The collapse of traffic stars not only brought a certain amount of heat to the artists under Zhuang Yi and Golden Point, but also exposed all kinds of chaos in the domestic fan circle, which attracted the attention of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The Secretariat of the Cyberspace Administration of China issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Governance of the 'Fan Circle' Chaos", proposing ten requirements for major internet platforms, including canceling the list of celebrity artists, optimizing and adjusting the ranking rules, strictly managing celebrity brokerage companies, regulating fan group accounts, strictly prohibiting the presentation of mutual tearing information, cleaning up illegal group sections, not inducing fans to consume, strictly controlling the participation of minors, and regulating fundraising.

This is a notice for the whole network, and Lexiang Technology is not immune, and it is rectified overnight as required.

Fortunately, the violations of Lexiang Technology's products are not serious, and the losses are minimal, and the most seriously injured are Weibo and Tengfei Video, the former's "cultivation program" and the latter's "super talk list" were criticized by Xinhua News Agency:

"Since the 'first year of idols' in 2020, star-making programs have ushered in a stage of rapid development, and in the endless 'cultivation' idol programs, capital has participated in every link of idols from 'trainees' to 'stars', and can repeatedly 'harvest' fans' money bags in various ways......

Some websites' 'super talk lists' encourage fans to exchange points by signing in and posting, and then give the points to idols to brush up on rankings and hit the list. The higher the number of fans, the higher the ranking, the greater the value of idol traffic;

Some program groups encourage fans to buy designated products by 'scanning the code to vote for the products of the title sponsors', bringing huge returns to advertisers;

There are also some marketing agencies that create traffic stars through data fraud, topic hype, and control of comments and fields, and even use the "war of words" between fans to engage in the so-called "black and red are also red" bottomless hype ......"

As soon as the notice was released, the whole network applauded, and artists such as Zhuang Yi and Jiang Yining, who never hyped and never operated, were once again reported by the official media in a way that did not name them, the article pointed out:

Lexiang also said that from June 2024 to the present, Lexiang has investigated and cleaned up 7,864 illegal videos in response to fans tearing and abusing each other, minors supporting and playing lists; Cleaned up 2.419 million comments related to mutual tearing and abuse, inciting confrontation, and brushing volume control comments, of which 805,000 comments were processed to induce rankings, 572,000 comments were tearing and abusive, and 555,000 comments were brushed volume control comments.

Minors tend to take 'idols' as their imitation objects, and will constantly beautify and rationalize the behavior of idols, so public figures should pay more attention to their words and deeds, and promote young people to cultivate collective emotions for goodness, and realize self-expression and self-worth.

In fact, there is no shortage of high-quality 'idols' in our society, they are either talented musicians, down-to-earth actors, or professional film and television animation producers, who not only shine in China, but also are well-known all over the world, and have made indelible contributions to China's cultural export.

However, under the bad guidance of 'traffic first' and 'pan-entertainment', some capitals ignore their sense of social responsibility and string up various interest groups in the fan circle of 'idols-fans-commercial platforms-entertainment brokers-marketing agencies-advertisers-manufacturers', and do everything they can to harvest the money bags of fans, especially underage fans......"

After reading this notice, Shen Yize understood that the road of the fan circle and the traffic stars who live on the fan circle has narrowed.

It is difficult to say whether it can completely clean up the source, after all, the knife has not fallen on the head of the capital, and the possibility of a resurgence is not impossible, but at least for a long time in the future, the atmosphere in the circle will be improved to a certain extent.

This is undoubtedly great good news for all film and television companies that do not engage in fan economy and insist on speaking with their works

However, 2025 is destined to be a year of earthquake for the industry, which refers not only to entertainment but also to the Internet.

From early to mid-March, the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress were held in Yanbei, and at the opening meeting, the government work report pointed out:

"The state supports the innovation and development of platform enterprises and enhances their international competitiveness, and at the same time standardizes development in accordance with the law. Strengthen anti-monopoly, prevent the disorderly expansion of capital, and resolutely maintain a market environment of fair competition. ”

Shen Yize knows very well what this means, there are only two domestic enterprises that really meet the definition of monopoly and disorderly expansion, and the pertinence is self-evident.

