Chapter 840 I'm going to go to hell!
It was at this time that Li Zhenzhen posted a Weibo post.
She said: Many years ago, when "The Days of Youth" first started filming, they were all newcomers who had just debuted, and everyone's salary was very low. Therefore, the production pressure of the program was not high. However, after a few years, they all became famous. If they were paid according to the market price, "The Days of Youth" would not be able to continue. No matter how popular the program is, it cannot afford to pay the market price of eight top-tier stars. In order to keep the program going, Lu Yanhe took the lead in lowering his salary. Yes, instead of raising the price, he lowered it and used the reduced portion as bonuses to subsidize the program staff. After that, we filmed several seasons and many episodes. They became busier and busier and worked harder and harder, but the salary for filming the program never changed.
Five minutes later, Li Zhenzhen wrote again: As the chief planner, he has created hit shows like "The Birth of an Actor" and "Sing My Song". Outside, there are even shows that add a zero to the amount of money we offer to invite him. If he cared about that number, he would have left "The Days of Youth" long ago. However, in fact, this show that has never raised his salary is the only show where he has been a regular cast member since his debut.
Soon after, the film "The Boat" also published an article: We are a very strapped art film crew. Lu Yanhe brought his own funds to the crew and covered most of the film's expenses. He acted for free, but used the funds he brought to the crew to pay every production staff member their due wages without any discount. Apart from himself, no one needed to go hungry for art.
...
Chen Ziyan smiled gently.
“Recently, I’ve really seen some of your former brilliance again,” Lu Qingzhen said. “I was just saying, you used to be a master of these tricks, so why did you always seem to avoid Chen Pinhe before?”
Chen Ziyan: "There has to be a legitimate reason, especially in China's environment. For a senior figure like him to take action against, he has to fire the first shot. The previous excuse of 'Doomsday' is no longer enough. Yan He has a great reputation. If he were to be labeled as young and impetuous and disrespectful to his elders, it would be a huge loss. If Zhang Yue really wanted to play the victim, it would be much easier for him than for us."
Lu Qingzhen: "This time, Chen Pinhe has walked step by step into the trap you set for him."
"The main issue is Yan He's salary. He's already been targeted and attacked several times over. We've gained a lot of experience in dealing with these issues in the past, but Chen Pinhe hasn't," Chen Ziyan said. "Of course, ultimately, it's because Chen Pinhe's salary is different domestically and internationally. This is because domestically and internationally, it's a buyer's market and a seller's market, but who cares about all that? When he usually promotes his influence overseas and his status as an international film emperor, he's already sown the seeds of this injustice, and he can only suffer in silence."
Lu Qingzhen: "Strike the snake at its seven-inch mark."
Chen Ziyan: "It's not about striking the snake at its vital point, it's that Yan He is too easy to deal with. We have a clear conscience, so we are in an invincible position no matter what."
Lu Qingzhen: "Will Chen Pinhe be willing to swallow this bitter pill?"
“He’s the one who’s been hit where it hurts right now. If he doesn’t eat it, we’ll keep hitting him,” Chen Ziyan said. “There will come a day when we’ll hit him hard enough to hurt him.”
"The ratings for tonight's premiere are going to be a battleground."
“It’s more than just ratings; ratings are just the first round,” Chen Ziyan said. “Of course, in other people’s eyes, this is not a struggle between Yan He and Chen Pinhe.”
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"Li Zhibai, the leading actor of the new generation of TV dramas."
“Lu Yanhe now only has one episode of Friends a year to meet the audience, and Yan Liang has also shifted his focus to movies.”
"Chen Pinhe's previous TV dramas didn't have any particularly outstanding results. They can't compare to Li Zhibai. Li Zhibai's dramas are all very strong."
"Chen Pinhe is really famous. Moreover, 'The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot' is such a big IP, while 'Grass on the Grass' is a new drama. The basic audiences are different. Even if 'The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot' has better data, it is normal."
"All three brands that endorse Li Zhibai have already officially announced that they will advertise on the entire series of 'Grass on the Grass.' The brands still love Li Zhibai."
"Li Zhibai's popularity is undoubtedly number 1. What are you thinking? In terms of the number of fans, Lu Yanhe and Yan Liang's fans combined may not even be as many as Li Zhibai's real fans."
"That's no exaggeration."
...
The latest episode of "The Days of Youth" aired at 8 PM. This episode was themed around "Flying on Grass," with all the members role-playing and staging a "dance competition."
"Grass on the Grass" and "Seventeen Floors: Reboot" also premiered at the same time.
