E-releases of films change eyeball game

Zhou Xuan, director of the Chinese Film & Television Industry Research Center at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said the influx of users who will spend more time on their content would spell more money for video-streaming platforms.

Zhou said video-streaming platforms can make money through user subscriptions and advertising. "Advertisers like game operators and e-commerce players would definitely like to see more people transferred to their pages by clicking popup windows while watching videos," Zhou said.

Actually, film releases online account for only a part of revenue, of video-streaming platforms, which are stepping up efforts to develop their own content produced at a relatively low budget, so that in the future, they don't have to shell out big bucks to filmmakers for online releases. This approach could also increase market share.

The recently released The Enchanting Phantom, adapted from an ancient Chinese myth, has attracted more than 10.16 million views on Tencent Video and netted a record high 40.63 million yuan in box-office revenue by the end of May, according to trade tracker Maoyan.

Since Tencent started to reveal revenue data for films released on its video streaming platform to Maoyan on Jun 15, it reported over five films whose receipts surpassed 10 million yuan in both April and May, with average views surpassing 5 million.

Tencent Video's counterpart Youku has seen over 12 new film releases that generated over 10 million yuan each from January to May, up from seven films in the same period last year.

Snake 2 (a sequel to 2018-released online film Snake, the first film in China to profit over 50 million yuan online) topped the Youku list, earning 32.57 million yuan by the end of May. Snake 2's 'e-box-office' receipts were much higher than the 16.95 million yuan earned by Flirting Scholar from the Future, the highest on Youku in the first five months of 2019.

iQiyi, another major online video-streaming platform in China, has released 16 films whose sales revenue exceeded 10 million yuan each by the end of April, of which the number is about four times that of same period last year.

QimenDunjia gained 33.79 million yuan in online box-office receipts and became the highest grosser on iQiyi in the first five months. The film's name is inspired by an ancient form of Chinese divination, or supernatural powers, like in a fantasy martial arts movie, although it could also mean numerology used by fortune-tellers and astrologers. QimenDunjia's earnings were much higher than the 15.24 million yuan earned by Ji Gong, the highest grosser in the same period last year.

Web series, an important source of content that brings traffic to video-streaming platforms, saw 9-percent year-on-year rise in views to 145.7 billion in the first quarter, according to a report from Endata, a data analysis and consulting platform specializing in the entertainment industry.

In the first quarter, the number of paid subscriptions to Tencent Video increased 26 percent year-on-year to 112 million, according to Tencent's financial report.

iQiyi also reported a 23-percent year-on-year growth of 12 million to 119 million in the number of user subscriptions. Revenue generated from user subscriptions increased 35 percent year-on-year to 4.6 billion yuan.

Video-streaming platforms are now taking further steps to consolidate recent gains, leveraging cutting-edge technologies like virtual reality, to create more content that is compelling viewing, and thus increase market share.