How does *Later Journey to the West*, which sits at the same table as *Niu Lai*, leverage a market value of 10 billion yuan?
Recently, the AI-produced long drama *The New Journey to the West* premiered on Hunan TV's prime time, instantly igniting the capital circle. Its associated company Mango Super Media subsequently saw two consecutive 20% daily limit gains, after which its share price rose with fluctuations. As of September 7, Mango Super Media's cumulative increase in recent trading days has exceeded 50%, and its corresponding market value once surged by more than 13.2 billion yuan.
Not only that, the capital boom triggered by *The New Journey to the West* spread rapidly, with multiple media stocks including Hengrui Century, Huace Film & TV, and Chinese Online rising collectively.
It is worth noting that the discussions triggered during this period rarely mention the content of *The New Journey to the West* itself, and almost all the focus is concentrated on the validated industrial chain, industrialized production process and capital market. Its "magic-like" degree is no less than that of the film *The Bull* that broke out in the film industry not long ago. The difference is that most of the voices around *The Bull* are just memes, while "The Monkey Arrival" has truly brought new opportunities and possibilities.
*The New Journey to the West*: 0 to 1 Breakthrough
What Capital Recognizes Is the Feasibility of AI Long Drama Industrialization
According to Coolyun Data, the premiere of *The New Journey to the West* won the first place in viewership among provincial satellite TVs in the same time slot, and generated a total of 66 hot searches across all platforms. Meanwhile, on streaming platforms, the cumulative view count of *The New Journey to the West* exceeded 100 million four days after its release.
However, this momentum did not last long, and in terms of public praise, the performance of *The New Journey to the West* is not satisfactory. The reason is obvious: compared with the relatively mature AI short dramas, *The New Journey to the West* lacks strong plots and eye-catching high-frequency reversals. At the same time, as a long drama, the advantages of AI in visual effects lack logical connection, which is suspected of overuse. Essentially, it has not got rid of the unnecessary padding problem that long dramas are often criticized for.
But the trend of the capital market is not affected by this. This strong contrast means that what capital is optimistic about is not *The New Journey to the West* itself, but the fact that the industrialization of AI long dramas has finally been successfully implemented.
The most intuitive point is that *The New Journey to the West* is fully produced by AI and successfully broadcast on satellite TV, which means that it has completed the entire industrial process involved in the implementation of AI long dramas from project initiation, script creation, production, review to broadcast. It has completed a technical verification, proving to the market that there are no fundamental technical obstacles that can block the implementation of AI long dramas at the technical level. From this perspective, whether *The New Journey to the West* is good to watch is not important. What matters is that the industry has achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1.
In addition, another highlight of *The New Journey to the West* is the implementation of the "simultaneous review and broadcast" policy. It is the first drama in China to implement the "simultaneous review and broadcast" policy after the release of the "21 Measures for Radio and Television".
From the perspective of creation, the characteristics of AI content are high marginal cost and high rework cost: the more refined the production is and the more revisions are made, the higher the consumption cost will be. This feature makes AI long dramas naturally suitable for "simultaneous review and broadcast". The producer of *The New Journey to the West* also stated that the plot will be adjusted according to bullet comments later, reflecting the advantages of "simultaneous review and broadcast" and its market-oriented trend.
On this basis, the exploration of "simultaneous review and broadcast" for AI long dramas also has reference value for live-action long dramas. Because at present, it is basically unrealistic for live-action long dramas to directly switch to the "simultaneous review and broadcast" model, which means that the creation of live-action dramas needs to be reconstructed from multiple levels including creation, artist brokerage, and business model. The trial and error cost of AI long dramas is relatively lower. If new commercial opportunities can be explored, it may accelerate the transformation of live-action long dramas to "simultaneous review and broadcast", which is another possibility brought by the satellite TV broadcast of AI long dramas.
From the industrialized production process to the "simultaneous review and broadcast" model, all these facts repeatedly verify that almost none of this round of surge in the capital market comes from the popularity, public praise or commercial value of *The New Journey to the West*. What really makes capital pay is the concentrated realization of multiple industry breakthroughs embodied in *The New Journey to the West*.
Single Episode Cost: 900,000 Yuan
Radio and Television Industry Collectively Bets on AIGC
In fact, *The New Journey to the West* is not the first AI drama broadcast on satellite TV.
As early as this year's Spring Festival, Zhejiang TV broadcast the AI micro-drama *Chinese Legends: White Snake*, which not only ranked second in national viewership in the same time slot, but its local audience share once exceeded 22%. Dragon TV also broadcast the AI micro-drama *Treasure Hunt at Shanghai Museum: See China Through 100 Artifacts - Born by AI*. In addition, in July this year, the intangible cultural heritage themed medium-length drama *Peach Blossom Pool Note* produced entirely through AI process was broadcast on Anhui TV, and China Media Group's Yangshipin even appeared in the producers of this drama...
In this process, the radio and television industry has become more and more active in exploring AI content, showing an irreversible trend.
In July last year, the Shaoguan Base of China Radio and Television Cultural Big Data Center, the South China Hub of the National Cultural Big Data System, officially started construction, with a total estimated investment of 3.7 billion yuan. After completion, it can carry 70% of the broadcast-level real-time rendering demand in the Greater Bay Area. In February this year, China Media Group released the "CMG Audio-Visual Media Large Model 2.0". It is reported that the platform already has more than 90 agents, and provides more than 2000 accounts for internal use by program centers of CMG.
