Chapter 358 Holding a Position Without Performing Duties (7,000-word update!)
The low ratings of "The Seventeenth Floor" on Beijing and Taiwan TV were not something they hadn't anticipated, but they hadn't expected it to be this bad.
"If a show like this initially has a low starting point because its subject matter and genre can't attract viewers over 40, but if the quality of the show is good enough, then at least the ratings will go up, right? Doesn't this pattern of starting high and then declining mean that the show isn't popular?"
At the internal meeting of "The Seventeenth Floor", someone started firing shots right from the beginning.
"Indeed, the opening of 'The Seventeenth Floor' was top-notch, but unfortunately, it couldn't retain the audience. The battle royale genre is still too niche for our domestic audience."
"Should we allocate so many promotional resources to 'The Seventeenth Floor'? With such low ratings, unless it's a miracle, the viewership will continue to drop."
...
Everyone started talking at once.
Jiang Lan pressed her tongue against a mouth ulcer that had appeared on her lower jaw due to a sudden surge of anger, feeling utterly miserable.
She gave her confidant a wink.
The confidant, receiving a knowing look, immediately said, "But the online reviews for this show are very high right now. Besides the trending topics we've created, there are already more than twenty naturally generated trending topics on various platforms."
“Yes, isn’t it too early to say that ‘The Seventeenth Floor’ has failed?” another person immediately chimed in. “When we were making this show, we knew that it would be very risky, but now we at least know that it’s very well made. For the viewers who have watched it, it’s a very good show, isn’t it?”
"If we adjust our advertising strategy, even if the basic viewership rating keeps declining, it will still reach 0.7%, which is definitely something we can salvage."
"If we continue to invest such a large amount of promotional resources and don't cut our losses in time, how much will we lose on this project? Can we afford it?"
"The exclusive online streaming rights fee paid by Aurora Borealis alone must have already made the show break even, right?" someone asked. "Putting everything else aside, our TV series is doing quite well commercially, especially in overseas sales. Because of its subject matter, it has already sold the broadcasting rights to four or five countries in Asia."
"It's too early to judge success or failure based on the results of the first episode. The second episode will air tonight."
-
However, the discussion surrounding "The Seventeenth Floor" is indeed unprecedented.
On Saturday, from the moment many media outlets and marketing accounts were shocked by the high-start-low-finish ratings trend of "The Seventeenth Floor" and began to express their feelings, discussions about the show never ceased.
Some people analyzed how well the first episode of "The Seventeenth Floor" was filmed yesterday, highlighting its technical aspects and fast pace, while others analyzed the characteristics of different characters from an acting perspective.
Some people have also asked where they watched "The Seventeenth Floor" and why they can't find it online.
The most frequent discussions were about Chen Bige and Lu Yanhe.
Some people recounted Chen Bige's past achievements, while others said that Lu Yanhe has never had a single project that was a complete flop since he became an actor.
In this situation, many people are waiting to see if "The Seventeen Floors" will become their rare Waterloo.
-
Fewer people are sending messages to Lu Yanhe.
However, under these circumstances, a new page suddenly appeared on the Northern Lights video page:
The number of reservations for "The Seventeenth Floor" is 3,271,287.
Pre-order "The Seventeenth Floor" for a chance to win amazing prizes.
Bottom right corner —
Besides the Northern Lights video logo, there is also a logo for "Jump Up".
On the homepage carousel of the Northern Lights video, there is a window on the right that occupies about one-third of the screen, displaying a ten-minute countdown.
And a huge question mark.
What is this thing?
Those who noticed it immediately were taken aback.
-
In Jiangguang, in a hotel suite, a dozen people, each carrying their own equipment, found a place to sit and claimed their spot. Chen Siqi sat behind the desk, smiling broadly as she held up her phone.
"Oh, Teacher Shi, you know, we at 'Jump Up' never do low-quality promotions. I've sent you the audience reviews for 'The Seventeenth Floor,' you've seen them. It's definitely not a ploy to get your support. I just organized this event myself to expand the business of 'Jump Up' on social media. It's not just you, there are dozens, almost a hundred people involved. I wouldn't ruin my reputation for such a small event. I was even thinking of getting a new long novel from you to serialize on 'Jump Up.'"
"I'd like to trouble you to help us record a short video. You don't know how to record? No problem, I've already arranged for a cameraman to be on his way to your house. He'll be there within an hour. I know you won't want to refuse me. Just say whatever you want. I've come to you in such a hurry to ask for your help, how could I possibly tell you what to say? If it weren't for the fact that this is a drama starring Yan He, which has a very good reputation but hasn't been seen by many viewers, I wouldn't bother with this!"
