Is the “blue ocean” that is once again “revived” worthy of such a large influx?
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Rhinocero Entertainment” (ID: piaofangtoushijing), Wen | Meat Dog, Editor | Park Fang.
The TV drama market has changed.
As of the end of August this year, the educational subject matter in the ratings of TV was a big win. “Juvenile School” topped the list with an average rating of 1.395%. The average ratings of “Xiaohuaxi” East and Zhejiang Shuangtai were all squeezed into TOP5, while the TOP6 of TV ratings was won by “Going with Dad to Study Abroad”.
The educational theme has become a new explosion in the drama market, and the scent of sensitive capital has followed suit. The third part of the “Little” series of “The Little” is expected to be launched this year. The fourth “Little Pain Love” is being developed. The “Starting Line” and the “Noon Name” of the “The Starting Line” appear in the General Administration of Radio, Film and Television in July this year. In addition to the TV drama production and production record, there are also 10 educational dramas such as “School House”, “Art Students” and “Upstream”, which are preparing or waiting for production.
The question is, is this “rejuvenation” of the “blue ocean” worthy of such a large influx?
Why is the educational theme “revival” this year?
Educational themes have always been an important topic for Chinese contemporary TV dramas, and many classics of the times have emerged. However, before the three educational dramas of “Youth”, “Little Joy” and “Going to Study with Dad”, the last episode of education and discussion was still in the “Little Xiao Li” starring Huang Lei and Hai Qing in 2016. 》.
“Mute fire” for nearly three years, why can educational themes shine again this year? The reasons are mainly in the social, market and policy environment as well as the educational themes themselves.
When the “Little Bian” was broadcast in 2016, the market trend has been biased towards the mystery drama, big IP, costume drama, etc., driven by the traffic dramas such as “Tomb Notes”, “The Legend of the Bride” and “Flower Thousand Bone”. With the decline of capital hot money, stricter policy management, and aesthetic changes in the audience, “big IP+ traffic” has gradually become ineffective, and the realism theme that is more suitable for life has become the new mainstream of the market.
Education has not only been the focus, pain point and difficulty of China’s hundreds of millions of families, but also a parent-child relationship.The “treasure house” of various socially important issues such as court responsibility, intergenerational interpersonal relationship, interpersonal communication, etc. This is the fundamental reason why the educational theme has always occupied an important seat after the Chinese TV drama, and it is also the child of the realistic theme drama “Creation fever”. The main reason for the increase in the number of educational-themed episodes.
On the other hand, with the rapid development of modern society, the material living standards are gradually increasing, and the nationals pay more and more attention to education and their investment is getting bigger and bigger. According to the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of 2019, per capita consumption of education, culture and entertainment increased by 10.9%, accounting for 10.0% of per capita consumption expenditure. In the total consumption expenditure and composition, it became the fourth largest expenditure in medical expenses. .
The external objective environment has changed. The story content, topic topics, narrative methods, and character settings of educational dramas have also become more innovative than ever.
“With Dad to Study Abroad” pays attention to the “low-age study abroad fever” that is now hot, and the narrative style of “Little Joy” and “Youth School” with the “College Entrance Examination” as the starting point is completely different. “Little Joy” is even more The elements and topics that are rarely touched by “official families” and educational dramas such as “depression”, “sex education” and “sexual harassment in the workplace” are incorporated into the story.
Secondly, compared with the previous educational dramas of the same kind, these three dramas also completely jumped out of a single narrative mode, using a multi-cue, multi-family, multi-level characters parallel complex structure. In this way, it is possible to cover and reflect the reality more broadly, and to include more social hot topics outside of education, and then to impress audiences of different ages.
A new wind is brewing after the “Rejuvenation”
The high ratings won by “Youth”, “Little Joy” and “With Dad to Study Abroad” gave the capital the confidence to continue to invest in educational dramas, and after the three dramas, a new round of changes in educational dramas It has already begun to take shape.
