Virtual anchor "Gan Gan Xian Jun"
Recently, the news about virtual anchor has attracted much attention: overseas virtual anchor VOX made its live debut in China, with a revenue of 1.11 million RMB. This makes everyone focus on the virtual anchor industry.
What is the development of this industry, when it is really a blue ocean? Will disputes between content creators, guilds and MCN, which are common in the live broadcast industry, occur in the virtual anchor industry? In this regard, Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star journalists contacted relevant practitioners and chatted with them about virtual anchors.
It is very important to set up a virtual anchor.
Tone affects his popularity.
The so-called virtual anchor refers to people who post videos or live broadcasts on video websites with virtual images. Because it originated in Japan, the current active audience area is concentrated in Asia.
One weekend in May, in the office of an office building in the west section of Fucheng Avenue, Xiaoxin (a pseudonym) sat in front of two computers and started his live broadcast with a low and magnetic voice into the microphone. On the screen in front of me is a young man with long hair, named "Gan Gan Xian Jun". Xiaoxin is a junior and a serious second-year enthusiast. It happened that he studied broadcast host, and after several rounds of interviews, he finally became a virtual anchor — — Strictly speaking, Xiaoxin is a "man in the middle", and "dry fairy king" is his "condom".
People in China and holsters are terms of virtual anchor circle. Compared with real anchors, virtual anchors never appear as real people, but carefully prepare a moving image for themselves, which is called holster. Leather covers are generally divided into full three-dimensional simulated real people, three-dimensional simulated cartoon images and plane cartoon images. The anchor himself, who is responsible for providing the voice, movement and expression for the holster, is called the man in the middle.
The first live broadcast of "Gan Gan Xian Jun" was on May 27th. "Be sure to have your own personnel. Like vox, people are particularly touching, so there will be so many fans. " One of the founders of the virtual brand V1 Cube selected Xiaoxin is not the VOX mentioned here, but a virtual anchor who just premiered in bilibili a few days ago. This Englishman from Japan is a member of Rainbow Society, a famous virtual anchor company in Japan. The Englishman is his design: he will communicate and interact with the audience in British English during the live broadcast. Although he spoke English all the time, he paid an astonishing 73.3% for the first night in China. In other words, for every 10 users who entered the live broadcast room, more than 7 spent money on him.
According to the data, VOX’s live broadcast lasted for 1.7 hours, and thousands of people charged him with "prefect" (bilibili’s live broadcast room level, prefect is 1998 yuan per month) and "captain" (captain is 198 yuan per month), with revenue of 1.11 million RMB, paying nearly 40,000 people and interacting with more than 50,000 people. At present, his number of fans has reached 991,000.
"As we have always emphasized, it is very important to set up a virtual anchor. Vox is very talkative, and his conversation content and style are moderate, and many netizens evaluate him ‘ Gentleman ’ ‘ High emotional intelligence ’ 。” Yang Shiqi, another founder of V1 Cube, told reporters, "Secondly, the sound, whether the timbre is moving or not, has a great influence on the popularity of virtual anchors. When you first contact a virtual anchor, whether the timbre is beautiful or not and whether there is enough recognition is extremely critical. " They chose Xiaoxin precisely because his voice is moving enough.
The ability to collect money is extraordinary
The income gap between the rich and the poor is huge.
The virtual anchor’s extraordinary ability to collect money is really surprising. In China, when it comes to the realization of virtual anchors, bilibili’s 2021 annual report points out that users can buy virtual gifts in the application and give them to their favorite anchors to express their approval and reward. Bilibili will share the sales revenue of virtual goods generated by live broadcast with anchors and guilds, in addition to attractive rewards. The annual report also mentioned, "We plan to sign cooperation agreements with more anchors in the future to attract popular anchors and further expand our live broadcast business." In the value-added services (including big member services) section where bilibili’s live broadcast business is located, the revenue in 2021 was 6.93 billion yuan, accounting for 35.78%, up 80% year-on-year, and the revenue in the fourth quarter was 1.895 billion yuan, up 52% year-on-year.
Lu Luoyi, co-founder of Chengdu Aurora Technology, told the reporter, "At present, there are more than 160 virtual anchors cooperating with the company. On the list of the top 100 released by bilibili, there are 3 anchors of TOP 100 and 1 anchor of Top30, and the monthly income range ranges from 300 to 1 million."
In Lu Luoyi’s view, the 28 th effect is more obvious in this industry. The reporter learned that in the three months from February to April, 2022, 90 samples of bilibili’s monthly Top30 were taken, and the number of people with monthly revenues ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 was the largest, accounting for 71%; There are 3 people with a monthly income of more than 1 million, accounting for 3.3%. According to incomplete statistics, the top 120 virtual anchors in bilibili severely squeezed the income of other anchors, and the average monthly revenue of the other anchors only accounted for 1% ~ 5% of the top 120 virtual anchors. Polarization is quite serious.
According to another set of public data, as of August 18th, 2021, among the 3,472 virtual anchors with relative attention in bilibili, 1,827 people earned money in 0 yuan that month, and more than half of them had no income.
According to the data analysis, among the top five anchors in bilibili in April this year, two live broadcasts lasted more than 700 hours, two were around 600 hours, and one was around 500 hours, close to 600 hours. The reporter saw that the first-ranked "Wubi Crescent" had a live broadcast duration of 711.9 hours, but his income was only 6 yuan, and only three people were rewarded; The live broadcast of 581.2 hours "Heron wants to drink ice" earned 61,600 yuan, and the hourly revenue was about 0.01 yuan. In the event of such an exception, there is a high probability that the middleman is not online, just hanging the holster in the live broadcast room, without performance and interaction, naturally no one will pay attention and reward.