"But, Mr. Shi, don't worry, I will personally lead the team to promote and publicize your new books. As long as you don't mind, it's not just in China, but also overseas. Wherever our 'Jump Up' can reach, your new book's name will definitely be promoted there."
...
"Thank you, Teacher Shi!" Chen Siqi happily hung up the phone and turned to her classmate and assistant, "Lang'er, Teacher Shi Xia has taken care of it."
Yu Lang—the girl with a boyish name—immediately gave an OK sign, "I'll follow up on that."
The next moment, Bai Yu's voice rang out, "Li Bi has arrived on the street, and he will begin on-site interviews with passersby in ten minutes."
“OK.” Chen Siqi took a deep breath and said, “This is the first big deal we’ve signed with Aurora Video. Yesterday, the ratings on Beijing TV kept declining, but that’s not a bad thing for us. They even tried to take advantage of us before, asking us to do free publicity for them. Everyone, today we’ll let everyone know that we, ‘Jump Up,’ have our own unique channels and capabilities in the area of publicity.”
“But the Northern Lights signed the contract with us way too late. We didn’t have time to prepare many things. It’s crazy, crazy.” One person shook his head and sighed, “I really only found out today that our self-media team, which originated from the magazine, actually has so many people.”
Chen Siqi smiled brightly.
Indeed, the entire room was filled with more than a dozen people, all of whom are now contracted staff of self-media teams.
Previously, Chen Siqi handled everything herself, making single-line contacts. This time, with "The Seventeenth Floor" about to air, Chen Siqi took her well-prepared cooperation proposal to meet with Beijing TV, but Beijing TV looked down on their small team, feeling that they had never done any promotion for the drama and were just being perfunctory. Meanwhile, Aurora Video had been researching for ten to fifteen days, and only last night, after Beijing TV's ratings came out, did they suddenly contact Chen Siqi to ask if she could still do it.
Chen Siqi said she could do it, of course.
Helping with "The Seventeenth Floor" is one thing, but it's another; she wanted to use "The Seventeenth Floor" as a way to announce her entry into the game.
Promoting a drama series was something Chen Siqi wanted to do when she was working on her own media platform.
Promote good film and television projects that can be widely disseminated.
Here, she has access to top-notch writers and abundant offline promotional resources. These include traditional physical stores, such as partner bookstores, which have been built up through numerous events, as well as reader circles, such as book clubs and university societies. These resources are significantly different from the current promotional team.
The classic example attached to Chen Siqi is actually the time when "Jump Up" stepped up to take over the publicity one or two days before the broadcast of "Friends" and after all the drama promotions were removed from Beijing TV.
Of course, at that time, they did not treat this as a specific business.
Now Chen Siqi is starting to develop it as a very important business segment.
-
After the first ten-minute countdown ended, a video appeared where there was originally a question mark.
Click to open, and Jiang Yuqian's face appears.
"Hi everyone, I'm Yuqian. My idol, Sister Bige, and my dear little brother, Lu Yanhe, are starring in 'The Seventeenth Floor,' which will premiere tonight on Aurora Video. Do you already know what kind of story it is? A group of people are tricked onto a deserted island and must overcome a series of life-or-death challenges to gain the chance to escape. Doesn't that sound exciting? Hurry up and make a reservation on Aurora Video! If you make a reservation now, maybe you'll be the one having lunch with me! I will randomly select three people from those who make reservations to invite me to lunch. Hurry up and make your reservation!"
All media outlets that broadcast "Jump Up" immediately released and pushed out the video.
The hashtag #JiangYuqianInvitesYouToDinner# was posted and the number of views skyrocketed.
-
"It was Sister Yuqian who offered this prize on her own initiative," Chen Siqi said to Lu Yanhe over the phone. "She was really helpful. I originally just wanted to ask her to provide a set of autographed photos, but she said there were already so many of those, and they weren't very appealing."
Lu Yanhe was touched and said, "Sister Yuqian has always taken good care of me. She must have seen that the ratings weren't very good last night, so she wanted to help me boost the ratings."
Chen Siqi: "Let's have a proper dinner with Sister Yuqian later. Although I know you will have many other collaborations with her later, and she only did this event with us because of you, in any case, she was willing to be the first guest to provide rewards for those who made reservations. We, 'Jump Up,' benefited a lot, and I should express my gratitude."
"Okay, I'll write it down and make arrangements later." Lu Yanhe nodded.
Chen Siqi asked, "How are you?"
"What do you mean, how am I?"
