Members can't see what they want to see even after "recharging". Why is it more and more complicated to watch TV?

Red Star Capital Bureau found that most of the smart TVs today are embedded with multiple incompatible member systems. Even if you fill one member, another member, or another member, you may still not be able to see all the film and television content you want to see.

After investigation and summary, Red Star Capital Bureau found that there are mainly three scenarios that let consumers fall into the trap of "playing the role of a member like a doll" and let people "fill up again and again".

"matryoshka doll style membership" slot point TV sets embedded with multiple member systems become normal

A few days ago, a netizen sent a video to scold, "Is the current TV an intelligent TV or a TV with intellectual disabilities? It is necessary to install broadband and set-top boxes. I will accept all these if I can see them well, but why should this member? That should be recharged?"

Red Star Capital Bureau noticed that, unlike the traditional TV set in childhood memories of "watching which TV set is switched to which TV set", the smart TV set has gradually become the mainstream product in the market.

On the one hand, smart TV still carries the function of traditional TV. As long as it is equipped with a set-top box, it can still watch CCTV and major satellite TV stations; On the other hand, it can also watch online movies, but this has also led to many roast.

For example, in September 2022, a netizen complained on the Black Cat Complaint [Complaint Portal] platform that there are many kinds of TV members in Cookai and the publicity information is not clear. His/her child popped up a payment window when watching cartoons, so he/she opened a subscription member (218 yuan), but still could not watch, so he/she needed to open a parent-child member again. "(At that time) it was not said that film and television members could not watch cartoons, which was too bad!"

At present, this complaint is in "Completed" status, but the reply content of Cookai is hidden, and the handling measures cannot be viewed.

Red Star Capital Bureau found that at present, most TV brand products are embedded with multiple sets of incompatible video systems, which also directly caused consumers to be unable to watch all the film and television content they want to watch after recharging members for many times.

Three Scenes Create "matryoshka doll Style Member"

According to the investigation and summary of Red Star Capital Bureau, the reason why consumers feel like "I just became a member, how can I become a member again?" is mainly because the market and industry structure lead to three scenarios in our lives.

Scenario 1: Members of different platforms recharge

Let's start with Hisense Video (600060. SH), a TV industry giant. The financial report shows that Hisense Video will occupy 20.92% of the retail sales of TV products (including laser TV) in 2021, ranking first in China.

However, the customer service of Hisense's official flagship store told Red Star Capital Bureau that the content parties (film and television parties) of different models of televisions they launched were different. For example, the content of Hisense 55E3H TV is iQIYI, and the content of 65E35H TV is Youku.

"If you need (other App platforms), you can download them by yourself and use a USB flash disk to download and install them on the TV set." The customer service of Hisense Customer Service Center told Red Star Capital Bureau.

Not only Hisense Video, but also Red Star Capital Bureau learned that TV products of TCL and other brands are the same: TV sets have their own content, but they also support users to download other App platforms for installation.

From the perspective of manufacturers, if TV sets can provide more online video content, it will naturally be more popular with consumers. However, TV manufacturers are unable to get through all video apps, so they can only mix these app platforms into one TV set.

Simply put, televisions are becoming mobile phones. Today's TV is like a large screen mobile phone, which can install different apps. When users need to watch videos, they need to recharge members for each app, or even pay for on-demand video.

Suppose that a user has installed three apps A, B and C in his TV set, and he recharges his member on platform A to watch movie A, and then wants to watch movie B, but B plays exclusively on platform B, so he needs to recharge his member again.

Scenario 2: Members of different ports on the same platform recharge

When answering the questions of Red Star Capital Bureau, the staff of several TV manufacturers directly referred to the content party as "iQIYI", "Youku" or "Tencent Video". In fact, these app platforms all have their own TV version names.

It is reported that the TV version of iQIYI is called "(Galaxy) Kiwi TV", Youku's TV is called "Coomeow", and Tencent's TV version is called "Cloud Audio Visual (Aurora)".

A staff member of a TV manufacturer told Red Star Capital Bureau that mobile members of these platforms could not use them on the TV end.

That is, even if your account has a mobile member of a platform, but you log in to the account on TV, you still cannot play the member content of the platform on TV.

Moreover, the charges for supporting TV members are often higher than those for mobile members.

Taking iQIYI as an example, its gold VIP only supports three ports: computer, mobile phone and tablet, while the platinum VIP adds more TV ports. Without discount, gold VIP is 30 yuan/month, 78 yuan/quarter, 258 yuan/year, while platinum VIP is 50 yuan/month, 128 yuan/quarter, 388 yuan/year.

Scenario 3: Differentiate the member recharge of children's content

The above two scenarios are based on the existence of members of different systems in TV sets. However, Red Star Capital Bureau found that some manufacturers are trying to build an aggregation platform, such as Hisense Video and Xiaomi Group (01810. HK).

Among them, Hisense Video owns the brand "Juhaokan". The official website of Juhaokan shows that its content ecology covers 100% of the popular dramas, 100% of the film and television blockbusters, and the total duration of the feature film exceeds 2 million hours, covering high-quality content on platforms such as iQIYI, Tencent and Youku.

The relevant staff of Hisense explained the operation mode of Juhaokan to Red Star Capital Bureau in popular terms, "Juhaokan is a big app, including Youku, Kiwi and Mango."

In contrast, the platform built by Xiaomi seems to have gradually become a system. According to the report of International Online in December 2022, the brand of Xiaomi TV members (TV end) and Xiaomi TV members (mobile end) has been upgraded to VIP members.

However, Red Star Capital Bureau found that even under the same system, users of Xiaomi TV may still need to recharge twice.

In addition to the VIP members of Xiaomi Film and Television, Xiaomi has also launched the VIP members of Xiaomi Children's Growth, who can enjoy the rights and interests of 260000 animated films, 27000 children's songs, 3000 picture books and 4000 English animations.

Suppose a family buys Xiaomi TV and the children have a demand to watch it, the annual recharge fee spent on Xiaomi TV is about 697 yuan, including 348 yuan for the annual VIP membership card of Xiaomi TV and 349 yuan for the VIP membership of Xiaomi Children's Growth (there is a discount now).

Why do TV sets become more and more complex?

Red Star Capital Bureau found that around 2016, LeTV, under the leadership of Jia Yueting, launched the "ecological subsidy hardware" game, that is, sold LeTV Super TV to consumers at a price lower than the cost, and even launched the activity of "buying members to give away hardware".

This set of play can be simply understood as: LeTV Super TV loses money, but makes money back through "living room marketing".

At the end of November 2016, LeTV Super TV announced on the official official account that its emergence has lowered the threshold of using smart TV, made 9 million families enter the big screen ecological life, and reduced the average price of smart TV in the whole industry by more than 30%.

Over the years, LeTV's ecology has collapsed, but this set of playing methods seems to have been passed down among TV manufacturers.

A relevant person from a TV manufacturer confirmed to Red Star Capital Bureau that pre installed app platform, boot advertising, and third-party members' drawing are part of their income, but the interviewees said that they were not clear about the specific drawing fee and other data.

Maybe you can refer to your mobile phone and watch TV back and forth. According to the China Economic Times, it generally charges about 3 yuan to pre install a non uninstallable software for mobile phones.

Assuming that the pre installation cost of TV sets can also reach 3 yuan/model, for a TV manufacturer with an annual shipment of 50 million sets, the profit from only one app platform may reach 150 million yuan.