all from popular online games, such as LOL and dota2. Their daily live broadcast time is from 12: 00 to 20: 00, and the signing price ranges from 500,000 to 2 million per month. This kind of "worth" is even comparable to a first-line star.
But "worth" or "signing price" is not the real income that the anchor gets personally. Miss, the anchor who signed a platform with a net worth of 17 million, officially responded a few days ago: "The real number is far lower than the previous reports of the media. In the video industry, large-scale program cooperation involves dozens of teams, a large amount of equipment investment, etc. It is not unusual for tens of millions of companies to cooperate. My income is not that high. " In other words, the cost of manpower and equipment of online programs is high, and the price of cooperation needs to cover the above costs, and only a small part of it eventually falls into the pocket of personal anchors. According to industry sources, at present, the annual income of top anchors is 3 million, and there are not many who can make millions.
experience
The "gift" given by the audience to the anchor is expensive.
The reporter of Beiqing Daily randomly opened a live broadcast website and saw that there were advertisements for two games directly above and below the live broadcast page, and the middle was the main window of live broadcast. On the right side of the live broadcast window, the conversation between users and others will be displayed in real time, and if a user gives a gift to the main broadcast, it will be displayed in real time. At the top of the page, there are some users’ names and rankings. These are the top ten users who gave gifts in this live broadcast.
At the same time, "Quiz this game" is displayed in the lower left corner of the live broadcast window. After logging in, users can bet to answer the quiz questions. If the quiz is correct, the system will settle the accounts in proportion, and these "notes" need users to spend money to buy in the early stage. In addition, at the bottom of the page is "Hot Promotion", which includes officially promoted hardware, props, activities and other advertising content such as other games and hardware.
In the live broadcast, the audience will give the anchor "gifts". Although these gifts are virtual, they are expensive when converted into RMB. For example, in the fish fighting platform, there are props such as fish balls, shark fins, airplanes and rockets, among which fish balls are the cheapest, about 100 fish balls =1 horn, and one shark fin in 1 yuan, while airplanes and rockets are worth 100 and 500 shark fins respectively, that is, 100 yuan and 500 yuan. A user told the reporter of Beiqing Daily that it is common to be smashed by hundreds of thousands in a live broadcast. He said that the name of the user who gave the gift will be displayed in the live broadcast room, and the name of the user who gave the high-value gift will be directly displayed on the barrage of the live broadcast screen; If you send the same gift, you can also brush out a visual effect. Not only will other users in the room pay attention to which "local tyrant" gave it, but the anchor will also thank him specially in the program.
However, according to reports, these gifts are not all owned by the anchor, but are divided into the anchor and the platform. Different platforms are divided into different types, some are divided into five or five, and some are divided into three or seven, while some well-known anchors are separately discussed. Therefore, this share becomes a part of the platform revenue.
press sb for an interview
The number of people on the webcast platform has moisture.
One day last year, Xiao Zhi, a well-known anchor, entered into a battle with a well-known domestic team to play LOL games on the platform of DouYu. Real-time data shows that the number of people watching the live broadcast in this room once soared to 4.44 million, which was captured by netizens and widely circulated on the Internet.
However, the number of network platforms is often questioned with great moisture. According to some users, different platforms have different moisture content, and some rooms will show hundreds of thousands or even millions of online people when they broadcast live in the middle of the night, which is "very unscientific". On September 19th last year, the public micro-signal of "E-sports" broke the Oolong event of DouYu’s number: when the original WE players smiled and broadcast live on the betta platform, the number of viewers actually exceeded "1.3 billion", which is almost the total population of our country.
Some engineers have simulated N users visiting the live broadcast room at the same time on a single PC, and found that the number of online rooms with 120,000 people on the platform may be only 40,000, and the water content is as high as 70%. In addition, in September 2014, an anchor directly revealed during the live broadcast that the platform displayed 120,000 viewers, but 80,000 viewers for the anchor, because his performance was determined by the number of viewers.
reveal a secret
The live broadcast platform is still supported by "financing"
In the video industry, in addition to the cost of manpower, a large number of equipment investment costs are also very high, and broadband investment is a large part of it. Yin Hu, head of Zhanqi TV, said that the monthly bandwidth expenditure of Zhanqi TV is as high as 10 million. Broadband determines the image quality and speed, and these factors directly affect the user experience of live broadcast. Affected by high broadband fees, many live broadcast platforms are losing money. Jia Wei, vice president of Momo, said in an interview that Momo’s income can already pay for broadband costs.
