The market is heating up, and the risks are increasing.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “Haike Finance” (ID: haikecaijing), author He Asahi.
The domestic talk show is ushering in the hottest moment in history.
“Talk Show Conference” broke the curse of the Internet’s almost getting worse and worse, and became popular in the third season. Several newcomers quickly became idols of young people, and the mainstream media launched a series of exclusive interviews with them. In addition to the show, the offline performance of Fang Xiaoguo Culture produced by “Talk Show Conference” has soared ticket prices. It is rumored that the ticket price has even reached one or two thousand yuan recently. The chief screenwriter Cheng Lu lamented that he did not have the ticket to give it to a friend. .
This is not over yet.
The audience who were already deeply tired of “Tucao Conference” also rekindled their enthusiasm due to the third season of the “Talk Show Conference”. When the new guest lineup of “Talk Show Conference” was unavailable, they expressed their right. There are still some small expectations for the revision of the show.
Counting the fifth season of “Tucao Conference” which may be launched in December, and Li Dan’s first New Year’s talk show mentioned in “Talk Show Conference”, the popularity of this comedy form will most likely be It has been running through the remaining two months of 2020.
However, compared to what the talk show actor Huang Xi once described, there are hundreds of talk show actors rushing between clubs in Manhattan every night, the development of China’s stand-up comedy industry is far from reaching the highest Peak, now it may just start climbing.
Preceded by Deyun Club, happy twist, the industrial development of talk shows is really exciting . But at the same time, as an art that combines offense, satire and humor, its great future seems to be because of these characteristics, while exciting the market, it is also covered with a vague danger.
01Wind comes from the United States
Tucao star is the earliest formThe official performance was at the Friars Club in New York in 1949, and the guest at that time was a French film actor born in 1888.
Many people know that in the 1950s, stand-up comedies in New York and San Francisco were in their development period. The American drama “The Great Mrs. Maisel”, which tells the growth history of stand-up comedian actresses, was set in this story. New York in the period.
In the play, the heroine was first appreciated as an audience in the audience. Later, she gradually discovered that she could also use the microphone to tell these jokes on stage and gradually became a professional actor. This scene is also appearing in more and more talk show clubs in China today. This form is also “open wheat”: anyone can come on stage to spit out a few interesting things in life.
Hong Kong artist Huang Zihua was the first to move stand-up comedy to the Chinese-speaking world. In the 1990s, Huang Zihua translated Stand-up Comedy as “Dong Duxiao” and performed stand-up performances on stage in Cantonese, forming a unique comedy style, and began to hold personal special performances.
Zhou Libo once talked about the influence of “Dong Du Laugh” on him. He incorporated stand-up comedy elements into Shanghai burlesques and performed his Shanghai-style clear-mouth performance.
In Shenzhen and Guangzhou, respectively, some young people were deeply influenced by Huang Zihua’s “Dong Du Laugh” and began to become interested in stand-up comedies. Two of them are worth mentioning. One was Li Dan, a college student who was studying in Guangzhou and wanted to learn Cantonese; the other was a full-time translator in a translation company in Shenzhen. He would watch Huang Zihua’s video on the Internet when he was fine. Lu.
The matter of complaining about stars in the club was later moved to American TV shows. In 1998, the media giant Viacom Group’s Comedy Central channel (Comedy Central) began to cooperate with the Friars Club to launch programs. This cooperation continued until 2003, when the former began to produce its own TV Tucao program. This program is “Comedy” Central Tucao Conference. Since then, the program has been broadcast at a frequency of 1-2 issues per year and continues to this day.
At the turn of the millennium, a Chinese performing stand-up comedy became popular in the United States. After his video was sent back to China, it aroused the curiosity of many people. Cheng Lu later recalled that it was just after watching Huang Xi’s stand-up comedy that he realized that talk shows do not necessarily require exaggerated limbs.Body language, the text can be very good Great.