These two companies started with the Internet, one for e-commerce, the other for social networking, and eventually they have become investment giants, and they are involved in all aspects of local life, medical care, travel, finance, entertainment, etc., and there are no other competitors in almost every field, only each other.

As soon as the news came out, the stock prices of more than a dozen Internet companies, including Tengfei and Ant, fell wildly, and a total of more than 2 trillion yuan of market value evaporated in just one day.

At the beginning of April, the State Administration for Market Regulation concentrated on the investigation of Internet monopoly cases, and among the 41 monopoly cases, 9 were involved in Tengfei, and 4.5 million yuan was fined.

Not only that, Shen Yize also got the news that the relevant departments will punish Feifei Music for unfair competition and abnormal acquisitions, and the amount may reach 10 billion.

Speaking of which, before the rise of Feifei Music, Quanyu Music was actually in a monopoly position, and the reason why Quanyu Music was not punished was because the monopoly itself was not illegal, and the use of monopoly position to engage in unfair competition touched the bottom line of the law.

Quanyu Music has never used its monopoly position to restrict the development of other platforms, and because of this, Feifei Music was able to rise rapidly by throwing money, but after the rise, Feifei Music did two things, both of which involved unfair competition, which is why the Market Supervision Bureau decided to punish it.

The first thing is to engage in exclusive copyright.

The most famous example is the battle for Universal Music's rights license. Two years ago, Universal Music, which accounts for 30% of the global record market, opened up licensing cooperation in China, and everyone knows that this is a battle, because winning Universal will be close to monopoly.

At that time, only Quanyu Music, Feifei Music, Lexiang Music and Ant Shrimp Music were eligible to participate in the competition in China.

At first, Universal Music's offer for a non-exclusive partnership was $35 million, which translates to just over $200 million, which the four platforms can afford.

As a result, Feifei Music found the parent company of Universal Music, the Vivendi Group, and offered an offer of $350 million in cash and $100 million in Feifei Music options, with only one request: only to cooperate with Feifei Music.

Quanyu Music was personally led by Ding Wenjie, and after hearing this price, he was directly intimidated, not to mention that his strength and determination were not as good as Quanyu's Lexiang and Shrimp.

It is said that after the price was quoted, the boss in charge of Ant Entertainment directly asked a soul question: "Can we not buy the copyright and only sign the musician?" ”

The ants didn't even think about how to do entertainment, the direction was changing all the time, not to mention that as soon as Takeoff came, the threshold for admission was raised to an unimaginable extent.

In the competition for exclusive copyrights, there were only a few giants left in music streaming media in the end, and small platforms either sold themselves or cooled, and later even Xiami Music was eliminated, and Shen Yize directly gave up copyright acquisition and only made independent music.

Feifei Music has successfully collected the exclusive copyright authorization of the world's three major record companies, Universal, Sony and Warner, and has mastered 90% of the domestic music copyright.

Because it occupies an absolute monopoly on music copyright, Feifei Music has also surpassed Quanyu Music in one fell swoop in the market competition, and is in an absolute leading position.

Although Quanyu Music was the former overlord and had good reviews, the number of users is only about a quarter of Feifei Music's, and the income difference is even greater, and the total revenue of Quanyu Music last year was only about 5 billion, far lower than Feifei Music's 29 billion.

The relevant state departments have long tried to break the de facto monopoly of Feifei Music, but the effect of that shot was not very good, because the moat dug by Feifei Music in the music copyright market is too deep.

In July last year, the National Copyright Administration interviewed Feifei Music, Quanyu Music and Lexiang Music, and asked these companies to take out 99% of the copyrights for cross-licensing.

In fact, the main target of this interview is Feifei Music, which holds the copyright of more than 60 million music, and the number of copyrights for all entertainment and enjoyment is less than one-third of Tengfei.

But because there are too many copyrights of Feifei Music, even if it is 99% open, there are still 600,000 songs left, and the songs that domestic music consumers often listen to are about 30,000, so Feifei Music has left the music copyrights of most well-known artists in its hands, and only opened the cross-licensing of unpopular songs.

Shen Yize is very glad that he did not sell the exclusive license to Tengfei back then, otherwise the situation would only be worse, but even so, Feifei Music's monopoly position in the market has not changed.