According to an industry insider, the bandwidth of some live broadcast platforms is based on the peak monthly bandwidth of this month. Then, according to the bandwidth cost of 20 million yuan /T/ month given by the current industry, assuming that according to the current standards, the definition provided to users is 720P, which is equivalent to about 1.5M bandwidth for each user, then if there are 1 million viewers watching the live broadcast at the peak, it will need about 1.5T bandwidth. According to this calculation, the theoretical bandwidth cost of the live broadcast platform is about 30 million yuan per month. However, due to the application of IDC, CDN and other technologies in live broadcast, that is, allowing multiple people to operate concurrently, the actual bandwidth and cost occupied are also lower than this figure, and some may be divided by 3, which is about 10 million yuan per month.
But if the peak exceeds 1 million viewers, the cost will rise. Take Huya TV as an example, its investor Huanju Times’ financial report for the fourth quarter of 2015 shows that the revenue from Huya live broadcast in the fourth quarter of 2015 was RMB 133.6 million (about US$ 20.6 million), and the bandwidth expenditure in the fourth quarter (including Huya live broadcast and other services) was RMB 161.1 million (about US$ 24.9 million), and the monthly bandwidth expenditure exceeded RMB 50 million.
Cao Jin, former executive vice president of YY, said in an interview with the media, "In terms of operating the e-sports live competition platform, the current cost of broadband accounts for about 40% of the overall operating cost, and the cost of content including copyright, events and teams accounts for 30%-40%, and 20% is the company’s operating cost. Some companies still need to pay about 20% of the cost in promotion, which is very expensive to do. "
However, although the live broadcast platform has high operating costs, its income methods are also diverse. It is understood that the revenue of the live broadcast platform mainly includes advertising revenue, user rewards (including gifts, props, etc.), and cooperation with game companies and peripheral manufacturers. According to insiders, advertising and other income can not fully cover the cost of most live broadcast platforms, and many live broadcast platforms still rely on "financing" support.
In March of this year, Betta TV, the live broadcast platform, announced that it had received over $100 million in financing from Series B led by Tencent, and both Series A investors Sequoia Capital and Nanshan Capital will continue to invest; In February of this year, ImbaTV announced that it had won the investment of heroes’ mutual entertainment; At the end of last year, the live broadcast community Fire Cat TV announced that it had obtained the $10 million Series A financing of Youku Tudou. In November last year, the game live broadcast platform Dragon Ball completed nearly 100 million US dollars of financing, which was led by Youjiu Games and followed by Tencent. In December last year, virtual hall, a live video platform, won the B round of RMB financing & HELIP; … Many cases show that the game live broadcast platform is booming in financing, and financing is also the way for the live broadcast platform to survive.
Supervision
The "anchor blacklist" is still being updated.
In January of this year, Betta TV was "live broadcast". Previously, the platform was repeatedly exposed to indecent videos and anchor large-scale live videos; In addition to fighting fish, many live broadcast platforms also have similar problems, and the supervision of live broadcast platform content has become a common concern of the industry and the government.
In March of this year, the National Office for Combating Pornography said that in view of the recent situation of pornographic and vulgar online broadcast platforms, the National Office for Combating Pornography coordinated the deployment of the National Network Information Office, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and other departments, and seriously dealt with the responsible persons and units involved in the alleged dissemination of obscene videos, such as betta "live broadcast". At the same time, the monitoring of major live broadcast platforms should be strengthened. For example, the Ministry of Public Security has set up cyber security police offices on YY and other key live broadcast websites, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has organized technical forces to conduct information security assessments on more than 50 mainstream live broadcast platforms at home and abroad, and timely cooperated with relevant departments to do a good job in handling illegal and illegal information of live webcasting according to law. In addition, it also urged all localities to seriously deal with illegal live broadcast platforms, investigate the legal responsibilities of relevant personnel and units, and coordinate relevant departments to suspend business for rectification until it is closed.
In addition to government departments to increase punishment, industry self-discipline is also an important aspect. In April this year, a number of webcasting platforms jointly issued the "Beijing Webcasting Industry Self-discipline Convention". It is understood that the "Convention" was jointly drafted by the Beijing Cultural Law Enforcement Corps and the Beijing Network Culture Association. The contents include that anchors need real-name authentication, live webcasts should be kept for no less than 15 days, and no registration channels should be provided for anchors under the age of 18. At the same time, a number of anchors are included in the "anchor blacklist", and the blacklisted anchors will no longer be employed by the webcast platform, and this list is still being updated.
Text/reporter Wen Wei for the picture/vision china