Reporter | Cui Peng Reporter | Cui Peng Two years after Tencent’s “930” reform, the organizational structure and business lines of PCG (Platform and Content Business Group) ushered in the first major adjustment. On April 15, Tencent’s Platform and Content Business Group (PCG) announced a new round of organizational structure and personnel adjustments. In this adjustment, Weishi will formally merge with Tencent Video to form an online video business. The new business implements a dual VP (Vice President) system and is jointly led by Lin Songtao (head of Microvision) and Sun Zhonghuai (head of Tencent Video). Yao Xiaoguang, vice president of Tencent, president of the Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG) Tianmei Studio Group, concurrently serves as the person in charge of the platform and content business group (PCG) social platform business, and is in charge of QQ. Liang Zhu, former head of QQ business and current vice president of Tencent, will assume the position of CEO of Tencent Music. In addition, Chen Juhong, vice president of Tencent, currently in charge of media business, will leave, but will remain in Tencent to be responsible for new businesses related to corporate social responsibility. The position of Tencent’s news leader is temporarily vacant. In fact, after the New Year in 2021, news about Tencent PCG’s internal adjustments began to circulate internally. There are also internal rumors that Tencent News will be integrated with Tencent Kandian, and the new business will be jointly led by Zeng Yu, the vice president in charge of PCG technology, and Yin Yu, the head of Kandian. However, due to excessive disagreements, the merger plan between Tencent News and Tencent Kandian was shelved, and the two businesses will only undergo internal adjustments in the near future. 
The adjustment has been brewing for nearly half a year. An insider from Tencent News told Jiemian News that as early as the end of last year, Chen Juhong was preparing for the handover work, but no one has taken over his position.
Not only that, Tencent Sports will also optimize some teams and management personnel, and the general manager of operations Zhao Guochen will be transferred to other businesses.
Some internal officials in Tencent told Jiemian News that Ren Yuxin (currently the COO of Tencent Group) is determined to advance this reform. The adjustment involves many businesses and teams, and it is very troublesome to sort out, but “Mark (Ren Yuxin) has a strong ability to act” .
Strengthen the senior management binding mechanism
After Tencent’s “930” major adjustment in 2018, Ren Yuxin established a senior management partner system within PCG. All 8 corporate-level VPs (Vice Presidents) responsible for specific businesses were included, and the assessment and incentive mechanisms were uniformly adjusted to jointly undertake PCG performance. .
Regarding this system, Ren Yuxin’s original words are “to do well to share benefits, not to do well to share responsibilities”, which aims to emphasize the cooperation between VPs. However, in the follow-up actual implementation level, there are still some organizational walls and the phenomenon of fighting alone in each business line.
According to Jiemian News, before the National Day last year, in a voting activity involving more than 250 employees within PCG, there were more than 200 employees who chose “no” and “don’t know” regarding the question of whether there was a “group spirit” in PCG. To a certain extent, this reflects the barriers that exist at the grassroots level.
After this adjustment, PCG’s management style will shift from VP cooperation to emphasizing VP binding, further strengthening the joint advancement and retreat of various business lines within the business group.
Combining with Tencent’s past internal integration history of the business, this integration also implies internal horse racing, and the winning business and leadership may go further within Tencent.
Video number upper position
In this adjustment, the short video business involved is also worthy of attention.
The video account was developed by Tencent’s WXG (WeChat business group) in 2019 when a special team was formed. The early team was very small, with only ten or twenty members. However, the data of the video account is growing very fast. In 2020, the DAU will exceed 200 million. Correspondingly, the DAU of Weishi was only 40 million at that time.
This has caused a lot of discussion within PCG. Some employees raised questions at the internal sharing event for the second anniversary of PCG. As Tencent’s company-level trump card in the short video track, how Microvision will continue to move forward in the future.
Lin Songtao, vice president of Tencent, who is in charge of Weishi, gave a detailed response at the scene and spoke for longer than the prescribed time. Ren Yuxin immediately said that “microvision is worth more time” and encouraged him to elaborate on all the points.
At the end of last year, Weishi announced that it would invest 1 billion yuan to support the micro drama business, indicating that it will focus on this business this year. In Tencent’s 2020 financial report, Weishi’s achievements in the “micro drama” business are also highlighted. In previous Tencent financial reports, this type of small-scale new business was rarely described separately.
According to Jiemian News, regarding the direction and business division after the merger, Weishi has recently completed interviews with middle-level cadres.
The merger of Weishi and Video also means that in the short video track, the video account will take on more important responsibilities, as well as the strategic demands from the group’s senior management.
The North Branch will continue to adjust
The adjustment of the content team of Tencent North Branch has been going on for many years.
As early as 2017, during the high-level adjustments, Liu Shengyi, a member of the general office in charge of OMG (online media business group), was transferred to the chairman of Tencent Advertising Alliance until he completely withdrew from the Tencent General Office this year and became a senior management consultant.
The VP of Tencent News, Information Flow, and Tencent Video began to report directly to Ren Yuxin, who is in charge of MIG (Mobile Internet Business Group) and IEG (Interactive Entertainment Business Group).
After the establishment of PCG, Ren Yuxin focused internally on promoting the construction of two major middle stations, content middle stations and technical middle stations, to provide support for front-end business.
After more than two years of development, the integrated front-end content business has become executable at the operational level. However, in this PCG announcement, there is no mention of a plan to integrate information flow and news services. The two businesses may continue to adjust in the future.
Subject to the impact of the macro environment, the revenue of media advertising with Tencent Video and Tencent News as the main carriers has shown a downward trend year by year. Tencent’s latest financial report data shows that in 2020, Tencent’s media advertising revenue will decrease by 8% year-on-year.
Chen Juhong once wrote an article “Leaving” to record his “golden days” in Nanfang Newspaper Group. After his departure, Tencent’s reforms on the media content side will continue.
The news department is the brand image business that Tencent hopes to retain. In the future, as the PCG reform is further deepened, the news team and the information flow team will have more collisions between content and algorithm recommendations, which is a problem that Tencent news leaders will need to face in the future.
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