By the end of 2024, the daily active users of Lexiang Music will only be about 10 million, and the daily active users of Quanyu Music will be less than 20 million, while Feifei Music has already exceeded 100 million daily active music with the drainage of social software and the blessing of copyright.

What's more, Lexiang Music and Quanyu Music have lost more than 3 billion and 5 billion respectively in the past three years, while Feifei Music's net profit in the first quarter of 2025 will reach 1.2 billion, no matter which data is compared, it is not at all in an order of magnitude.

The concentration and monopoly of capital has caused great harm to the music industry, except for Zhuang Yi, Jiang Yining, Yu Sheng and other musicians who have become famous and have played steadily, the new generation has almost broken off, and the songs are more saliva than the other.

This is because Feifei Music, which occupies a monopoly position, does not encourage originality like Quanyu Music back then, but pays more attention to the return on investment of music, how to make money, and does not pay attention to the music itself at all.

Under the guidance of Feifei Music, traffic has gradually become the most important criterion for musicians, rather than quality.

Feifei Music's main revenue sources are divided into two parts: social entertainment services and online music services, and the so-called social entertainment services are derivative entertainment services such as live broadcast and fan economy, which account for 65% of the total revenue.

Online music services, which are advertising and music subscriptions, account for only 35% of total revenue, while music subscription services account for only 21% of total revenue.

Although the total revenue and paying users are increasing, the number of monthly active users of online music on the platform is declining, while the monthly active users of the entertainment business are increasing year by year.

So in a sense, although Feifei Music has obtained more than 90% of the domestic copyright, it only uses music as a traffic entrance to attract traffic for entertainment businesses and advertising businesses such as live broadcasts and fan casting.

For example, Feifei Music directly encourages fans to make charts for idols and idols' songs, and also sets up virtual coins and popularity lists to guide users to compete with each other in voting.

This is also why on Feifei Music's popularity list, best-selling list and other lists, the top ones are traffic stars.

The platform pays more attention to the traffic of music, the commercial value of music, playback volume and conversion rate, as for whether the music style is popular or niche, whether the quality is high or low, and whether the lyrics and songs are advanced or not, Tengfei doesn't care at all.

Compared with traditional musicians, the combination of saliva songs and traffic stars is more commercially valuable, since it can easily make quick money, how many people will work hard to make slow money?

As Ma Tengfei said: "The most efficient way to make money is not that we produce what users like, but that no matter what we produce, users can only accept it, whether they like it or not." ”

He almost did.

The relevant state departments have taken action against the music industry several times in a row, and the fundamental goal is to make the music industry develop benignly, and let real music creators enjoy dividends through the formalization and rationalization of copyright.

However, in actual operation, not only did it accidentally give birth to the monopoly giant Feifei Music, but it also failed to achieve the purpose of increasing the income of creators, and even Feifei Music has become a major obstacle in the music industry.

The fact that Feifei Music has reached a monopoly through exclusive copyright, and the exclusive copyright itself is suspected of unfair competition, but the law does not stipulate this, so it is not suitable to enforce it, but what Feifei Music did next just fell into the truth.

In the middle of last year, Ascendas invested in China Music Group with a valuation business, acquiring a 61.64% stake in China Music Group, and gaining sole control of China Music Group. After the integration, China Music Group changed its name to Tengfei Music Entertainment Group, and completed the registration procedures for equity change at the end of last year.

Prior to the acquisition, China Music Group was jointly controlled by several natural persons, and after the acquisition, Tengfei obtained sole control, which is a concentration of undertakings under Article 20 of the Anti-Monopoly Law.

According to the Anti-Monopoly Regulations, "if the concentration of undertakings meets the prescribed notification standards, the undertakings shall report to the anti-monopoly law enforcement agency in advance, and the concentration shall not be implemented if the failure to do so is made".

However, Tengfei did not report to the relevant authorities before completing the registration of the equity change, which violated Article 21 of the Anti-Monopoly Law and constituted an illegal concentration of undertakings.

In April, the Market Supervision Bureau announced the results of the treatment, Feifei Music was fined 10 billion yuan because it did not follow the normal process in the process of acquiring China Music Group, and Feifei Music must give up the exclusive right to act as a copyright agent, cancel the star list that guides consumption, and limit the number of albums purchased by each account at a time.

The soaring dream of a 100 billion music monopoly officially declared bankruptcy.