Interviewer | Gemee Liu Tianlin

Content Master Plan | Guo Nan

In the Internet content consumption map, online audio is an indispensable piece.

After 20 13, the competition pattern of domestic mobile audio platforms such as dragonfly FM, Himalayan and litchi has basically taken shape, and the mobile audio industry has ushered in the grand occasion of millions of anchors and trillions of voices.

Since 20 16, knowledge-based paid audio has revolutionized the digital publishing industry in another form, and there are various doubts besides the myth of making wealth.

In 20 19, Apple Podcast and Spotify directly competed in the field of podcasting, and the domestic online audio audience also showed an obvious trend of youthfulness, high knowledge, high quality and white collar.

On the other hand, smart speakers, car networking, wearable hardware ... Internet of Things technology connects people and machines, and naturally connects content. As can be seen from the case of smart speakers, the first opportunity brought by the Internet of Things will be in the audio field.

Muddy water interviewed the head creators, platform parties and participants in the field of network audio, and reported and discussed the innovative strength and development trend of mobile audio. In June this year, Cheng Yi put on a new mask, which weakened the five senses, and the pure white skeleton integrated structure made it more fashionable.

(Founder of "Chengyi Radio")

The upgrade of the mask image is also in line with Cheng Yi's own changes in the past two years:

From a solo anchor to an entrepreneur, Cheng Yi has formed an emotional audio and video team, and the content of Radio Cheng Yi has spread more widely.

With female fans as the main audience, Cheng Yi is also doing more things-recording programs, writing books, keeping fit, broadcasting live, recording radio dramas, and even publishing a few songs.

On 20 14, Cheng began to upload programs on major audio platforms. Up to now, the audio program of "Chengyi Broadcasting" has been updated 1200 times. In five years, except for some special circumstances, Cheng Yi updated the audio program almost every day: "I never thought I would last so long. At that time, the program was recorded for hobbies, and the more viewers you got. Many listeners left me messages saying that I couldn't sleep without listening to my own voice every day, which made me feel responsible. " Franz Chen said that recording the audience every day has become a habit.

The programs of "Radio Cheng Yi" focus on emotions, including bedtime companionship, emotions, horoscope stories and so on. The style of the department of warm therapy attracted 30 million fans, 90% of whom were women, and the whole network played more than 5 billion times. 20 17 In April, "Radio Cheng Yi" received several million RMB angel round financing from Charm Power, Zhenshun and other funds. Later, Cheng Yicheng set up a company and moved his office to Beijing. At the same time, with "Radio Cheng Yi" as the main IP, companies in Cheng Yi began to sign contracts, build an anchor matrix, and produce audio content with more diversified themes and richer forms.

In February, 2065438+2008, Cheng Yi Radio got the Pre-A round of financing of lithography capital10 million yuan, and in August, it got the A round of investment from Sequoia Capital and Meihua Venture Capital.

From 20 18, Cheng began to go to campus, and offline speech activities have entered hundreds of colleges and universities, focusing on third-and fourth-tier cities.

Franz Chen recalled that when he first went to college, he also encountered some emotional problems and didn't know how to deal with them. "When you encounter these emotional problems, someone can give you guidance and answers, and you can interact with him at any time. On the way to growth, I think this is a very beautiful thing. " Franz Chen said that offline activities can build a closer relationship of trust with fans, so as to convey the positive influence of "Franz Chen Voice" on fans to a greater extent.

0 1, from voice company

"The sexual orientation of young people is an emotional issue."

After graduating from college, Cheng Yi has been doing broadcasting work on the radio and doing emotional programs late at night. At the beginning of 20 14, Cheng first contacted Internet radio. "At that time, I was very interested in doing radio and had rich feelings. Out of personal hobbies, I want to record my own exclusive radio station online, which is now Chengyi Radio. " Coincidentally, Chengyi Broadcasting caught up with the popularity of emotional broadcasting and became the head anchor in the field of emotional audio. At present, the cumulative broadcast volume of Radio Cheng Yi on mainstream audio platforms such as Dragonfly FM, Himalayan and Netease Cloud Music has exceeded 5 billion, and the broadcast volume of a single program has exceeded 6.5438+million. "Our audience is mainly 15 to 25 years old, 90% are women, and 10% are men." Cheng Yi introduced that now, including "Cheng Yi Radio Station", the main output of Cheng Yi Company is for young women and female college students.