"Aren't there a lot of voices saying that 'The Seventeenth Floor' is going to be a flop right now?"
"It's actually not too bad. I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen," Lu Yanhe said. "It was quite risky to premiere this kind of story on a traditional TV station. Friends is basically a story about modern life, so it has a low threshold. The Seventeen Floors is like an urban legend, which is really hard for the middle-aged and elderly to accept."
Chen Siqi: "So you mean you're actually very optimistic about its effect after the Northern Lights video is broadcast?"
“I’m very optimistic about it,” Lu Yanhe said. “This subject matter isn’t innovative, but there are very few domestic dramas, leaving a huge gap. Even if it’s just average, there will definitely be a lot of people who want to watch it, let alone the fact that it’s received such good reviews now. Just look at the trending topics and popularity on the internet. Just those people who watched TV yesterday spontaneously created so many topics, discussed them, and talked about them. At least half of the trending topics right now weren’t created by Beijing TV or our artist team; they were all generated naturally.”
Chen Siqi: "Yes, I share your opinion. I think so too. Many of my classmates who didn't go home are complaining that there's no TV at school, so they can't watch anything and have to wait 24 hours to watch. Some people even go looking for pirated copies. Fortunately, piracy has been cracked down on a lot in the last two years and is under better control."
Lu Yanhe: "We'll find out tonight whether it's a mule or a horse."
-
Northern Lights Video Platform.
Why did they decide to collaborate with Chen Siqi after the ratings came out last night?
According to data from their own platform, the number of people interested in the show, the number of people searching for the show on the site, and the number of views for trailers and behind-the-scenes footage are all showing a very positive exponential growth.
After conducting extensive analysis, the data analysis team concluded that it wasn't that "The Seventeenth Floor" was unpopular, but rather that the show completely deviated from the main audience of Beijing and Taiwan TV.
Young people don't sit in front of the TV to watch TV.
Even students who go home don't have this habit.
Video platforms are different.
Some people asked, "Both shows primarily target young viewers, so why was Friends able to break such records?"
"Because it's short, only twenty minutes long with one commercial break, people can sit still. But 'The Seventeen Floors' is an hour long per episode, plus commercial breaks, it's even longer, and nowadays not many young people can sit still."
This is a result of the influence of behavioral patterns.
Many media outlets simply analyze declining viewership ratings, but for industry insiders, the analysis goes far beyond just "why viewership ratings started high and then declined."
It can be said that on Saturday, the industry did not truly pronounce a death sentence on "The Seventeenth Floor," but rather waited for the second episode to air on Saturday night, as well as the first episode to air on Aurora Video.
In this context, the sudden and grand "reservation event" organized by Aurora Video is clearly a signal that they still have high hopes for "The Seventeen Floors".
-
"Which platform hasn't held reservation events? But this is the first one to do it with such a grand scale and scale as Aurora Borealis."
Lu Qingzhen sat down in front of Qin Zhibai and smiled at this potential client.
"Jump Up" used its own resources to try a new way of promoting the show, increasing audience participation and making them promoters of the show. "This is a promotion plan tailored for 'Seventeen Floors' by Jump Up's self-media. Our company also does this, tailoring service plans for our VIP clients."
Qin Zhibai is a second-generation rich kid.
He's a singer who also writes his own songs. He's not exactly unknown and has a loyal following, but he's not widely known.
His most famous work is actually the variety show "The Days of Youth", but even in this show, his presence wasn't particularly strong.
This is due to his personality.
He is a man of few words and rarely engages in hype because he is not short of money and is not particularly ambitious. Simply put, he just wants to sing well.
After hearing what Lu Qingzhen said, Qin Zhibai's first reaction was to turn to look at his agent.
His agent smiled at Lu Qingzhen and said, "Qingzhen, we're not actually thinking about how famous Zhibai is or how many fans he has. We just want more people to hear the songs he writes and sings. Can you do that?"
Lu Qingzhen nodded without any surprise and said, "Of course we can do it. Here's the thing: since our plan is customized, it will definitely prioritize meeting your needs. I've listened to all of Zhibai's songs, and I really like them."
Qin Zhibai said to her earnestly, "Thank you."
Lu Qingzhen looked at the boy in front of her, who, although he had been in the industry for several years, was still well-protected and untainted. She smiled gently.
"You and Yan He are good friends, right?"
"Yes." Qin Zhibai nodded. "Chen Siqi also called me, and I will be part of the scheduled events later."
"Really? What gift did you provide?"
“Hmm… an album I’m about to release,” Qin Zhibai said. “It’s a digital album; only a thousand physical copies were recorded, and this is one of them.”
