Selected by Sony, the beep was verified again("Station B")mysterious attraction.

On April 9, Station B announced a $400 million strategic investment from Sony. It is also the third giant to embrace Station B, following Tencent and Ali's stake.

Sony's focus on B's standing in the entertainment sector and its influence as China's largest gaming community is also in line with Station B's usual labels, such as "secondary" and "game".

While overseas giants are only targeting B-station gaming and animation business, the latter has already stepped into the mainstream culture circle - constantly expanding content channels, in the New Year's Eve to join the 60s and 70s elements, the introduction of top-stream game anchors, and open membership services to users.

If it's said, the "gene" of Station B(secondary sub-culture)Born rebellious, these new operations undoubtedly have a sense of closeness and compromise.

It is rumored that B Station Chairman and CEO Chen Rui has a round personality, does not like to fight, in the old owner Jinshan when he is not willing to frequently clash with opponents. For 10 years, the style of Station B has been the same.

However, since Chen Rui's determination to bring Station B into the fast lane in 2019, the results have been remarkable , with Station B "breaking the wall" became a high-frequency term for discussion outside the circle.

If you are already familiar with and accustomed to B station ACG(Animation, Comics, Games)Tags, so is Chen Rui's new story good enough?

Station B has changed?

The milestone of Station B's "Out of the Circle" is the cross-Chinese New Year's Eve 2020.

It's certainly not just a party for young people. In the gorgeous stage, not only there are secondary idols, stars turn up, the scene also has veterans singing the theme song "Bright Sword", singing "Good luck to come" and the symphony played with national instruments, these make 60, 70 after the feeling of cordial.

Spontaneous Amly at Station B users(Recommended)Under, many users who do not brush station B are also attracted to the party video left a "complementary lesson" screen.

So far, the party has left 95.58 million broadcasts and 3.04 million impeachment results, the impact even compared to a TV evening.

From station B trying to break the circle layer, bridge the intergenerational differences, it is not Chen Rui ideal circle self-germination, its music and integration of the secondary community, not to be picky old users in the eyes of the kind "small broken station"(nickname)- it targets a wider group of young people.

If "the only constant is change", Station B does try to make itself richer and more three-dimensional.

On the home page of Station B, in addition to traditional channels such as "animation", "pan opera" and "game", there are more than a dozen production areas such as "dance", "technology", "life", "ghost animal" and "film and television". According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 7,000 cultural circles and more than 8 million labels on Station B.

Only the "secondary" label is constantly being torn off. Take the "living" area as an example, starting in 2017, the content of the platform living area has been continuously tilted by resources. At the end of 2018, Chen Rui also publicly stated that life video was the fastest growing segment of the platform in terms of playback and content volume in a year.

Station B is actively moving towards diversity.

One of the considerations is that although the young groups after 90, 00 and so on are the main users of station B, but with the 90 after the close to the establishment of the year, 00 after entering society, some of their attention also from the virtual world to the real world.

A notable example is that from 2019, knowledge science works began to fire in Station B, but also a number of financial UP owners, such as "hard-core semi-Buddhist fairy" "witch financial" "old Jiang Ju-reliable", their fans in Station B are 3.074 million, 2.96 million, 446,000. In the previous, hard core financial content in Station B is almost blank.

Station BUPThe main "teacher good I call he classmate" is a college student, he released in June 2019 a less than 8 minutes of 5G network speed measurement video, quickly became popular throughout the network, in station B broadcast data reached 19.7 million times, he himself quickly achieved a million fans growth.

After the video was reprinted by Chen Rui and some official media, He students really felt from the second to three yuan "crossing feeling".

"The biggest feeling is the feeling of breaking walls, " he said. " "

Through station B, He students came to the real world "influence universe", and all this marks B stand outside the circle of influence.

But the door is open, and nature has to accept the dust falling in the sun.

Many of the old users interviewed are in the same way"Bullet Finance"The community atmosphere at Station B was "diluted", he says, with complaints focused on the platform becoming mixed, marketing numbers increasing and the invasion of the food ring culture.

Take the rice circle cultural invasion as an example, the fans of the recent male star Xiao War because of dissatisfaction with their work, will include the relevant works of the platform to report(Including Station B)The malicious reporting of crazy fans makes relevantUPThe master was forced to change his name temporarily, which also led to the clean-up of a large amount of original and high-quality content on the platform.

For a time set off a bloody wind, B station old users of the rice circle dissatisfaction also escalated.

Traffic and restraint

B the cost of standing out of the ring is not only at the expense of the user's feelings, but also reflected in the real money investment.

According to Station B's 2019 Q4 financial results, total operating expenses during the reporting period amounted to 818 million yuan, up 68% YoY, of which offline activities such as holding the 2020 New Year's Eve party and other costs are not small.

In addition, the revenue structure of Station B is changing. According to Q4 earnings data, in the four main revenue structures, mobile gaming revenue increased 22% year-on-year to 871 million yuan, year-on-year growth slowed and decreased month-on-month, while the other three revenues(Advertising, live streaming and value-added services)Compared with Q3, the average month-on-month increase, and the proportion of the add-up is close to 57%, which is also the first time B station non-gaming business revenue more than half.

An internet observer told"Bullet Finance"，For a long time B station has been relying on the game to make money, but at this stage B station is getting rid of the game-only single revenue pattern.

From B station 2019 Q4 revenue composition is not difficult to see, live broadcast has become B station in addition to the game of another grip.