The reporter learned that the salary composition of Chinese people is similar to that of real anchors, and they are divided into two parts: basic salary and reward. Because this industry has not yet formed a unified standard, enterprises are free to decide to adopt piecework system, hourly wage system or monthly salary system, so the basic salary gap between different enterprises is large. "
"The Soul of Virtual Anchor"
But can’t get the same treatment.
Virtual anchor has won more and more attention with its huge ability to attract gold. On the other hand, some contradictions have gradually become prominent. The focus of controversy is the huge gap between the low income of Chinese people and the high income of holsters.
"We are a little different from other companies. We don’t give the Chinese people a basic salary, but we share the income directly, and we will make it very clear when signing the contract. The average income commission of people in the industry is 4.5% of a live broadcast, and ours is 5%. In the early stage of the role, we have to invest a lot of resources, and when we sign an agreement with the trade union, we will also give us some help and support, so that the virtual anchor can quickly realize the benefits. One more thing, we don’t want to give people in China a kind of ‘ Part-time job ’ The feeling is that we will do this together. " The founder of V1 Cube said frankly.
Xiaoxin said, "Maybe I’m more Buddhist. In addition, the company gave me a share of running water income, and the follow-up increased step by step, up to 20%. As long as I can keep up, I can actually make more money. " He regards himself as a member of the company and thinks that he is working with the company to create a virtual idol. "Although the audience sees that the virtual idols are very glamorous, the Chinese people have made great efforts in the back, so the contradiction between the company and the Chinese people will really make the Chinese people very chilling."
Some insiders told reporters that although enterprises provide all-round support for virtual anchors, this does not mean that Chinese people can enjoy the same treatment as virtual anchors. "Even if fans think that the person in China is ‘ The Soul of Virtual Anchor ’ However, Chinese people have no special status within the enterprise and are even subject to stricter labor control. "
It is understood that people in many companies have to bear the expenses incurred in their work. "Rent and transportation expenses account for the bulk. Secondly, find a vocal music teacher to train and buy computer equipment and game cards … … These are all burning money. " Chunye (a pseudonym), the person in China, revealed. "There are usually two kinds of contracts in the industry to create virtual anchors, business brokerage contracts or labor contracts. The common goal of Chinese people and the company is to maximize the content of virtual IP. In this process of character output, fans like not only the holster, but also the emotional connection and deduction of Chinese people. Their roles and identities complement each other. People in China will have different needs at different stages of growth and some plans for their future. In fact, there will be some variables. Regardless of the details of the facts, in fact, these incidents have occurred from time to time in Rainbow Society, so these variables will be considered when signing a contract and creating a virtual IP at the beginning, and several students will be tried (the holster will not be changed, and the Chinese will be rotated). Constantly output high-quality content and continue to let fans pay for the content. " Lu Luoyi bluntly said that it is quite rational for the industry to look at these.
Industry pain points need to be solved
Otherwise it will be another bubble.
In any case, VOX proves that the virtual anchor industry is a blue ocean. Earlier, ANYCOLOR, the parent company of Rainbow Society, said that its listing application submitted to the Tokyo Stock Exchange had been approved and it was scheduled to be officially listed on June 8. According to the prospectus, Rainbow Society has set up five revenue modules, including live broadcast, content sales, performance activities, advertising and others (mainly for overseas businesses, etc.). In the past four fiscal years, Rainbow Society’s revenue and net profit increased rapidly, from the revenue of April 2018 (May 1, 2017-April 30, 2018) to 16.62 million yen and net profit.
Will the IPO of Rainbow Society become the vane of virtual idol companies? The reporter learned that since 2019, companies of the same type have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, and all segments have been involved. Bilibili, for example, is making efforts in the virtual anchor sector. At the 12th anniversary of bilibili, CEO Rui Chen mentioned that from June 2020 to June 2021, a total of 32,412 new virtual anchors were launched, up 40% year-on-year, with a total contribution of over 1.89 million, and more than 60% of the world-renowned virtual anchors were launched in bilibili. According to bilibili’s 2021 financial report, value-added services (mainly live broadcast and big membership services) are still the largest source of income in bilibili. Relying on live broadcast and big membership services, bilibili’s value-added service revenue reached 1.89 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, with a high growth rate of 52% year-on-year. The annual revenue from value-added services reached 6.93 billion yuan, up 80% year-on-year. Among them, in the entertainment field, virtual anchor has become the fastest growing category of live broadcast in bilibili.
Nowadays, more attention is paid to the resources of head factories. But in the virtual anchor industry, the majority is still small companies. Yang Shiqi said frankly, "Although the growth rate is very fast, the revenue base of virtual live broadcast is very small, which is not prominent in the total revenue of live broadcast business, so the industry scale is quite small." In Lu Luoyi’s view, generally speaking, the subject of live broadcast with high-intensity output and more repetitive content may turn from real people to virtual. "From the perspective of saving labor costs and protecting the health and safety of personnel, the problem of ROI conversion rate can be solved to some extent by using AI and other technical means, and such content can be broadcast repeatedly by virtual people — — Such an iteration may be good. Because of the replacement, there will naturally be some new jobs. "
But first of all, we must solve the problems in the short video and live broadcast industries, such as the disputes between content creators, guilds and MCN, which have repeatedly occurred in the virtual anchor industry; Secondly, both the virtual anchor and the virtual idol are produced in the cultural circle with extremely high concentration of two elements, and how to break the circle is also a big problem. In the reporter’s opinion, only by solving these two major pain points can the virtual anchor industry ride the wind and waves. Otherwise, it may be another virtual economy bubble.
Chengdu Business Daily-Red Star Journalist Ren Hongwei
Intern He Yanling