“That’s very precious,” Lu Qingzhen said immediately. “You’re giving away such a valuable physical album to everyone. It seems you and Yan He have a really good relationship.”
"It's not that good, we don't contact each other often," Qin Zhibai said frankly, "but we get along very well."
-
The "Reservation Event" on the Northern Lights video platform updates the prizes that those who make reservations can win at a rate of one guest every ten minutes.
Of course, for the platform, the most crucial thing is not the appeal of these prizes, but the invisible influence that these celebrities bring to "The Seventeenth Floor".
For many, this is yet another "Lu Yanhe moment".
Can the power behind Lu Yanhe bring another publicity miracle like Friends to "The Seventeenth Floor"?
-
Why didn't you tell us?
On the phone, Wang Xiao jokingly said to Lu Yanhe, "If you had told me earlier, the ratings for 'The Seventeenth Floor' definitely wouldn't have continued to decline last night."
Lu Yanhe said, "How can I trouble you every time, senior? Last time was a special case. This time, Beijing TV has invested so much in publicity resources, but the ratings are still declining. This is not a matter of inadequate publicity."
"Nonsense, this is just poor promotion," Wang Xiao said. "Since it's exclusively broadcast on TV and the video platform won't be available for 24 hours, shouldn't you be focusing on promoting the TV broadcast time, given how popular and highly anticipated 'The Seventeenth Floor' is? But you've been focusing on promoting the show itself, not the viewing time, which caused many people to search online for where to watch it and miss the premiere. Weren't the viewers who watched the premiere yesterday mainly from Beijing and TV stations, as well as some people who knew the broadcast time?"
Lu Yanhe was taken aback.
"ah?"
Wang Xiao: "Anyway, that's how it is for me. I was thinking of watching it yesterday, but after searching, I found out that it was first broadcast exclusively on TV and will only be available on video platforms today, so I can only miss it."
Lu Yanhe: "I really didn't realize that."
"Nowadays, all drama promotions follow the same old template, focusing on key content to attract attention, which is understandable. But your drama doesn't lack attention, so shouldn't you focus on how to get people to watch the premiere?" Wang Xiao complained. "Your girlfriend and Aurora Video know to do pre-order activities, so why don't they, Beijing TV, think of organizing a premiere viewing event to reinforce the concept of the premiere time and the TV station?"
Wang Xiao's words dealt Lu Yanhe a heavy blow.
Not only did Jingtai not expect this, but even he himself had never thought of it in this direction.
Wang Xiao said, "To be honest, everyone is saying that traditional TV stations are declining, which is indeed true. But if it's really irreversible, why was 'Friends' so successful? I'm not bragging, but what did we do back then? Our main concept was 'watch the premiere together and support Lu Yanhe,' emphasizing watching the premiere. 'The Seventeen Floors' is certainly good, but it's not like you can't watch it if you miss the premiere. It only airs during that time slot, so if you miss it, you miss it."
Lu Yanhe took a deep breath.
"Senior, what you said is truly enlightening."
"These are just my personal opinions, and I'm not responsible if I'm wrong," Wang Xiao laughed. "Next semester, the current president will be a senior, and I will take over as president. Would you like to be an honorary vice president?"
"Please, please, I won't do it." Lu Yanhe was exasperated. "I haven't done anything, how can I be an honorary vice president?"
“You’ve helped us invite so many big names to our events, and you basically attend every event whenever you’re free. You’ve given us so much support. Is all this for nothing? You haven’t even done anything yet,” Wang Xiao said. “I really hope you can take on the position of honorary vice president.”
"Forget it, senior, I'll just be a regular member."
After talking to Wang Xiao, Lu Yanhe thought about it more and more and felt that what he said made a lot of sense.
Nowadays, different TV series have different broadcast schedules. Fans will naturally pay attention to many details, but what about casual viewers? Who really cares whether a show is broadcast daily or weekly? If it's available, they'll watch it; if not, they'll just ignore it.
Lu Yanhe told Chen Siqi about this.
Chen Siqi said: "It's no wonder that Beijing and Taiwan acted this way. When I talked to them about cooperation, they thought we were inexperienced and that we were too small to do anything big. But then they wanted to take advantage of our relationship to make us work for free. I was so angry that I was speechless. If they looked down on us, why did they want to take advantage of our little bit of strength?"
Lu Yanhe: Did you talk to Jiang Lan?
Chen Siqi: No, they have a dedicated department responsible for this kind of publicity, which collaborates with some third-party organizations. I was there to discuss this business, including the publicity for the drama "The Seventeenth Floor," which involved working with them.