The audience of internet audio is younger, which is a major feature different from traditional radio stations. Franz Chen said that for emotional radio stations, different ages of listeners have different problems:

"I used to be a traditional radio station, and most of the listeners were driving. For example, a woman in her thirties and forties can't say that the boy I am chasing doesn't like me. What should I do? The audience of Internet radio is very young, and it is convenient to listen to it on mobile phones. After 00 and 95, many troubles are that the boys they like don't like themselves. I don't know what to do? "

Franz Chen believes that the sexual problems of young audiences are mainly emotional problems between men and women, followed by study and life goals.

In traditional radio stations, late-night emotional programs have always been a very good type of listening and audience feedback, such as China at Night, With Dawn, and The Night Sky is Not Lonely, all of which record the emotional reality of China in an era and a region. Famous emotional anchors, such as Yin Qing, Feng Wan and Hu Xiaomei, have influenced millions of people with their distinctive personalities and direct emotions.

In the preface of Yao's premiere program "A Thousand Miles in One Night", he said in a magnetic and gentle voice: Share your joy, listen to your heart, your mood is understood, and your heart is unguarded at night.

Cheng Yi's voice is a typical magnetic gentle male voice. In his understanding, emotional audio content is very similar to early emotional magazines, and such content will be more realistic and close to life with the blessing of sound.

"In the process of listening, the audience can learn how to deal with emotional problems, hear some positive stories and be able to accompany their adolescence, which makes me feel very meaningful."

Franz Chen introduced that in the future planning, their team will build and improve an emotional voice community based on voice and serving young women.

"Our positioning is young women from beginning to end."

A kind of content often serves a person's phased needs. Franz Chen believes that, in terms of emotional needs, young and emotionally confused audiences have always existed.

"Old people go to new people", Franz Chen said: Everyone has youthful memories and nostalgia, but our content will also change a little, and we are also providing more kinds of content besides emotions.

"When users grow up, maybe emotion is not their first priority. It doesn't matter. We have other content, intellectual and spiritual, and we will provide it. "

02. Challenges and prospects of teamwork

"I have limited energy alone."

Looking back on the two years that 20 17 got the first investment, Cheng Yi himself has changed a lot:

"I started out as a content creator, then came into contact with capital and financing, then managed a company and formed a team. I still need to constantly strengthen my business management. But I am lucky to find some very suitable partners, and the whole team is very cooperative. "

Radio Cheng Yi receives 200,000 private messages from users every day. Many users regard their programs as tree holes and talk about their emotional problems. "I really want to help them solve their emotional problems, but my energy alone is limited."

Franz Chen said that a large number of private messages showed users' trust in them, and now the overall planning and direction of the team is to solve the emotional problems of young women more and more effectively.

At present, Cheng Yi's company has signed more than 500 anchors.

70% of these anchors have working experience in traditional radio stations, and they want to generate some value through their voices on the Internet. After signing a contract with Cheng Yi's company, these anchors will carry out independent and professional shaping and operation.

"These anchors with experience in traditional radio and emotional programs will be more professional in listening to others and solving emotional problems."

Most of the remaining 30% are broadcast hosts, and there are some excellent anchors. Companies in Franz Chen will cooperate in the form of investment. For example, "Radio Chen Mo" means that Cheng Yi provides some funds to support his development in his own city.

After the establishment of the team and the company, Franz Chen mentioned that the audience is no longer limited to an emotional program, but has more yuan and richer content.

"We still have some talk shows about college students and campus classrooms, some programs that answer the emotional problems that listeners encounter every day in psychiatric clinics, and some bedtime stories and interviews with artists. In fact, the whole still surrounds the crowd like college students, but the content form is richer. "

Franz Chen introduced that they have an online copywriting team of about 200 people, most of whom are college students and high school students, so the overall content will be closer to daily life.

At present, the popularity of consumer Internet of Things products represented by smart speakers is getting higher and higher, and intelligent hardware has brought new channels and new possibilities for audio content. "Radio Cheng Yi" had some content cooperation with smart speakers such as Tmall Elf before, including purchasing audio content and customizing exclusive content.

Next, Cheng Yi's team will also launch a "Cheng Yi Secondary Image", which is also developing in the direction of intelligent hardware.

He introduced that this product will cooperate with professional intelligent hardware companies, and it will mainly have two functions: First, as a tree hole, users can directly tell them what emotional problems they have, and this product can answer some emotional questions; The other is as a channel for new audio content, which will include some new and exclusive audio stories.

03. Commercialization with audio as the core

"Young women's emotional voice community"

Franz Chen introduced that at present, the primary goal of the whole company's development is to be an emotional voice community for young women, and the planning mainly has two aspects:

First, the growth of users, such as the "lecture tour of 100 universities", will continue this year, also to attract new users on university campuses. In this plan, Cheng Yi will give lectures at more than 300 universities, with emphasis on universities in third-and fourth-tier cities.

