Chapter 751 Annual Ratings Champion
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a 84-episode TV series produced by CCTV at a cost of 170 million yuan, setting a production record for CCTV.
On the day the TV series premiered, the ratings reached as high as 46.7%, but because the number of episodes was too long, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was divided into three parts for broadcast.
The first and second parts were officially broadcast on October 23, 1994, with one episode broadcast every day, and no broadcast on Saturdays. The first two parts were broadcast until December 19, and the third part will be broadcast after New Year's Day, and will continue to be broadcast until after the Chinese New Year.
This broadcast method directly affected the ratings of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". During the broadcast, the ratings remained at more than 20% and did not reproduce the initial peak until the second part was broadcast.
It was under such circumstances that "Police True Colors" took over the second part of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
If it were broadcast after a massive masterpiece like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it would have been a catastrophic broadcast disaster if it were to happen in later times.
Because the aftermath of the previous TV series will attract all the public attention, even if the subsequent TV series has good ratings, it is very likely that no topics will be generated, resulting in a silent situation at the public opinion level. But fortunately, the main focus of TV series broadcasts now is still on ratings.
"Police True Colors" has only 10 episodes, which is definitely not comparable to a TV series as large-scale as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
But the short version also has its advantages. The content is compact and the production is excellent. All of them are adapted from real cases. The quality is much better than later versions. After it was broadcast on CCTV, it quickly won the love of TV drama viewers.
The ratings also performed quite well, reaching 15.5% on the premiere night and continuing to rise in the following days, with the finale reaching 36.2% and the average rating reaching 28.4%.
This TV series, with only 10 episodes, set a record for CCTV's average ratings this year.
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was launched with great fanfare, with the highest viewership rating reaching 46.7%, but the average viewership rating of the first two parts was only 23.5%, which was completely lost to the short TV series "Police True Colors".
1994 was a low year for CCTV in terms of ratings. Apart from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there were no other TV series with high ratings.
Because it was broadcast at the end of the Gregorian calendar year, "Police True Colors" also represented CCTV's annual finale, exceeding the average ratings of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and it rightfully became CCTV's ratings champion in 1994.
Although this ratings champion may be a bit of a "when there is no tiger in the mountain, the monkey becomes king" situation, the fact that it was able to achieve such a ratings result with a 10-episode scale and an investment of 1.2 million is enough to make all the people involved in "Police True Colors" proud.
On the day of the finale of "Police True Colors", Hai Yan, Wei Ren and Ren Hao met in the conference room of Wencheng Film and Television. There was a color TV in the conference room. The three of them watched the TV series they filmed while drinking and chatting. They were having a great time.
The TV series was about to end in a few minutes. In fact, several people had already seen it, so their main focus was still on chatting.
When Haiyan talked about the ratings, his tone was full of regret.
"It would be nice if 'Police True Colors' had a ratings-linked contract."
Lin Weimin’s suggestion to Yang Weiguang was very good, but for a behemoth like CCTV, it would take a long time to complete such a reform, so "Police True Colors" did not implement the ratings-linked contract.
"The current ratings statistics method is still too crude. I recently talked to a few old colleagues, and they said that the station is in contact with several foreign media companies. The station's idea is definitely to complete a more scientific ratings survey network first, and then implement ratings-linked contracts. After all, the cost of fraud is too low now."
Ren Hao had worked at CCTV for many years and was very familiar with the twists and turns within CCTV. After he finished speaking, Hai Yan nodded and said, "That's true."
"It's doing very well now. 'Police True Colors' is definitely the annual ratings champion. Although it's not as influential as 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms', in the past few days since the TV series was aired, those TV stations have been calling me and vying to buy our copyright."
When Haiyan said this, he couldn't suppress the smile on his face.
"Police True Colors" was first broadcast on CCTV, and then broadcast on local satellite TV or local TV stations, which is considered the second round of broadcast. Of course, there is no concept of first round, second round, or third round now. TV series usually cannot be sold at a high price after the first broadcast, but because the copyright can be sold to multiple companies, the income is still considerable. Anyway, the copyright price will be lower the later it is sold, which is the law of the market.
In the past two days, various local TV stations have been contacting Haiyan by phone, and the highest one offered a copyright broadcasting fee of 20,000 per episode.
What we want is to take advantage of the popularity of CCTV and gain high ratings.
The Wei people asked, "How many companies are sure to buy now?"
"Six of them are provincial TV stations, and two of them are broadcast on satellite. The highest price is 20,000 per episode, and the others are around 16,000 or 17,000. After this wave of sales, we can make at least 1 million."
Wei Ren frowned and said, "According to this calculation, can we make 2 million in the end?"
Ren Hao is very experienced and said, "It's a lot of work. The ones that came after were all bought by small local TV stations. Many TV stations even copied the videos directly without buying the copyright at all. 2 million is basically impossible, maybe 1.5 million."
Wei Ren was very disappointed when he heard this. "That's all? We are CCTV's annual ratings champion after all!"
"Don't be so ungrateful. Do you think making a TV series is like selling opium? You invested 1.2 million and earned 1.5 million. What else do you want? The Romance of the Three Kingdoms also invested 170 million. CCTV alone spent 79 million yuan. We can't even get our money back!"
Wei Ren was puzzled, "Didn't they say that the overseas copyrights were selling well?"
"It won't sell for much. There are only a few places like Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We tried very hard to get the copyright for Hong Kong, asking them for 10,000 dollars per episode. If you calculate, how much is that? All the overseas copyrights combined only cost about 10 million dollars."
