The revival of talent shows, but unsurprisingly it is the &#34;Huan Dalu&#34; revival again.
On October 26th, iQIYI International and South Korea's SBS jointly launched the global boy group talent show &#34;Shining Star Boys&#34;, which still follows the familiar selection format. The mentor team all come from the rich idol incubation experience of the Korean entertainment industry. Whether it can attract fans is not very clear, but it has indeed brought a lot of fun to the onlookers.
The global entertainment industry is experiencing a &#34;downgrade in aesthetics&#34;, which also applies to the idol market. The number of participating trainees has been reduced to 69, there are &#34;recycled meat&#34;, deceptive retouched photos, and unbearable first performances... After watching the first episode, the newcomer who made Muyu want to &#34;buy stocks&#34; is only Shao Ziheng, who is said to be a rookie in this talent show.
Being able to make ordinary viewers want to &#34;buy stocks&#34; certainly means there is something special. In addition to being an SM trainee for four years, a Warner Music signed singer, and indeed having some good looks, Shao Ziheng's biggest label at the moment should be &#34;Shao Bing's son&#34;, the tough actor Shao Bing who won the Best Actor award at the Golden Rooster Awards. So Shao Ziheng was called &#34;the crown prince&#34; as soon as he appeared, attracting some attention from the audience, but whether this attention can be transformed into genuine feelings and real financial investments is still unclear.
iQIYI has not given up on talent shows, and neither has Tencent. In early 2024, Tencent's girl group talent show &#34;Produce Camp Asia&#34; aimed at Southeast Asia received no attention from the audience from the broadcast to the formation of the group. In October, the male version of &#34;Produce Camp Asia&#34; started the trainee interviews again.
Also in October, the joint Chinese and Korean boy group talent show &#34;Scool&#34; hosted by Taiwan and South Korea was popular, inviting many Korean idols as mentors and sending contestants from mainland idol companies. However, the show is still more about fun than the stage.
The main episodes cannot be aired on mainland Chinese online platforms, idols lack domestic entertainment stages, low participation of mainland audiences, only 300 fans on the entire internet... The challenges facing the idol industry cannot make content platforms represented by iQIYI and Tencent retreat.
It cannot be denied that the current surge of talent shows has indeed brought vitality to the domestic idol market, and the domestic idol ecosystem is showing signs of recovery. Under the talent show model led by platforms recruiting trainees, the platforms with absolute discourse power and decision-making power, as well as the trainees who are &#34;made stars&#34;, are reaping the most benefits. But when will the idol companies caught in the middle of this idol industry profit chain be able to get through the cold winter?
Idol companies are being marginalized
Let's go back to 2018, when talent shows like &#34;Idol Producer&#34; opened the &#34;Year of Idols&#34; in the domestic entertainment industry, the booming idol industry also attracted a large amount of capital in a short period of time.
In March 2018, before &#34;Idol Producer&#34; officially ended, Kunyin Entertainment, which provided contestants for the show such as Bu Fan, Ling Chao, Mu Ziyang, and Yue Yue, had already received tens of millions in pre-A round financing led by Sequoia Capital China Fund and followed by ZhenFund.
In June of the same year, Maire Entertainment, which provided popular contestants for &#34;Idol Producer&#34; such as Li Xikan and Luo Zheng, as well as the debut contestant Zi Ning for &#34;Produce 101&#34;, completed an A round financing of tens of millions from the listed company Wentai Holdings;
In September, the first round of the unpopular contestants Zhao Lingfeng and Zhang Yifan in &#34;Idol Practice&#34; were eliminated, and their company Asia Idol Factory AIF completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB... It was indeed a year of rapid development for the idol industry.
However, the problem lies in the fact that the talent show created by the platform only provided a traffic entrance for the domestic idol industry, and the difficulty in sustaining content supply became the biggest challenge faced by idol companies.
After the &#34;Kun Yin Four&#34; became popular through &#34;Idol Producer,&#34; Qin Zhouyi, the founder of Kun Yin Entertainment, mentioned in an interview with 36Kr the various problems existing behind Chinese entertainment companies: unclear idol positioning, lack of standardized artist products, lack of branding strategies, scattered marketing methods and platforms, relatively spontaneous fan operations, etc.
The influx of talent show traffic accelerated the connection between idols and the public, but the business model of idol companies and the entire idol market system have not matured yet. After the talent show, idol companies are unable to sustain content supply, struggling with operations, and cannot afford to watch their popularity decline. They can only frequently send idols to commercial activities for short-term monetization. However, this simple consumption of traffic cannot drive the development of the idol market, leading to a vicious cycle.
Even ninepercent operated by iQIYI, after forming in April 2018, frequently participated in various commercial activities, holding three concerts in May alone. However, the group's first album was not officially released until November, making short-term monetization a common choice for idol companies.
In fact, observing the path to fame of some well-known groups in Japan and South Korea reveals that idol groups need time and works to accumulate fans and influence. However, with the assistance of talent shows, domestic idol groups have compressed or even skipped the initial accumulation stage, gaining massive traffic in the short term but lacking works. Therefore, once this traffic entrance of talent shows is cut off, idol companies immediately begin to falter.
The &#34;milk dumping incident&#34; in 2021 led to the &#34;cold palace&#34; for domestic talent shows, and idol companies lacking works and idol operation capabilities collectively entered a winter period.