Lu Yanhe suddenly realized.
Chen Siqi: The publicity that Beijing and Taiwan are doing for "The Seventeen Floors" is all bark and no bite. It didn't land in the pit it should have landed in, and it benefited others.
This "other person" is naturally the video platform Aurora.
-
That evening, while the second episode of "The Seventeenth Floor" premiered on Beijing and Taiwan, the first episode was also released on Aurora Video.
Within ten minutes of its launch, Aurora Video announced a remarkable achievement: viewership had surpassed eight million!
Meanwhile, the real-time viewership ratings for the second episode of "The Seventeenth Floor" on Beijing TV started at 0.72% and rose slightly to 0.75% within ten minutes, without continuing to decline.
Lu Yanhe was still sitting in the house, watching the second episode with Li Zhibai.
There were several thrilling and tense moments in the middle, and they were all on the edge of their seats.
Lu Yanhe knew how the plot would unfold, but under Lian Bei's lens, he still felt a throat-sealing thrill.
Li Zhibai exclaimed, "That's really amazing! I want to act in a play like that. Are there any real-life escape rooms like that? I also want to play in these kinds of obstacle course escape rooms."
Lu Yanhe said, "Maybe if this show becomes very popular, someone will make it?"
Li Zhibai had an idea. "Why don't we develop it ourselves? Let's pool our money and build a 'Seventeen Floors' themed escape room?"
Lu Yanhe: "Will Beijing and Taiwan provide it?"
“If the ratings are just average, why not give it to them? Every penny counts,” Li Zhibai said.
Lu Yanhe thought Li Zhibai had a pretty keen sense of smell.
As it turned out, after talking with Chen Ziyan, he realized that this kind of thing was not a potential gold mine at all; someone had already smelled the gold.
A major domestic amusement park brand has reached a cooperation agreement with Beijing and Taiwan to carry out related development.
Even without considering subsequent revenue sharing, Jingtai alone received no less than eight figures in licensing fees.
This collaboration was kept secret until the very beginning, when they were already in talks with Beijing TV about it before "The Seventeen Floors" was even released.
After the second episode aired, the ratings were revealed. The peak rating never broke 1, but it also didn't drop below 0.7. The average rating was slightly higher than the first episode yesterday, reaching 0.79%.
This ratings trend brought a slight sigh of relief to the staff at Beijing TV.
The trend of the first episode yesterday was really scary, making people feel that it will drop directly to 0.5 today.
However, compared to the ratings, the first episode garnered over ten million views within an hour of its release on Aurora Video, breaking the platform's record for the year. This resulted in three consecutive good news reports for Aurora Video within an hour, finally showcasing the prestige of "The Seventeenth Floor" as a top-rated drama.
Aurora Video describes "The Seventeenth Floor" as: a groundbreaking work featuring an all-star cast led by top actors, setting a new trend in the genre.
Meanwhile, Aurora, which will be collaborating extensively with Lu Yanhe, subtly labeled him at this time: all of his film and television works as an actor have been huge hits, with not a single failure.
Of course, such an exaggerated label doesn't seem too out of place among other actors' equally exaggerated labels.
For example, the label that Aurora Borealis gave to Chen Bige was: The Queen Returns, Still on the Mountain Top.
The labels they used to describe Li Yuefeng were not subtle: a hot topic, blessed with good fortune, not the main character, but with the aura of a main character!
...
These tags alone made it to the top of the trending searches and were discussed by many people.
Looking at their descriptions of him, Lu Yanhe had only one thought in his mind: "They're so good at praising people they could kill them."
-
Aurora Video achieved its blockbuster status with the success of "The Seventeenth Floor".
People in Beijing and Taiwan saw this and couldn't help but feel envious.
Damn it, they funded the production, they assembled such an all-star cast for a show, but it only did so-so on Beijing TV and Taiwan, yet it became a huge hit on Aurora Video. Who wouldn't be jealous?
Of course, since the copyright holders of "The Seventeenth Floor" are there, and it became a huge hit, their other copyrights can also sell for even better, and they will benefit just as much.
But the most crucial factor is still the viewership ratings.
Just like the success of Friends when it aired.
Advertisers suddenly came rushing to place ads like they were on steroids. How long has it been since a traditional TV station has seen such a scene?
Just then, Jiang Lan's remarks suddenly circulated within the Beijing-Taiwan region: Compared to the publicity strategy devised for the Northern Lights video, our own publicity department is simply occupying a position without doing any work!
(End of this chapter)
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