iQiyi's Move to Hide Online Audience Count Sparks Discussions

TapTechNews July 3rd news, a Douban post sparked heated discussions last night. Some netizens found that iQiyi had closed the online audience count for some TV dramas (i.e., unable to see how many people are watching simultaneously).

While in the comment section, it was said that for some older TV dramas like Rise of the Phoenixes and Joy Of Life, the online audience count can still be seen, as shown in the figure below with more than 2000 people.

Last night, the topic iQiyi closed the online audience count also topped the Weibo hot search list, with a reading volume of 120 million.

TapTechNews tested today and found that the online audience count for some older TV dramas can't be displayed either, such as in Rise of the Phoenixes, the Watching with You didn't show the number.

Regarding this, the iQiyi customer service responded: Due to function upgrade and optimization, the number is temporarily not displayed. In order to increase the sense of companionship, specific numbers will still be shown for some films, please refer to the front-end display.

Financial report information shows that iQiyi's total revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $7.9 billion, a year-on-year decline of 5%; non-US GAAP operating profit was $1.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5%, hitting a record high, and the operating profit margin was 14%. Among them, the revenue of membership services was $4.8 billion, and the monthly average single-member revenue (ARM) hit a new high, with a consecut ive six-quarter increase quarter-on-quarter; the revenue of online advertising services was $1.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6%; the revenue of content distribution was $928 million, a year-on-year increase of 27%.