Research On The Content Production And Operation Mode Of MCN Institutions

MCN is the abbreviation of Multi-Channel Network.In recent years,with the rapid development of mobile short video industry in China,a large number of MCN institutions have risen quickly.After several years of development,the entire industry has been gradually move to maturity.However,relevant data shows that the growth rate of mobile Internet users in our country is slowing down in recent two years.The average MAU(Monthly Active Users)of mobile Internet reached 1.155 billion in 2020.The year-on-year growth continued to decline,dropping from 4.9% in 2018 to 1.7% in 2020,and users' dividend gradually falls.At the same time,the number of China's short video users reached 873 million and the usage rate was about 88.3% by the end of 2020.To an MCN institution,the reduction of incremental users in the future means tougher market competition.High-quality content is still the key for an MCN institution to survive in the constantly changing industry.Therefore,this paper summarizes similarities and differences between institutions in different scales with the purpose to study content production mode and operation mode of current MCN institutions,discovers the gap between waist and tail MCN institutions and head MCN institutions and new problems in the entire industrial development and puts forward reasonable references on MCN institutions' future development path.This paper analyzes historical development and industrial status of MCN institutions at home and abroad based on MCN-related literature and reports on various academic websites.It also studies MCN institutions of different scales in China with the combined method of participant observation and interview.With an internship opportunity in a medium-sized MCN institution and getting involved in the company's practical operation,the author of this paper has obtained a preliminary understanding of the content production mode and management mechanism of an MCN institution and learned about some problems the MCN institutions faced with from the practical level.According to the study,head MCN institutions possess following advantages relative to waist and tail MCN institutions: large scale of personnel,detailed job responsibilities,instant official support information,more monetization methods and high degree of datamation.However,waist and tail MCN institutions are more friendly to waist and tail Internet celebrities who are potential but have fewer fans and can provide them with more development opportunities,but there are some deficiencies of head MCN institutions in this regard,and the company's internal resources are distributed unevenly.It helps waist and tail MCN institutions realize their own deficiencies and find the direction for improvement through comparison.At the same time,it also helps waist and tail MCN institutions to locate suitable survival space.Although the entire industry has been mature gradually,there are many problems in current MCN institutions,e.g.insufficient creative contents,inappropriate management of Internet celebrities,shortage of professional talents and unequal speech of right between the institutions and Internet celebrities and difficulty in controlling the quality of cooperative brands.To sum up,domestic MCN institutions still have a long way to go in terms of content production and operation,brand management,international development and crossover cooperation.