[NTD News September 20, 2021, Beijing time]The short video live channel of Li Ziqi, a well-known Internet celebrity in mainland China, has been stopped for 65 days, but neither she nor her team has disclosed the reasons for the stop of the update, triggering China Widespread attention and speculation from netizens. Recently, it has been reported that Li Ziqi “suffered a loss” in the shareholding structure with his partners, and may fall into a situation of no harvest.
Li Ziqi has more than 100 million fans worldwide. Her short video subscriptions on YouTube reached 14.1 million in February this year, breaking the Guinness world record of “the most subscriptions to YouTube Chinese channels”. But since the video “Chai Rice, Oil, Salt, Sauce, Vinegar and Tea” was released on July 14 this year, her channel suddenly stopped updating. It has been more than two months, and the outside world is very curious. What happened to her?
In the early days when the update was stopped, many netizens speculated that Li Ziqi might be ill, but they have not seen her resume the update for a long time, and have not given any explanation. Various speculations and analyses began to appear on the Internet.
On August 26, Li Ziqi’s assistant posted a Weibo to give a brief explanation on the issue of stopping the update. The post stated, “Sister Qi (referring to Li Ziqi) has been working on things that have ignored many practical issues in the past few years. Now it needs to be sorted out. I believe that they will be sorted out. I know that the seventh senior high school has not graduated, and now I need it. Continuous learning, learning all kinds of knowledge and skills, is a good thing.”
On August 30, Li Ziqi suddenly posted on Weibo saying, “I called the police early in the morning”, which immediately aroused the great curiosity of netizens. Many doubts and conjectures.
At that time, Li Ziqi mentioned that “capital is really a good method” when replying to a netizen’s message. Although she deleted this message soon afterwards, the outside world has begun to speculate that she is likely to have some disputes with the MCN agency that signed the contract. Some netizens questioned: “Is another blogger sold by capital?”
The so-called MCN is the English abbreviation of Multi-Channel Network, which mainly refers to the operation method that guarantees the continuous output of various aspects of content through the investment of “capital”, and finally realizes the realization of commercial value. Nowadays, most Internet celebrities in mainland China have MCN agencies that have signed and cooperated to provide support behind them and plan to operate their related industries. The MCN agency that Li Ziqi signed was Hangzhou Weinian Brand Management Co., Ltd. (“Weinian” for short).
In mid-September, rumors of Li Ziqi’s team being “poached” by Li Yapeng began to spread on social media. However, Li Ziqi’s assistant subsequently posted on Weibo on September 13 to deny this statement. His post stated that Li Ziqi was recently sorting out the company’s problems with third-party companies, and there was no situation in which the team was poached.
As for what happened between Li Ziqi and the “third-party company”, she and her assistant still did not disclose any specific content. However, this statement has caused an upsurge of public discussion on various disputes between Internet celebrities and MCN agencies on the Internet.
According to a report in the Daily Economic News on the 19th, Li Ziqi, whose real name is Li Jiajia, started shooting short videos in 2015. In 2016, her short video “Lanzhou Beef Noodles” received widespread attention. She started to formally set up a team in 2017 and created the personal brand “Li Ziqi”.
In 2017, Li Ziqi cooperated with the “Weinian” company to establish Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (“Ziqi Culture” for short). The two parties jointly prepared the Li Ziqi video brand, of which Weinian Technology holds 51% of the shares, and Li Ziqi (Li Jiajia) holds 49% of the shares. “Weinian” company’s equity is extremely dispersed, but there are also some large capital involved in investment.
According to the analysis of Tianyancha and other data, “WeChat Official Account@Reading Entertainment” pointed out that “Weinian” had received investment from Huaying Capital, Chenhai Capital, and Mango Cultural and Creative Fund in the early stage. After cooperating with the popular Li Ziqi, “Weinian” has successively received investment from major companies such as Sina Weibo, Huaying Capital, Zhuoshi Capital, and Chenhai Capital. The founders of “Weinian” also invested in their own companies.
Weibo V “My Shopkeeper” revealed on Weibo that the number of insured persons in Sichuan Ziqi Culture Communication Co., Ltd. controlled by Li Ziqi is 0, and the number of insured persons in Hangzhou “Weinian” is 504, which means that the daily operation of the Li Ziqi brand All personnel involved in commercial realization belong to Hangzhou “Weinian”.
The post pointed out that the Li Ziqi and Li Ziqi brands are the core assets of “Weinian”, and they hold “200+ Li Ziqi” related trademarks, but Li Ziqi himself does not hold shares in “Weinian”.
According to a report on the Deep Net, according to the common cooperation model of MCN institutions, Li Ziqi’s cultural brands and consumer brands are divided into: “Ziqi Culture” focuses on the video content itself and is operated daily by Li Ziqi himself; “Wei Nian” He is fully responsible for the building and operation of Li Ziqi’s consumer brand, including the construction of the industrial chain. The two parties distribute the income according to the agreed income share ratio, but Shenzhen Net has not been able to know the specific share ratio of the two parties.
The report suggested that Li Ziqi himself does not own shares in “Weinian”, and that Li Ziqi’s flagship store on Tmall is also “Weinian”. Therefore, the benefits that Li Ziqi can obtain from the cooperation with Weinian are limited to the income share ratio initially agreed by both parties. However, with the continuous growth of the valuation of “Weinian” and the continuous growth of Li Ziqi’s consumer brand, the original profit sharing method of the two parties will obviously trigger new controversies.
According to the report, the conflict that broke out between the two parties this time depends on a new benefit distribution plan to resolve. If the two sides cannot resolve it properly, it can only be a lose-lose outcome.
In response to this, Xu Tao, a partner of Guangdong Fangdun Law Firm, analyzed in an interview with “China Fund News”: The specific cooperation between Li Ziqi and “Wei Nian” cannot be seen from the public information. The specific situation depends on the shareholder cooperation agreement. . If the intellectual property rights of Li Ziqi’s video belong to “Wei Nian”, then Li Ziqi has become a wage earner. He said: “Under the’Weinian’ brand, it is possible for Li Ziqi to sell himself and return others to count the money.”
(Reporter He Yating Comprehensive Report / Chief Editor: Fan Ming)
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