Four channels I did not own, then one I helped shape

Mandate

Rebuild growth after paid membership began falling, without losing the authors who supply the catalogue.

Outcomes

• Free advertising-funded tier for 21,400 completed titles; monthly active readers from 9.4 million to 23 million
• 74 short-drama licences to twelve producers; RMB46 million licensing income in 2025
• Synthetic narration for 6,100 consenting backlist titles with labelled tracks
• Overseas translation licensing worth RMB29 million in 2025 without an overseas app

Decisions in context

As chief strategy officer I own the questions that cut across our departments: what to charge for, what to give away, whom to license and how to use synthetic content. I lead 24 people and report to Shiyun Rao, our chief executive and co-founder. I bring recommendations to the board with the opposing case written out, because our shareholders see risk differently: the founders worry about authors, the venture funds about growth and the state-owned fund about content review. The decisions described on this site cost us something in each case, whether profit for two years, a committed minimum of RMB60 million or most of a projected saving. I have no seat on the board. My task is to make the trade-off visible enough that the directors can choose knowingly, and then to report honestly on whether the choice worked.

Reason for the move

Current role; seeking one compatible external board seat with my employer's consent.

Mandate

Give the founders a strategy beyond serialised fiction and manage the company's distribution partners.

Outcomes

• Planned the run-down of set-top box channels from RMB38 million to RMB9 million and closed them in 2021
• Moved 26 channel staff into audio production and partner support
• Negotiated the 17% investment by Qingyaoshan Culture Investment Fund with a written content-review protocol
• Built the first audio-rights licensing programme with three platforms

Decisions in context

I joined Qiaoyuting from the publishing side and found a company with a strong catalogue and too much income from a shrinking channel. Reading and audio sold inside cable and IPTV set-top packages earned RMB38 million in 2017. I argued that we should run it down on a date we chose, rather than cut prices to slow the decline, and the founders agreed after some debate. I also built our first audio-rights licences. My largest task in 2020 was the investment by Qingyaoshan Culture Investment Fund. Our venture investors feared that a state-owned shareholder would slow decisions. I proposed a written protocol setting out which content categories the fund would review and within what time. It has held, and it taught me that partners with different instincts can work together when obligations are written down.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief strategy officer when the founders separated strategy from day-to-day partnership management.

Mandate

Find digital businesses in which the group could invest without losing control of its rights or its content-review responsibilities.

Outcomes

• Brought five investment proposals to the group investment committee; three approved
• Licensed e-book rights for about 9,000 backlist titles to online platforms
• Drafted the group's first standard terms for digital rights reversion

Decisions in context

This role taught me how a state-owned partner thinks. Approvals take longer, rights are held for decades and content review is a responsibility the group never hands to someone else. I prepared minority investments and rights licences, and I reported to the group investment committee without being a member of it. Two of my five proposals were rejected, including a stake in an audio company I still believe was sound, because I had not shown how content approval would work after the investment. That was a fair criticism and I have answered it in every partnership paper since. I also licensed e-book rights for about 9,000 backlist titles and wrote standard reversion terms. When Qiaoyuting later negotiated with a state-owned fund and a state-owned broadcaster, I already understood their questions.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work inside a growing online-reading company rather than advise on minority stakes.

Mandate

Plan the business as online video began competing with cable on-demand menus.

Outcomes

• Renegotiated revenue shares with eleven operators, moving children's channels to fixed carriage fees
• Showed the founders that on-demand viewing per household fell 18% in 2011 despite more connected homes
• Reduced dependence on the two largest operators from 58% of revenue to 41%

Decisions in context

I led planning for a company whose customers were cable and IPTV operators rather than viewers. Operators placed our film, drama and children's channels in their on-demand menus and paid us a share of what households spent. By 2011 online video sites were offering much of the same material free with advertising. Connected homes kept growing, so the operators' figures looked healthy, but viewing per household on our channels fell 18 per cent that year. I showed the founders that difference and renegotiated carriage, moving children's channels to fixed fees that did not depend on viewing. I also reduced our reliance on the two largest operators. The company became steadier but smaller, which the founders accepted with some reluctance. I left wanting to work with rights a company could own and license for years, rather than menus someone else controlled.

Reason for the move

Joined a state-owned publisher to work on rights that could be owned and licensed over many years.

Mandate

Report what households watched and paid for on each operator's on-demand menu.

Outcomes

• Built the first viewing report by operator, menu position and programme type
• Showed that children's programmes earned the steadiest income across operators
• Proposed dropping 1,300 rarely viewed film titles to reduce licensing cost

Decisions in context

I joined just as cable operators across western China were adding on-demand menus to their new digital services. Each month I received viewing and revenue figures from the operators and turned them into reports for our content team. The useful discovery was how much depended on where an operator placed us in its menu: the same film could earn three times as much on one network as another simply because it appeared on the first screen. Children's programmes earned the steadiest income because parents returned to them weekly. I recommended dropping about 1,300 rarely viewed films to save licensing fees, and the head of content operations agreed. The role taught me that a supplier's results often reflect the distributor's decisions more than the supplier's own, a lesson that shaped every partnership I later negotiated, including our own set-top channels at Qiaoyuting.

Reason for the move

Promoted to head business planning after the viewing analysis reshaped the channel line-up.

Mandate

Forecast subscriber numbers and revenue through the analogue-to-digital conversion.

Outcomes

• Built the household-level tariff model used for the conversion plan
• Identified the low-income districts most likely to disconnect after the fee rise
• Proposed a reduced basic package that the operator adopted for those districts

Decisions in context

My first job was modelling what households would do when the city's cable network moved from analogue to digital service and the monthly fee rose. I worked in a three-person planning office and prepared papers for the deputy general manager. Spending a week in a district service hall changed my models: people cared about next year's charge, not the channel count we had been celebrating. The households already struggling with the old fee were the most likely to leave. I proposed a reduced basic package for those districts, and the operator adopted it. I did not make decisions in this role, and my figures were checked by the finance office before use, but it gave me the habit I still rely on as a strategist, which is to ask what the customer is weighing before counting what the company can offer.

Reason for the move

Left to see the cable business from the supplier's side, at a company packaging on-demand channels for operators.