Popular idols under Maverick Entertainment such as Yao Chi, Li Xikan, Zi Ning, Luo Zheng have all terminated their contracts, and in early 2024, they were involved in a controversy of owing money to a styling company. The official Weibo accounts have also stopped updating, seemingly unable to survive this &#34;winter.&#34; Wang Sicong's Banana Entertainment is sticking to the same routine, tirelessly sending trainees to various &#34;Cross-continental Talent Shows.&#34; Although most of them are nameless, after multiple changes in equity, they have at least managed to &#34;survive.&#34;
More idol companies are choosing to explore new paths, sending idols to film, perform in musicals, or participate in offline commercial performances. In the industry's predicament, everyone is no longer picky about whether the job is suitable; &#34;survival&#34; has become the top priority.
Comparatively, the situation for top idol companies is much better. Wow! Entertainment is transitioning towards content, with founder Long Danni having rich experience in content production. In recent years, the platform's produced films and variety shows have achieved certain success, with &#34;Can't Hide&#34; and &#34;Difficult to Soothe&#34; being flagship projects
However, Long Danni seems to have not given up on the idol market, as she has restarted the &#34;Ran Shao Training Camp&#34; and recently opened official accounts and channels. Yes, it is the place where the top stream Xiao Zhan &#34;was born&#34;, which can also be seen as a sign of the revival of the idol market.
Listed company Yuehua Entertainment is one of the few companies still persisting in idol incubation, continuously launching new boy groups and girl groups. However, in a recent workplace reality show launched by Yuehua, the mid-year report by employees revealed an undeniable dilemma: the performance completion rate of idol groups is even lower than that of the boss Du Hua himself. Even the somewhat famous second-generation star Zhang Hao Lian only earned tens of thousands in the first half of the year, and including makeup and hair expenses, he was even in a loss.
The idol industry is not making money, and idol companies have yet to emerge from the cold winter.
After the mainland talent show
To this day, the business model of domestic entertainment idol companies and the idol market system have not been perfected, and have even encountered new challenges: audience and market enthusiasm are gradually waning.
Domestic entertainment only stopped talent shows, not idol development. The continued cooling of the idol market is partly due to the loss of talent shows as a traffic entry point. The current operational capabilities of idol companies and the current status of the idol market are not enough to support the development of idol groups. On the other hand, audience enthusiasm is gradually fading. Previously jokingly called &#34;300 show fans on the entire internet,&#34; now there may not even be 300 left.
An unavoidable fact is that show fans are not so &#34;loyal&#34;, and can even be described as &#34;fickle&#34;. Therefore, the audience for each talent show is relatively fixed. After the talent shows were stopped, the bridge connecting show fans and idols was cut off, leading to the continued low volume and popularity of the idol market. Even with the return of talent shows, this situation has not changed.
The biggest problem facing &#34;mainland talent shows&#34; is the low participation of mainland audiences. For example, shows like &#34;Asian Superstar Group&#34; jointly created by Youku and TVB, and &#34;Produce Camp Asia&#34; created by Tencent in Thailand, do not provide a voting channel for mainland audiences. Mainland audiences can only watch but not vote, leading to a lack of participation and a continuous decline in audience enthusiasm and loyalty. The number of audiences willing to pay real money is even fewer.
In fact, whether it is the loss of talent shows or show fans leading to the idol market's winter, the fundamental reason lies in the insufficient idol ecology in China. Over-reliance on the front-end platform's talent show model, coupled with the inability of the back-end idol companies' operations to match the huge traffic brought by the front-end platform, when the talent show model led by the platform fails, the idol companies are hit even harder.
The platform has not given up on talent shows, and neither have some idol companies. However, after &#34;mainland talent shows&#34;, how to achieve continuous content supply, such as providing works and stages for idol artists, and further accumulating popularity and influence during the golden period of traffic, is still a state without a clear direction. But it is clear that relying solely on overseas talent shows on platforms that have already eaten up most of the dividends from the front end is not feasible.
Today, three years after the suspension of domestic entertainment talent shows, the business model of idol companies and the idol market system have still not been fully established. Compared to the idol entertainment ecosystem in Japan and South Korea, the Chinese idol market still has a long way to go, and the recovery of idol companies also has a long way to go

The talent show "Shining Teenagers" premiered on October 26th, attracting a lot of attention. Despite facing challenges in the idol market with a decrease in the number of participating trainees, the show still brings fun. Shao Ziheng has become the focus due to his background and performance, sparking audience interest. iQIYI and Tencent continue to invest in talent shows, despite facing issues such as low audience engagement, the domestic entertainment idol market is showing signs of recovery

- The global boy group audition show "Starry Youth" premiered on October 26, 2023, co-produced by iQIYI and SBS, featuring a familiar selection process and experienced mentors.  
- Despite a decline in participant numbers and challenges in audience engagement, the show has sparked interest, particularly in contestant Shao Ziheng, who is noted for his background and potential.  
- The idol industry faces ongoing difficulties, including a lack of sustainable content supply and diminishing audience enthusiasm, highlighting the need for a more robust operational model to support idol groups.

The talent show is causing a stir again, when will the idol companies revive?