It is more generally recognized that the earliest stand-up comedy show in mainland China was the “Post-80s Talk Show Tonight” (hereinafter referred to as “Post-80s Tonight”), which was launched in 2012, and was spoken by Wang Zijian. The members of Li Dan, Cheng Lu, Liang Haiyuan, etc. Different from pure stand-up comedy, this late-night show lasted for more than five years. It is more like a news talk show that gathers current affairs, hot spots, interviews, etc., and adds many forms of American late-night shows.
Since then, with Dragon TV, Jiangsu Satellite TV, etc. as broadcast platforms, several American talk shows were born, but none of their life spans exceeded the “Post-80s Tonight”.
It can be seen that this kind of talk show generally relies heavily on the personal ability of the host. In the past few years, there have been solo talk shows and the more well-known ones are Jin Xing and Guo Degang. Among them, “The Golden Star Show” is the most famous.
The first well-known online talk show was “Vicious Liang Huanxiu” launched on Sohu in 2016.
Like “Venus Show”, “Vicious Liang Huanxiu” adopts the sharp interview mode created by the American “Tonight Show” in 1962. It gives the host a table and the guests a sofa. The two will discuss some social issues and culture. The phenomenon is discussed. However, the show has always been loved by niche groups and failed to attract a wide range of attention. In addition, the delisting incident in early 2018 has directly cut off its follow-up influence.
This period, including iqiyi, Tencent and other long video sites, purchased by The competition for copyright has entered the stage of competition for the promotion of self-made content. In 2014, iQIYI Productions launched “The Story of Wonderful Flowers”, preemptively, and Tencent Video geared up to keep up. It can be said that the battles between several video sites have given the best talk show ever.Variety soil.
Xiaoguo, who was eager to be influential, finally hit it off with Tencent Video. After cooperating with Tencent Video, Xiaoguo worked with iQiyi and Youku to create “Offending the Family” and “Saturday Night Live”.
In 2015, the well-known talk show screenwriters Cheng Lu and Siwen in “The Post-80s Tonight” planned to get married. In order to make their wedding more creative, the two had a whim, and decided to refer to the “Comedy Central Tucao Conference” program format, inviting friends to complain about themselves offline, and the performance was open to the audience.
This creative effect is very good, Xiaoguo has tried several such performances offline.
Finally, in 2016, as Tencent Video’s exclusive network comprehensive show, “Tucao Conference” was launched. However, as soon as it started broadcasting, it encountered a crisis and was removed from the shelves within 3 days of being online. At this time, 67 years have passed since the Friars Club publicly complained about stars in 1949.
02Performing straightforward expressions
Although stand-up comedies have been booming abroad for many years, they are different from watching American TV shows and watching American movies. It is not easy to understand them.
The content of stand-up comedy often conveys the performer’s many views on current affairs, politics, social culture, etc. In addition, there will be a lot of buzzwords and slang during the performance. It is difficult for people who are not familiar with relevant social and cultural backgrounds. Understand the jokes accurately. Huang Xi’s talk show was popular in the United States before. In addition to his proficiency in American society and culture and American humor, another important reason is that most of his stories are immigrant themes, which is somewhat non-mainstream in content, but it is for the audience. It is very novel.
Because it is not easy to understand, American talk shows do not have many fans in China. Those who are really familiar with topics such as “Chicken Feather Show” and “Cui Wa Talk Show” are really rare. This also directly led to the emergence of the first professional type when the stand-up comedy industry started to develop in China, not an actor, but a talk show translator.
The time when “Post-80s Tonight” appeared was 2012. There are many social and historical reasons behind this. In terms of the relaxed and pleasant atmosphere that has been created, this is undoubtedly the closest program to an American talk show at that time.
2017 is a watershed for change. This year, “Venus Show” and “Post-80s Tonight” successively stopped broadcasting, and “Tucao Conference” went live at the beginning of the year after rectification.
