By CHENG Lu
HUANG Wei, better-known as live-streaming queen Viya, was fined 1.3 billion yuan (US$210 million) for tax evasion late last year. Her Weibo no longer exists, she has vanished from Taobao, and her streaming accounts are offline. Viya is no more. And neither are many more of the big-name spivs.
Several super live streamers have gone underground or retired. Taobao’s lipstick king Austin Li Jiaqi is the last super streamer standing. The rat race continues, however, with a whole new cast of streamers heading for who-knows-where.
Viya is (not) back!
On the evening of February 12, some of Viya’s former assistants created an account called Bee Surprise Club and had a live streaming session on Taobao. There was immediately a lot of talks that “Viya is back,” until Qianxun Culture, Viya’s parent company, denied all association with the club.
With similar style, sets and operations, after five days the club had a million fans and was the third rank stream on Taobao Live. Shows now are regularly watched by up to 10 million viewers, far surpassing other Taobao mainstream channels anchors.
Most of Viya’s traffic and turnover on Taobao is unlikely to go elsewhere. The three main streaming platforms, Taobao, Kuaishou, and Douyin, are completely different from one another, with disparate users.
Li Jiaqi received many offers from Viya’s brands but the products in his live streaming room were chosen months ago. After a sudden surge in traffic just after Viya went AWOL, viewership at Li’s room has returned to normal.
“Given the circumstances, it would be easy for Viya to be a top streamer again, but it turns out that almost anyone with high-quality resources like the ‘Bee Surprise Club’ can do the same,” commented an e-commerce insider. In this context, brands are turning to more cost-effective and rational sales vehicles. Live streaming will never be the same again.
Some optimistic businesses yet wait for the 36-year-old to make a comeback, but since the day of Viya’s disappearance, the mythical wealth of live streamers is turning out to be exactly that: mythical.
Silence on the 14th floor
LIU Zhiwu runs an MCN agency in Hangzhou. “It feels like there’s almost no one left, he said. “There are only three agencies on our floor, and the other two are going to quit.”
Liu charges brands per sale. He said that a standard four to five-person studio, even if it is on air for 12 hours a day, only makes a few tens of thousands of yuan a month.
Basic live-streaming salaries start at 30,000 yuan. “Labor costs are very high, but there are always plenty of people pushing in. Newcomers haven’t actually made any money and are in the majority,” Liu said.
Taobao defined the basic pattern of celebrity-like anchors with no actual status other than faces on a screen, coupled with agencies. Douyin on the other hand relies on algorithms and decentralization. In the second half of 2021, many brands migrated to Douyin, even with its volatile traffic. It is a deliberately confusing system designed to prevent traders from ever fully understanding where their sales come from.
“It’s hard to find a proficient trader, and the rules of the platform are constantly changing,” added Liu. “In the end, I realized that there are two ways to make steady money from live streaming – training anchors and selling the equipment.”
Can’t stream, won’t stream
Few people in the live-streaming world now fantasize about making a fortune, but Liu is positive. “I believe that when the industry cools down, we will have to think about how to survive.”
Since Viya got the chop, Alibaba has claimed that it has changed its system to guard against the emergence of super streamers. But the majority of Taobao traffic is still in the hands of 20 percent of anchors, and the brand’s own broadcasts have not gotten off the ground. Brands lack the capabilities and few are showing much willingness to develop them.