The second is to cultivate your own anchor. An emotional voice community is bound to provide users with emotional answer services, which requires a large number of high-quality anchors to provide such services.

In addition to recording programs, Cheng Yi also does live audio broadcasting. He thinks that live audio can interact with the audience more, improve the user's stickiness, and there are some rewards for live audio.

In terms of user interaction, Cheng Yi has also done a lot of cross-border cooperation with singers, writers and artists.

("Radio Chengyi" × Mikey)

For example, in cooperation with singers, Franz Chen's team planned many collaborations in different styles, such as folk songs, rock and rap, and presented them in a novel form similar to "radio and songs", such as the cooperation between Franz Chen and the landlord's cat, Mikey and other singers. Franz Chen believes that users who listen to the same content every day will still be very tired, but the diversification of program content and form is a new choice.

"If you don't want to listen to emotions, then we also have talk shows and other types of content. We signed more than 500 anchors, just to enrich our content and create some different types of radio stations to meet the diverse needs of users.

For example, in the psychiatric clinic, when users encounter emotional problems, they send private messages to tell us, and we tell them in the form of answers, listen to their voices and spend lonely nights with them. "

At present, Franz Chen's team also has a small internal testing program, which allows users to freely express their emotional problems. Previously, users could only communicate with Cheng Yi through scattered audio platforms such as Netease Cloud Music, qq Music and Dragonfly FM. Franz Chen thought that with such a special platform and more than 500 anchors they signed, they could better accompany them, listen to their voices and solve their problems. According to Franz Chen, the company's current income is mainly divided into three parts:

First, at present, they have established the anchor business school "Grapefruit College" by radio, which is positioned as a pan-entertainment cultural education and training platform based on audio anchors;

The second is content payment and emotional consultation, which is a paid service for everyone.

The third is advertising e-commerce, but Franz Chen said that the advertising market of network audio is still immature.

(The First Signing Ceremony of Westward Journey College)

At present, the business growth prospect of "Grapefruit College" is the best. Franz Chen said that this business is a complete closed loop: on the one hand, students pay for training here, and after the training, they can sign their own companies to do emotional counseling, live broadcast and other work, which can effectively cultivate talents and digest them within the company to form a growing team.

Phonetics is a slow industry.

"Be consistent with users"

10 June 17, Cheng Yixin's book "My eyes are on you for the rest of my life" came out. This is his third book, and it quickly reached the top of Dangdang's youth literature list. This book was basically written by him on a business trip. Looking back on the changes since the company was founded two years ago, Cheng Yi, who is nearly 30 years old, has more feelings.

Recently, Cheng Yi's latest single "New Love" and "Memories about Zhengzhou" were also launched on Netease Cloud Music. At the same time, she was also selected into the 20 19 Forbes China elite list under 30.

In the past two years, while recording programs, starting a company, writing, singing and exercising, he has provided more content to the audience and enriched himself. On publishing books, Franz Chen said it was a way to let more people know about the industry and Franz Chen: "Some people read books but don't listen to the radio. I think for others, learning about Chengyi Broadcasting from books is a kind of communication, and for those in need, it is also another kind of companionship. "

(Book review of "My eyes are on you for the rest of my life")

When it comes to the long-term emotional connection with the audience, Franz Chen thinks there are two main reasons:

First, the content accumulates over time. Cheng Yi began to record the program from 14, and insisted on updating it every day for five years. Second, listening to emotional stories every day, users have emotional participation, especially in the process of companionship, and the emotional connection with the radio station will be slowly cultivated from the heart.

In the past two years, Chengyi Broadcasting has developed from a program to a more team and diversified direction. Franz Chen, previously called "Cheng Pang" by friends, has also become a fitness expert, wearing a more fashionable white customized mask.

"I think the voice is still a little mysterious. Listening to Cheng Yi's voice is more important than meeting Cheng Yi himself. " Franz Chen also said that the team will not get too involved in the video field in the future.

"The reason why Radio Cheng Yi can last for a long time is that it has always kept close contact with users, and users have always kept a fresh sense of our content."

In terms of content, Cheng Yi Radio Station has formed a content production system consisting of PGC and UGC***-30% produced by its original works and 70% produced by listeners. The Cheng Yi team just needs to adapt, collect and record.

Franz Chen said that if you rely entirely on yourself, you may gradually deviate from the needs of users. "The first thing to attract users is to understand users, be consistent with users, and go deep into users."

For the future of audio content, Franz Chen thinks that this market will be bigger and bigger, and more content and more content providers are necessary.

"Especially emotional content, it has always been a slow business. People, rich or poor, will never break their emotional needs, so more content is needed to support this industry. "

End—