Compared with the past, educational nodes and educational issues that have been documented and are being prepared for education are more focused. “Small Shed”, “Little Pain Love” and “Starting Line” have been cut into stories from Xiaoshengchu, early childhood education and preschool education. “In the name of the child”, “Art Students”, “Parents” and “Growing with You” respectively focused on “poor parents” “Art candidates, divorced family education, and the growth of left-behind children.”
Secondly, the multi-line group image narrative has become mainstream. In the midday sun, “The Name of the Son” was adapted from the novel of the same name of the same day, focusing on the three mothers who cast their own life settings on the children of Yang Liu, Xu Yuejuan and Jiang Danhua. The “Little Shed” of Li Meng will continue “Little Separation” The warm realism style of “Little Joy” tells the story of the friction and healing of Nanli, Tian Yuqi and other children during the early period of the child’s small rise; the “Starting Line” tells the story of one year of preschool education, four families are experiencing husband and wife relationship, After the great challenges of parent-child relationship and intergenerational relationship, find the story of the real starting point of life.
In addition to the above two points, there is a more obvious trend – to lock the middle circle, and the emergence of this trend is also closely related to the social environment.
The 2018 China New Middle Circle White Paper published by Hurun Research Institute defines the middle circle as a social group with higher spending power and investment ability after removing basic living consumption expenditures such as household food, clothing, housing and transportation. The basic consumption expenditure of middle-income families accounts for less than 50% of the annual disposable income of the family.
At the same time, the report also shows that the number of middle-class families in China has reached 33.2 million in 2018, including more than 10 million new middle-class families. Children’s education is the most common anxiety among the new middle-class population.
The capture of this social pain point not only lays a large number of core audiences for the episode before the broadcast, but also creates greater possibilities for the drama to positively word-of-mouth fermentation and emotional radiation. Sex.
The reef behind the “Blue Ocean”
The educational drama of “Revival” has become a “blue ocean” again, but it is not easy to make a successful business in this “Blue Ocean”.
“Youth”, “Little Joy”, “With Dad to Study Abroad” has achieved good results, but the audience’s reputation is uneven. During the broadcast of the “Youth School” of TOP1, the audience was criticized by many audiences for the drama, the old stalk and the three-view output. This is also a challenge for educational dramas and even the entire reality drama. : How to maximize the trueness of the drama while ensuring the dramatic effects required by the episode.
It’s hard to crack. On the one hand, the current excellent writers in China are still scarce, and there are only a handful of educational subjects. On the other hand, educational dramas often require creators to have a deeper experience of life, while the following entertainment market is returning to rationality, but The film and television creation atmosphere of “closed door building” has not been completely corrected. Like “Xiao Huan Xi”, the amount of research and effort to do research on a down-to-earth basis is limited.
Douban shows that up to now, the number of people who scored 8.4 Douban scores is 10396. In the first half of the year, the champion of the “Juvenile School” scored 50,765, “With Dad to Study Abroad” 42831, while the same period Chen Qingling has reached 583,895. “Dear, love,” “Chang’an Twelve Hours” broke through 250,000 and 280,000 respectively.
It can be seen that how to create greater network enthusiasm while winning the ratings is also a major challenge for educational dramas. And the solution, most episodes will choose to add pain points and difficulties that can cause social hot discussion, and make the story a larger “social treasure house.”
Unrecognizable, the mining of topic breadth and depth can indeed achieve a wider range of radiation, but how to avoid “topics for the topic” and the organic integration of topics and stories is also a big challenge. In addition, under the popular multi-line group image narrative, how to maximize the content of each story line, the vivid three-dimensional of each character, is also a problem that the drama parties who need to think about the subject of education.
The most important thing is that large-scale entry into the situation will inevitably increase competition within the subject matter, and may even prompt viewers to experience aesthetic fatigue.
The theme of education is always a “toon”, and it will still be a tough “hard bone” for a long time to come. Can you burn this “educational fever” this year? The skills and determination of “breaking the reef”.