Retaining the forms of mockery and telling jokes in stand-up comedies, and choosing stars as the object of satire, “Comedy Central Tucao Conference” undoubtedly provides a good landing model for Chinese-style talk shows. The first few issues of “Tucao Conference” because of its absolutely novel performance form Flag open to win, and also to win the Dandan pool combination.
In addition to “Tucao Conference”, Xiaoguo also has a series of combo punches. Both Li Dan and Ye Feng, the co-founders, mentioned in interviews that Xiaoguo is not just a show, but an industry. This is also very well understood from the fact that talk shows are just sprouting in China. There is a lack of screenwriters and programs, and audiences need to be trained. The industry chain is incomplete. Just pointing to one or two programs is not a long-term solution. Only when the industry is prosperous, full-time screenwriters and actors can get a good income, and industry development can enter a positive cycle.
Since then, it is not difficult to understand that Xiaoguo immediately launched “Talk Show Conference” after “Tucao Conference” became popular, launched offline “Puff Talk Show”, and frequently performed performances on campus.
In Xiaoguo’s early shows, there has always been a contradiction. Because there was no traffic in the early days, we had to rely on celebrities, but the complaints about celebrities gradually became irritating, and even became the “artist whitewashing program” in the eyes of the audience, and the program gradually became very boring. The more boring, the harder it will be to invite big traffic guys to “whitewash” and enter a vicious circle.
From the point of view of Siwen’s public complaints about “Tucao Conference” on the program and Xiaoguo’s later launch of “Tucao Conference”, Xiaoguo has realized this. Judging from today’s results, the way to break the game is to push the newcomer’s “Talk Show Conference”, and the latter has an important keyword: cruelty.
Different from the previous two seasons, the third season of the “Talk Show Conference” has a very cruel format, with a sea of clouds and knockouts, making it a real draft competition. As a result, the well-known Siwen lost to the rookie, and the old screenwriter Zhang Boyang, who was praised by Yu Qian, retired on the spot.
Li Dan mentioned in an interview that many screenwriters do not approve that talk shows can compete, but in his opinion, in the state of the company at this time, good-looking shows are more important. When talking about pressure, Li Dan said that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic and other reasons, there was a lot of additional pressure before the start of the third quarter.If something happens, people are panicked, and it is not easy to attract investment. This partly explains why the third season system is so cruel.
Of course, this program has also affected the audience to a greater extent and on a larger scale. The reason is undoubtedly related to the many opinions output by the performers. Self-deprecating and telling jokes may make the audience laugh for five minutes, but the output of opinions will cause shocks and resonance on social media.
Li Xueqin is the one with the larger amplitude.
Graduated from Peking University, short video celebrity, was replied by Wu Yifan, various tags made Li Xueqin a successful debut. But what really made her popular is her state on stage and her attitude towards life. It doesn’t matter if you seem to be lazy, express your inner thoughts without scruples, love to spit out your mother and leaders, but are ready to retreat at any time. There is an article saying that Li Xueqin accurately hit the more common “mourning” mentality of the post-95 generation.
Yang Li, because of her thoughts on women’s rights in her paragraphs, aroused heated discussions on social media. Someone compiled her golden sentences in the show into emoticons for people to download, and some people attacked her on the Internet because of her remarks. Yang Li is currently in Weibo has 810,000 followers.
Hu Lan, who has always been known for his high-level jokes, emphasizes the logic of narration. The main focus of his contribution this time on the show is that by analogy with the actors in the haunted house, he relentlessly complained about the difficult lives of contemporary young and middle-aged people and the state of social animals.
Champion Wang Mian, the most explosive performance is, while playing the guitar, he makes a series of shouts that he does not want to go to work, do not want to get married, and do not want to watch the brain-disabled TV series with his girlfriend.
Being sane and sober, struggling with sorrow in the heart, and clearly shouting out the true thoughts, this season’s talk show let people see that Stand-up Comedy has more possibilities besides complaining about celebrities and talking about life trivial matters.
The talk show just showed its true colorThe young man felt excited.