A host of popular A-list celebrities, including Lu Yanhe, Yan Liang, Li Zhibai, Jiang Yuqian, Yan Lingyu, Li Yuefeng, and Xiao Yun, posted on Weibo again, reminding everyone to turn on their TVs and tune to Yuehu TV.
The battle for real-time viewership ratings has not attracted such widespread attention within the industry in a long time.
The trending topics list is almost entirely dominated by "Grasshopper" and "The Seventeen Floors: Reboot," completely crushing the films released during the National Day holiday and relegating them to the latter half.
At 8:25 p.m. that evening, while Yoo Ji-eun was drinking water during a break in her concert, the live broadcast of "Flying on Grass" suddenly appeared on the screen.
She pulled over ten thousand fans to watch half a minute of "Flying on Grass" on the spot, and said with a smile, "My good friend Li Zhibai's new drama has started airing. Watching half a minute of it was not bad."
The topic has gone viral again.
...
Various topics were brought up one after another.
The real-time viewership rating for "Grass on the Grass" remained stable at 1.2%, while the real-time viewership rating for "The Seventeen Floors: Reboot" hovered around 1.3%.
The two sides were locked in a fierce battle.
Of course, this is only the first episode; it's just the beginning.
Both shows consist of one-hour episodes, broadcast in three parts with two commercial breaks in between.
After the first episode aired, the internet was already in an uproar between Li Zhibai's fans and Chen Pinhe's fans.
Chen Pinhe's fans criticized Lu Yanhe for going to any lengths for publicity, but in the end, the show's ratings still couldn't beat Chen Pinhe's.
Lu Yanhe's fans criticized Chen Pinhe for shamelessly taking credit for the huge IP empire built by predecessors like "The Seventeen Floors".
Few TV dramas these days can have such a lively and exciting battle.
By reducing costs and increasing efficiency, the money spent on "fighting" has decreased significantly.
However, top-tier dramas are still top-tier dramas after all.
It was so lively that even the dogs wanted to see what was going on.
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Apart from Li Zhibai, the cast of "Grass on the Grass" consists entirely of established actors and unknown actors selected through auditions.
The assertive Li Zhibai did not allow any nepotism to squeeze into this drama.
This put a lot of pressure on the production team at the beginning.
Without a big IP or an all-star lineup, it all relied on Li Zhibai carrying the team single-handedly.
In "The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot," apart from Chen Pinhe, the supporting cast consists of well-known stars, making for a stellar cast.
After the TV broadcast, the two shows were released on Chestnut Video and Northern Lights Video at midnight that same night.
Two dramas, one started with 8 broadcasts and the other with 5 broadcasts.
"Grass on the Fly" is a 5-brand product, of which 3 are brands he endorses.
The business performance clearly shows that the market has a higher opinion of "The Seventeen Floors: Reboot." After all, it has a solid foundation with three previous installments consistently ranking in the top three of the year, and the spin-off series stars Chen Pinhe. It has everything: IP, star power, and buzz.
In today's film and television market, "stars" are still the primary selling point.
Without celebrities, projects can't pass the review or start filming—this isn't a problem with the platform itself. From the perspective of the platform's profit model, the selectivity of business and advertising is a standard they can't avoid.
Once the profit point is brought forward, the benchmark for that forward measurement becomes the production standard.
This is one of the unavoidable business strategies for platforms—like overseas streaming services, although they don't earn money from advertising but from membership fees, they also use backend data to see which celebrities members prefer to watch, and then tend to use those celebrities in later projects. Or, based on data models, they might use elements or types that members prefer in other projects.
The result was the same: a large number of terrible shows were produced.
It doesn't matter.
So far, I haven't seen any success with data-driven content creation.
Of course, capitalists are still happy to try this path, because once they succeed, they can solve the problem once and for all and no longer have to bear the huge human resource costs.
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We've digressed, let's get back to the point.
The battle between "Grass on the Grass" and "Seventeen Floors: Reboot" did not end with the first day of the premiere.
After that, the main creative team led by Li Zhibai and Chen Pinhe temporarily ended their domestic promotional activities and flew abroad.
Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam...
"Grass on the Grass" benefited from Li Zhibai's immense popularity in Asia, while "The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot" benefited from the influence of this major IP, receiving invitations from distributors in various overseas countries to attend promotional events in their respective locations.
This is also a way of promoting positive values domestically, which is certainly a good thing in this context.
At this time, Linghe's other strategy began to take effect—
Grasshopper has teamed up with a clothing brand to launch a co-branded Grasshopper T-shirt, available in all stores across Asia.
