WeChat Channels has joined the fray to compete for new creator agencies, making user acquisition the first major battlefield in platform competition?

The long-standing "Buddha-like" entertainment live streaming on WeChat Channels is now sending out clear offensive signals.

Recently, the entertainment live streaming division of WeChat Channels launched a new MCN recruitment campaign, breaking its previously low-profile industry impression through a series of moves including policy briefings and operation docking support.

While leading platforms have long elevated new MCN acquisition to a strategic priority, competing for incremental growth through full-spectrum support such as policy concessions, operation assistance and offline events, WeChat Channels has finally taken the initiative to join the competition.

What kind of signal does this move by WeChat Channels send out? How strong is its policy support? What kind of impact will it bring to the already intense industry competition for acquiring new MCNs?

WeChat Channels Launches New MCN Recruitment

According to the "August 2026 MCN Incentive Policy for WeChat Channels Live" obtained by New Broadcast Field, the core of the entertainment live streaming policy of WeChat Channels is divided into two major sections:

First, hierarchical and categorized operation of hosts, with precise incentives matched to different tracks. The platform divides hosts into three categories: "Entertainment Host - General Host", "Entertainment Host - Professional Host" and "Game Live Streaming".

Among them, professional hosts are specifically positioned to cover vertical professional content fields such as traditional opera, art troupes and musical instruments, and their entry requires official review and certification. This differentiated hierarchical design not only maintains the basic market of mass entertainment live streaming, but also highlights WeChat Channels' differentiated advantages in the professional content track, which fits the diverse content preferences of users in the WeChat ecosystem.

Second, a task-based revenue sharing system covering the full operation cycle of MCNs. Specifically, it includes four modules: MCN new acquisition tasks, live streaming tasks, revenue tasks and short video tasks, forming a complete incentive closed loop covering host recruitment, live streaming retention, revenue monetization and short video content precipitation.

In terms of revenue sharing intensity, the new host sharing reward is 19%, and the total of sharing plus reward can reach 69%, which directly reduces the initial incubation cost of new MCNs. Among existing hosts, professional content hosts enjoy the highest task incentive, with the total of sharing plus reward reaching 75%, guiding MCNs to focus on high-quality vertical content and avoid homogeneous internal competition for traffic.

An MCN practitioner told New Broadcast Field that the policies for entertainment live streaming on WeChat Channels have always been relatively stable, with almost no changes for several months, which gives MCNs a stable expectation for business operation.

Recently, this set of stable policies has begun to move from the "back end" to the "front stage".

New Broadcast Field learned that the entertainment live streaming division of WeChat Channels has recently held two consecutive online policy briefings, attracting hundreds of MCNs to sign up and participate, and many practitioners who previously held a wait-and-see attitude specially attended the meetings for docking.

For WeChat Channels, which used to be relatively "Buddha-like", this is already a leap forward. It is worth noting that for a long time in the past, many small and medium-sized MCNs lacked smooth channels to connect with the official operation team of WeChat Channels, and the reach efficiency of the platform's operation side was far lower than that of other leading platforms.

Behind this series of moves is the adjustment of the organizational structure of WeChat Channels' entertainment live streaming division. From team formation to intensive briefings, and even possible preparation for offline events, the new MCN acquisition strategy of WeChat Channels has clearly referred to the verified paths of mature platforms such as Douyin, and is rapidly making up for its shortcomings in operation.

Is New MCN Acquisition the Top Priority?

Acquiring new MCNs has long been the core proposition for live streaming platforms.

At the beginning of 2026, Douyin Live took the lead in elevating new MCN acquisition to a platform strategy, officially setting up a dedicated new MCN team and dividing it into four major regions by geographical area for refined special operation.

In early April, Douyin held its first offline exchange meeting for new MCNs in Guangzhou, which not only updated the latest development status of the platform, but also invited new MCNs with outstanding growth rate to share their growth paths and operation experience, setting a benchmark effect.

In terms of policies, Douyin has customized an independent task support system for new MCNs: canceling the revenue growth assessment for the first 6 months after entry, taking only the number of effective new hosts acquired and the number of active hosts as the core indicators, and MCNs that meet the standards can get a maximum of 20% revenue sharing reward.

In addition, Douyin has established a quarterly new MCN growth mechanism, which has been held for two sessions so far. Official data shows that more than 2,000 new MCNs settled in Douyin in the first quarter, of which more than 200 new MCNs successfully completed their growth phase; in the second quarter, more than 400 new MCNs completed their growth phase, and more than 150 MCNs achieved a monthly revenue breakthrough from 0 to 300,000 RMB, with the growth rate of new MCNs significantly improved.

Douyin's focus on new MCN acquisition is essentially the incremental anxiety of leading platforms: although live streaming revenue still maintains rapid growth, the growth of existing MCNs is weak, and some leading MCNs have hit operation bottlenecks. The platform must continuously inject new MCNs to tap cross-domain incremental value and maintain ecological vitality and revenue growth.

Douyin's high-intensity new MCN acquisition has also directly forced the entire industry to enter a new round of acquisition competition. This year, live streaming platforms including YY, Inke and Huya have successively updated their new MCN support policies, lowering the entry threshold, increasing the revenue sharing ratio and extending the support period. With WeChat Channels' strong entry into the competition for MCN resources, a new round of acquisition war in the entire entertainment live streaming industry has fully broken out.

"Now every platform is under great pressure to acquire new MCNs, and this pressure is passed on to the platform's operation teams." A senior practitioner in the live streaming industry told New Broadcast Field that now the new MCN acquisition targets of each platform have been broken down to specific departments and individuals.

What is more challenging for platforms is that acquiring new MCNs is only the first step, while retention and growth are long-term propositions. Many platforms have seen situations where MCNs fall into silence soon after settlement due to lack of supporting operation support.

Some MCN heads pointed out that the capability gap between different platforms and different operation teams is very obvious. For example, some operation staff cannot even complete basic new acquisition tasks, while some can independently provide full-link guidance from zero to one.

Even so, no platform dares to fall behind in the new acquisition stage.

For MCNs, the considerations for choosing a platform have become more diversified: they no longer only focus on the short-term revenue sharing ratio, but also evaluate the platform's traffic, policy stability, track opportunities and long-term growth potential.

For platforms, what really determines the retention and growth of MCNs is whether they can provide full-link support covering host recruitment methodologies, standardized operation SOPs and revenue breakthrough paths.

This also puts forward new requirements for the comprehensive operation capability of platforms.

Only players who have truly built a mature growth system for MCNs can build real barriers in this round of incremental competition. The entire industry will also bid farewell to the extensive land-grabbing era in this new competition, and move to a refined competition stage that focuses more on quality and ecological development.

This article is from the WeChat official account "New Broadcast Field", written by Chang Mei, and published with authorization from 36Kr.