In the industry's view, B station into the bureau live broadcast has a kind of "aggressive" situation. First, at the end of 2019, Station B spent 800 million yuan from a group of live game players to earn the next three years "Heroes League" Global Finals China's exclusive broadcast rights, and then high-profile signing of the former fish sister Feng Timo, net signing price of up to 50 million.

You can see the desire for traffic at Station B after the lap.

You know, League of Heroes Finals live is the number one traffic black hole in the video competition circle, according to public data, the 2018 League of Heroes Global Finals independent audience reached 99.6 million, while the number of online peak reached 44 million, the average minute audience of 19.6 million.

Heavyweight events can attract target users to the platform, but also to build the game's strategic defense, the use of live games for the new business test water.

While Feng Timo's presence is slightly "contrary", but can not ignore the fact that B station native secondary users and game users have a high degree of re-engagement, in the use of live games to consolidate the old powder at the same time, but also to attract a group of her game label is not familiar with the pan-entertainment users, to provide traffic supply for the platform. After all, another label in Station B is "Singer."

If in the past, this "flow-flooding" approach is unacceptable to Chen Rui.

Station B has always had a very strict set of member audit methods: ordinary users need to pass more than 100 test questions, most of which cover the secondary field is very difficult, initially set up the answer mechanism to maintain the purity of the community.

But since last year, Station B has lowered the entry threshold for members.For no other reason, in the mobile Internet age, requiring new users to register their mobile phones has been able to isolate some users, and 100 questions are clearly not helpful to B station to expand the range of users.

Everything is changing.

As early as the second quarter of last year, Station B put forward a plan to expand the user base. In this year's conference call, Chen Rui made user growth a priority in 2020, saying that this year's monthly target is 180 million.

However, traffic must be realized in a closed loop to achieve value.

Take the game live as an example, although station B throws gold layout live, but the subsequent event is difficult to cash out, it is inevitable that there will be "loss for traffic" suspicion.

Station B also reported a net loss of 1.3 billion yuan in 2019. Although the scale of losses compared to long video platforms is not large, but there is still a shadow behind the light.

The dual pressure of commercialization

In 2019, Chen set a "small target" for Station B: to increase its market capitalisation to $10 billion within three years. This also means that Station B revenues will grow to Rmb10bn within three years.

Revenue and market capitalization growth targets, combined with Station B's ongoing outreach boundaries, also reflect the platform's urgency to scale across multiple dimensions, all of which depend on commercialization progress.

In addition to the proven profit models of game agents and interlinkers, the live-streaming business is burning money and the outlook is hard to predict, with membership payments and advertising becoming the most popular business models.

When it comes to membership payments, it has to be said about international entertainment giant Netflix(Nay fei)The former charges subscribers a membership fee by producing and purchasing boutique episodes, and most of the platform's revenue comes from members.

Figure / Piqsels, based on the CC0 protocol

It's worth noting that U.S. consumers have a long history of paying for premium content, and domestic users pay for video is only popular for 3-5 years, Netflix can increase prices, but the same way does not necessarily apply at home.

Moreover, from the B station user's habits, the platform has been adhering to the free secondary culture.

In addition to the answer members, B station also introduced paid "big members", users can enjoy high-definition picture quality, paid content free to see and other rights. But "big members" encountered a lot of users spitting grooves, compared to long video site top-up members directly to advertising and other measures, B station paid membership benefits do not seem to be conspicuous.

In fact, this model and the domestic mainstream long video sites are much the same, and there is an unsothcoming problem - membership payment growth is highly dependent on the platform's procurement of high-quality content, which in turn results in high platform costs.

Another way to cash in is the advertising business, which is a major source of revenue for YouTube, the global video giant.Many domestic companies are trying to emulate YouTube, and Station B is now widely regarded as the most YouTube-like Chinese "apprentice".

However, the maintenance of platform tuning by B-station users also makes the model of advertising realization full of variables, such as the 2016 B-station online patch ads, was ridiculed by the user base.

More importantly, not only station B itself needs to be commercialized, station BUPThe Lord also needs commercial empowerment. Once commercialization is not possible on Station B, then part of the qualityUPThe Lord is likely to choose to leave.

In October 2019, Station B opened to the public for the first timeUPMain commercial cooperation, which is also Station B to consolidate the commercial basis of the necessary policy.

The same community started in the era of writing to produce a large number of high-quality content, and accumulated a large number of senior creators in various fields. But it has been a slow process of commercialization, knowing that creators have failed to reoffe their wealth, leading to the exodus of high-quality authors, which has become a prelude to all content platforms.

At Station B, it's not uncommon to see examples of helpless leaving.

A short video creator told"Bullet Finance", B station recognized as "the treasure of the town station" factory director in the early years on the platform although enjoy high traffic, but simply can not make money, so in 2018, the factory director turned to the headline department, hatched out the "factory director came" and other programs.

From this point of view, "commercialization" remains the top priority of Station B, capital markets and platformsUPThe Lord is waiting for good news, and Station B members may be more interested in "retaining the last piece of spiritual heights".

Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley downgraded Station B, and its analysts judged that the platform "remains far from profitable." "

Today, Station B is not only facing performance pressure, but also under the strong enemy, constantly expanding the business boundaries at the same time how to quickly "drill muscles" to avoid commercialization in the face of reality, and how to grasp the balance between content and business in the future, will also be one of the biggest challenges facing Station B.