In the latest episode of "The Days of Youth," all the guests wore co-branded T-shirts with the song "Grasshopper" during a game segment, competing to see who Li Zhibai would choose. This was part of the game's setup. However, thanks to the combined popularity of the show and the popular IP "The Days of Youth," the 129 yuan co-branded T-shirt achieved sales exceeding 20 million yuan on its first day in the Chinese market.
In short, it sold out.
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As mentioned before, how do you prove that a show has become a hit?
We no longer live in an era where viewership numbers are transparent and credible.
The data values within the platform are becoming increasingly inflated and of lower quality.
Therefore, both those within and outside the industry need more reference standards.
For example, whether a newcomer emerges – like "Summer Night Villa Horror". Although the box office exceeded 100 million, it was still far inferior to those movies with more than 1 billion. But no one would say it wasn't a hit. On the one hand, Wang Jing's popularity soared, and on the other hand, newcomer Zou Xuan suddenly appeared and became the new boyfriend of girls.
While "Grass on the Grass" has slightly fewer advertisements than "The Seventeen Floors: Reboot," the latter relies on the influence of its predecessor, a major IP, while the former, an original drama, generated 20 million yuan in sales in the Chinese market on the first day of its co-branded T-shirt launch—that's real money.
Who dares to say it won't explode?
Why can't "The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot" be made?
sure.
Unlike Linghe, who had mastered the derivative model and could anticipate and negotiate with apparel brands in advance to design and pattern-make T-shirts sufficient to meet market demand and potentially launch them in all stores on October 4th—
When the cast of "The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot" saw this scene and wanted to "follow suit," it was too late. By the time their collaborative T-shirts were made, the show had already finished airing.
Actually, it was because Li Zhibai starred in the film that they dared to do such a brand collaboration.
If we can't sell them, all this inventory piling up in our hands will lead to huge losses.
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At this time, Lu Yanhe was also about to join the filming of the movie "The Boat".
Before filming even began, the reputation of the drama "Grass on the Grass" had already begun to emerge.
The production of this drama is truly excellent; it's as if no expense was spared in the art direction.
Therefore, a large number of scenes in the show are based on real locations combined with post-production special effects.
Almost every episode has one amazing shot that goes viral.
In comparison, the reputation of "The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot" is just average, not bad, but not amazing either.
"The Seventeenth Floor: Reboot" is still a good show. The plot and characters are both well-developed and there are no major flaws. In addition, the previous work has already opened up the market for this type of show and cultivated an audience, so there is still a lot of demand for this show.
Originally, without "Grass on the Grass", "Seventeen Floors: Reboot" would have been the most popular TV series in the same time slot.
But then, a completely transformed version of "Flying on the Grass" came along.
When you put the cinematography and art direction of the two dramas side by side, the difference becomes apparent.
Then, media outlets revealed that Baijing Film & Television, one of the production companies behind the drama "Grass on the Grass," was a film and television production company established for Li Zhibai by his family. The post-production costs accounted for one-third of the entire drama's budget.
"..."
Li Zhibai couldn't help but complain in the group: "The drama that I painstakingly organized and produced has now become a favor from my family. I'm speechless. They're clearly benefiting from my influence, investing in this drama and making money. What a piece of crap."
Lu Yanhe: ...You're still arguing with your family?
Li Zhibai: Why can't we hold a grudge? They did nothing but give us money.
Lu Yanhe: Isn't giving money enough?
Li Zhibai: Do I need his money? Does my film need investment?
Lu Yanhe: But the money in your family comes with no strings attached.
Li Zhibai: Who said that? They just see that I'm doing well in the entertainment industry now and want to ride on my coattails.
Yan Liang: ...You've never benefited from your family's influence since you were a child? In the first few years after your debut, you had a trending topic every week, all of which were bought with money by your family. Otherwise, would Zhou Ping'an have put up with your bad temper?
Li Zhibai: Holy crap, whose friend are you?
Yan Liang: Calm down. You're the one who gets to call the shots on "Grass on the Grass." It's all thanks to your family's investment. Money talks, you have to admit that, right?
Li Zhibai remained silent.
Lu Yanhe: Yan Liang is right. Money talks. Your investment accounted for the majority of the profits, which is why you were able to make "Grass on the Grass" the way it is. Your family's support was very important.
Li Zhibai: Tsk tsk, you two should really recognize them as your godparents.
Yan Liang: Does calling someone "godfather" or "godmother" guarantee a big red envelope?
Li Zhibai: Go to hell.
(End of this chapter)
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