Abstract:
Recently, Sohu founder Zhang Chaoyang talked about today’s short dramas in an interview.
He said that short dramas and long dramas meet different user needs, and short dramas will not completely erode the market of long dramas.
The operating pressure faced by domestic long-form video platforms cannot simply be attributed to the rise of short dramas. More important reasons include user payment habits, fierce competition between platforms, and high content production costs.
Zhang Chaoyang believes: "The culprit of the economic pressure on long videos is not short dramas." The reason why overseas long video platforms can maintain operations is not because short dramas have not developed, but because of the high paying habits formed by local users in the early years.
In contrast, domestic long-form video platforms have failed to form the same level of payment habits amid fierce competition for users. This, coupled with higher content production costs, has resulted in greater operating pressure.
In his opinion, short dramas and long dramas are not completely opposite. Short dramas meet users' needs to kill fragmented time through intensive plot reversals, while long dramas and movies can provide different story experience and artistic appreciation value.
He believes that users may choose different content forms in different scenarios, and the relationship between the two is more a question of how the proportion of viewing time is allocated, rather than a simple substitution relationship.
Although short dramas have become an important content form in the video industry, Zhang Chaoyang said that he does not watch short dramas.
He said that this does not affect Sohu Video's continued expansion into this market. Sohu Video currently has a short drama channel, which is broadcast in the form of playlists. Users can watch short dramas for free, but they need to watch some non-skippable advertisements.
As for the developing AI short dramas, Zhang Chaoyang does not regard them as completely opposite to the live-action dramas.
He believes that short plays satisfy users’ needs for visualizing stories to a certain extent, and AI short plays are just one of the production forms. Whether AI short dramas, live-action short dramas, long dramas, or live broadcasts, they can all become part of the content supply.
Comments