For Xiaoguo, there are ups and downs.
03There are still many risks and variables
The dominant weak company in the industry, this is what Li Dan said to the company’s screenwriters when he wrote the “Talk Show Work Manual” in 2020.
This inevitably reminds people of the former Deyun Club and Happy Twist. The difference is that the first two are innovations in content and expression in the existing comedy category, while Xiaoguo is about to create a new category, that is, a local talk show. Although it is an imported product, it has a different social and cultural background and is destined to not be used as it is.
After “Tucao Conference” celebrated Li’s birthday, he began to participate in various variety shows frequently, and sometimes showed his face in movies. This caused many viewers to accuse him of not doing his job properly. But in the later narratives of Li Dan and Xiaoguo screenwriters, it can be seen that Li Dan has made himself more famous, and the beneficiaries are not only him. At least, when a new screenwriter plans to do a talk show, he can introduce to his parents that this is Li Dan’s profession.
Currently, the biggest problem with China’s local talk show industry is that it is still in the early stages of development and the industry is not yet perfect. At first, celebrities were used to bring traffic, and later on to popularize his own artists to bring traffic, but in 2020, the pool termination storm and Cam’s exposure to drug use all reflect that Xiaoguo still has some shortcomings in company management. Li Dan said that his role is changing to a manager, and he will be more concerned about issues of values. This may mean that Xiaoguo is trying to transform from a de facto program provider into a true comedy content company.
The biggest commercial success of talk shows undoubtedly comes from offline theater performances, that is, box office. At present, Xiaoguo’s online shows have established a brand and are getting closer and closer to the core of the talk show, but its offline brand is far from the time to bear fruit.
Haike Finance interviewed several post-90s who work and live in first-tier cities in China.
One of them is Ms. Zhang. She is currently engaged in visual design in a major Internet company in Beijing. She said that since the first two years, she would go to see one or two offline talk shows every year. At the beginning, she was also influenced by the “Tucao Conference” and gradually came into contact with this format. “Offline is really so much more funny than online. Sometimes when an actor tells it in front of you, if an actor tells it in front of you, you will laugh so much that you can’t stop it. Actually, laughDifferent. “
Not many people can experience the talk show at the scene like Miss Zhang. Nowadays, the places where the domestic talk show culture is developed are mainly North, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In second-tier cities such as Hefei, Wuhan, and Chengdu, there have also begun to have some small offline talk show clubs, mainly in the form of open wheat.
Haike Finance noticed that after the “Talk Show Conference Season 3” was aired, a “talk show fever” quickly swept major cities, and many actors from Xiaoguo began to perform in various bars and clubs. . Take October 2020 as an example, “A Shandong native” He Guangzhi will do a talk show in Jinan, and the “Second Generation Demolition” piece will perform in Wuhan. Search the Xiaoguo applet, and currently most of the recent shows have been sold out.
It can be said that variety shows are a double-edged sword for offline performances. While it brings traffic to actors, it also brings pressure to offline business. After all, who wants to listen to the script that has already been heard again? The creative cycle of a screenwriter is regular, and it is common for inspiration to dry up.
How to find the balance between the exposure rate and offline commercial performance is also a major test that Liao Guo, one of the current observation samples, will face.
In addition to issues such as business model and internal management, policy risks are the most not to be ignored. Before the 2016 “Tucao Conference” went online and immediately rectified, after the “Vicious Liang Huanxiu” was removed from the shelves, the local Chinese talk show has already made a certain momentum, and it needs to be more careful in the future.
In any case, we are witnessing the growth of a new industry. It sprouted from Huang Zihua’s “Dong Du Laugh” in Cantonese, and broke ground in a late-night news program created by Wang Zijian and many screenwriters 8 years ago. Today, with the exponential communication power of the Internet, in an era when everyone can be famous for 15 seconds, stand-up comedy has reached the first step of its domestic development, starting a long journey from one show to the entire industry.
This is destined to be exciting, and it will be full of variables.