Haiyan smiled and said, "Director Ren, you haven't calculated CCTV's advertising revenue during this period."
"What nonsense! If there was no advertising revenue, would CCTV be able to invest so much money?"
Wei Ren said: "CCTV is still better. No matter how you calculate it, it is a sure win. We can't do that. If the quality is not good and the ratings are not good, the TV series can't be sold at a high price."
Ren Hao laughed heartily, "Then why not just make some good TV series!"
"That's right!" Haiyan supported.
"Hey, can we get dividends this time?" Wei Ren asked again.
When he said this, his eyes were fixed on Haiyan.
Hai Yan is now the head of Wencheng, and he is responsible for the copyright sales of "Police True Colors".
"Teacher Lin said it, we can definitely divide it!"
Wei Ren counted on his fingers and found that the TV series would only be distributed if it made more than 50% profit, which meant that they would have to collect 1.8 million yuan in accounts receivable before they could get dividends. After selling all the copyrights, the creative team should be able to get 60,000 to 70,000 yuan.
The main creative team is not just these three people. On average, each person should have received 10,000 yuan.
"We can have a good year this year!" Wei Ren's face was full of smiles, "It would be great if every TV series in the future could guarantee this level of profit."
Hai Yan said with disdain: "Look at what you have achieved? Are you satisfied with 10,000 yuan for a play?"
"I can't compare to you, the general manager, in terms of vision!"
"Don't worry. We've already made a name for ourselves with this first TV series, so A Romantic Affair shouldn't be any bad."
Wei Ren asked again, "How is your work on "Flower Season and Rainy Season" going?"
"The director found Bao Gang, and he was working on the script with the screenwriter. Yu Xiu had no experience, so she found Wang Haiyu."
"Zhao Baogang? Teacher Lin really trusts him to perform this play?"
"Trust people when you employ them, and don't employ people you don't trust. This is Mr. Lin's consistent style. Besides, Bao Gang is not doing badly now. 'Over the Hook' is so popular."
Wei Ren said enviously: "The standard of this play is not low!"
The investment budget for the TV series "Flower Season and Rainy Season" has been determined to be 3 million. It will be 30 episodes long, with an average cost of 100,000 per episode. For a TV series about youth campus themes, this cost is already very high.
"The Season of Flowers and Rain" was later adapted into a movie and a TV series. The movie is more famous, while the TV series is very short, with only 11 episodes.
The length of a TV series is too short, so the broadcast time is short. In this era when information is not so developed, it will directly affect the response it causes.
"Police True Colors" is an example. Although it had high ratings, it was too short and the TV series ended before it had time to build a strong reputation and discussion in the media and among the audience. Compared with the wide influence formed by many long TV series across the country, it is indeed far behind.
Therefore, when the Guowen Publishing House produced the TV series "The Season of Flowers and Rain", the first thing it did was to lengthen the TV series, not to fill it with water, but to enrich the plot.
"That's right. After all, it's a series of books called Ragdoll. The sales volume is almost 3 million copies now. Except for a few novels in recent years, no other novel has sold more than this one.
The most important thing is that the content of this novel is suitable for TV series adaptation. I took a look and found that there are not many novels in the Ragdoll series that are suitable for film and television adaptation.
Guowen Publishing House chose "The Season of Flowers and Rain" as its first TV adaptation, so the standard certainly couldn't be low.
Speaking of actors, Mr. Lin’s requirements are quite high. “The Season of Flowers and Rain” is about students, so the actors must not be too old. I have been to several film and television schools in Yanjing recently, and my legs have become thinner.”
Wei Ren listened and became interested. "Have you chosen the right person?"
Haiyan shook his head. "Not really. They are all college students. They look too mature. They don't have the immaturity and youthfulness of high school students at all."
"What should we do then?"
Haiyan uttered two words: "Audition!"
"Audition?" Wei Ren was confused when he heard the word, "What does it mean?"
"A few days ago, I went to see Teacher Lin about the casting issue. I said that these college students from film and television schools were not good enough. They were too mature and did not fit the characters in the novel at all. Teacher Lin seemed to have expected this and said directly: Let's hold an open audition.
I didn’t understand it at first, but after he explained it, I finally understood. It means to advertise in the media that we are looking for actors for the movie “Flower Season and Rainy Season” and list all the conditions. Anyone who is interested and meets the conditions can contact us.”
Ren Hao said: "It's a bit like Director Wang looking for actors for Dream of the Red Chamber and Romance of the Three Kingdoms."
Hai Yan said, "It's not quite the same. Director Wang also looks for most actors in professional groups, and only those with outstanding conditions are not required to have a professional background. Teacher Lin means that there is no restriction on professional background, as long as the image and temperament are suitable, and it will be a nationwide audition."
The people of Wei couldn't help but gasp when they heard this. "How much work does this require?"
"Yes, the workload is indeed huge." Hai Yan was also a little worried, but he continued, "But the benefits of doing this are also very obvious. Without any publicity, just this one audition will make "Season of Flowers and Rain" famous across the country."
Wei Ren and Ren Hao thought about it and agreed that, indeed, the novel "Season of Flowers and Rain" was very well-known in itself and the media would definitely be willing to report news about it.
If we just find a few more media outlets, it would be easy to spread the news across the country.
"It became popular before it was even filmed! Teacher Lin's trick is really great!" Wei Ren exclaimed with emotion.
Haiyan also said: "I still have a lot to learn from Teacher Lin!"
(End of this chapter)
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