Later, with the rapid iteration of AI technology, the relevant investment of the radio and television industry further focused on AI content production. For example, Qingdao Radio and Television, Guizhou Radio and Television, Sichuan Radio and Television and others have reached cooperation with Volcano Engine, covering AIGC, intelligent agents, short drama/comic drama creation, etc. Among them, Sichuan Radio and Television has built an AIGC production platform, with the Token procurement volume reaching the order of tens of millions. Even platforms that move faster have begun to sell computing power externally. For example, Jiangsu Radio and Television launched the "Vision · Smart Hub" AI ecological platform in May this year. In addition to promoting its own digital transformation, it also provides compliant, safe one-stop AI computing power and application services for government and enterprise customers.
It is not difficult to see that from building digital infrastructure, expanding computing power procurement to deploying related content, the penetration of AI content in traditional radio and television industry is likely to continue to increase. This trend, in addition to the traditional radio and television industry's response to the risks of industry transformation, the more direct reason is to seek substantial cost reduction solutions.
From the perspective of industry development, the contraction of traditional radio and television's drama procurement capacity is an indisputable fact. Except for China Media Group and top-tier first-line satellite TVs, most satellite TVs have not broadcast the latest dramas in prime time for a long time, and AI content shows great potential in cost reduction.
After the broadcast of *The New Journey to the West*, Cai Huaijun, Chairman of Mango Super Media, said: The total cost of this drama is only a fraction of that of similar S-level live-action dramas. With 30 episodes and 40 minutes per episode, the time from planning to launch is 70% shorter than that of traditional 3D animation. According to Li Dongshen, the director of the drama, the cost of a single episode is about 900,000 yuan, and the cost per minute is about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, which is less than one tenth of the production cost of traditional animation dramas.
Compared with the copyright fees that often reach tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan, the extreme cost reduction brought by AI content creation may improve the passive situation of traditional radio and television industry to a certain extent. In addition, from the overall trend of the industry, top film and television companies including Huace Film & TV and Hengrui Century are focusing on deploying AI content. When more film and television companies turn to AI dramas, traditional radio and television also needs to build a "stage" in advance that can carry corresponding content.
Being Broadcast on Satellite TV ≠ Making Profit
The Commercial Path of Dual-platform Distribution Still Needs Verification
But one point must be emphasized: the current performance of *The New Journey to the West* only verifies that AI can produce long dramas that can be broadcast on satellite TV, and does not verify that AI long dramas have already made profits. The biggest current conflict is that AI long dramas are not fully adapted to the business model of traditional live-action dramas.
In the past, a major source of revenue for radio and television was to attract advertisers with the purchased dramas. Advertising investment requires "pre-determinism", that is, advertisers evaluate the outbreak potential of a drama in advance from the dimensions of cast, production, IP, etc., and then decide whether to pay for it. But the core selling point of AI long dramas is "post-flexibility", that is, more flexible creation and scheduling. More importantly, current AI long dramas do not have obvious advantages in cast, production and other aspects. In addition, under the "simultaneous review and broadcast" model, the overall exposure cycle of the drama is shortened, which will lead to the delay of the time when advertisers enter the market.
Therefore, whether the traditional business model on the TV side can continue is questionable. But fortunately, the streaming platforms have accumulated a lot of experience in monetizing AI content. The capital market broke out at the launch node of *The New Journey to the West* this time, also because the drama was not only broadcast on Hunan TV, but also simultaneously launched on Mango TV. The dual-platform distribution makes the market see more opportunities.
What is certain is that AI long dramas will be optimized and upgraded at the technical and content levels in a very short period of time, and deliver works that impress the market. This point has been verified in the short drama and AI long film markets, which is accompanied by the rapid improvement of the commercial path of related content.
For example, since the beginning of this year, the outbreak of AI comic dramas has exceeded imagination, and hyper-realistic AI short dramas have also begun to create virtual stars on the original basis. Not long ago, Fang Taozi, the lead actor of *The Laid-off Girl*, has appeared on the e-magazine cover of a column under *Fashion COSMO*, and the commercialization path of AI actors has also entered the exploration period.
On the other hand, video platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku are focusing on deploying long-form AI content. Among them, the total split revenue of the "Floating Life Dream" series of *The Ferryman* co-produced by iQiyi and Changxin Media has exceeded 6 million yuan. There are also reserved contents for AI long dramas, for example, a more than 10-episode AI drama of Tencent Video is already under incubation.
In addition, new players are actively entering the market. On August 26, Dreamina AI under ByteDance launched the film and television content brand "Dreamina Studio", which is open for project submission for film and drama projects. Selected projects will receive computing power, technology, capital and industry resource support. Shanghai Animation Film Studio, Yihua Kaitian, Huayu Film and Television are among the first batch of partners. Among them, Huayu Film and Television has released three concept trailers for AI dramas: *Upside Down Dreams*, *The Beauty* and *Bad Blood*.
It can be seen that more industry resources have begun to concentrate on AI long dramas. Now, the broadcast of *The New Journey to the West* has completed a full-process industrial technical verification from creation to distribution. With further elimination of technical obstacles, the outbreak period of AI long dramas may be just around the corner.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Mirror Entertainment", the author is Litchi Wine, and 36Kr publishes it with authorization.