"Tianban" has already broken records. Now, "Tianban" is no longer competing with other dramas from the same period, such as "Flying Flowers Chasing the Moon" and "White-Haired Xiangjun", but rather with itself!
Of course, some have questioned whether the high viewership of the live TV broadcast might be drawing away traffic from online streaming platforms. After all, the audience size is limited, and it's only natural that some viewers will benefit while others lose.
Tuiqi Video opened up online fan creations for Ruguan TV. If this backfires and benefits the TV broadcast while affecting online viewership, then it's truly a case of doing all the work for someone else.
In response, Zhang Qishan, CEO of Tuiqi Video, made no public statement, whether out of disdain for arguing or because he was offended. Many interpreted Zhang Qishan's silence as a sign that Tuiqi Video was losing money, and rumors of Tuiqi Video operating at a loss quickly spread, drawing ridicule from competitors.
This argument didn't last long; in early August, a new round of viewership statistics from online streaming platforms was updated, and the wave of ridicule abruptly stopped.
As of August 1st, the total number of views for the TV series "Tianban" on Tuiqi Video has exceeded 8 billion (*including the full episodes, behind-the-scenes footage, trailers and other related clips)!
Competitors who were expecting a failure were utterly astonished. Before *Tianban*, the most-watched TV series on online platforms was the 2013 historical drama *Zui Fugui*, which garnered 22 billion views. But *Zui Fugui* had a whopping 78 episodes!
"The Half of Heaven" has only aired up to episode 28 so far!
Among the 10 billion views club on the internet, there are now 15 TV series. Besides "Drunken Return," there are also classic works such as "The Lonely Willow," "The Tale of Clouds," "The Noisy Era," and "A Thousand Mountains." However, these dramas all relied on years of accumulated reputation and the long-tail effect, slowly building up their popularity and gradually reaching 10 billion views. Some of them are even long series of seventy or eighty episodes—the more episodes, the higher the total number of views.
Furthermore, because these dramas were produced relatively early, monopolistic competition was not yet severe, and most of them were broadcast on multiple platforms. In other words, these viewership figures are actually the sum of viewership figures from each platform.
The phenomenal success of "The Legend of Yun Qing," with its 40 episodes and dual-platform release, surpassed 10 billion views in just a year and a half, already raising eyebrows. But then "Tian Ban" burst onto the scene, instantly surpassing the brilliance of "The Legend of Yun Qing"!
What does 8 billion mean? "Half a Day" still has twelve episodes left before its finale. Following typical TV drama format, as long as Zheng Bohan doesn't write any catastrophic plot twists, the ratings will only rise in the later stages of the series…
This means that "The Half of the Sky" not only broke the TV ratings record for the past decade, but also has a high chance of becoming the first TV series to break 10 billion views on a single platform during its broadcast; becoming the youngest and sharpest member of the 10 billion view club!
Achieving success on both the Taiwan and online platforms – what kind of success is this?
No wonder Zhang Qishan didn't say anything; a man busy filling sacks with money has no time to care about other people's gossip!
Our competitors are getting restless.
Whether people criticize it as a poor imitation or as a hindsight expert, in front of money, face has to take a backseat. After the online viewership data of "Tianban" was leaked, on the same day, the official account of "Feihua Zhuyue Ling Pingsheng" announced the launch of the "Little Feihua Fan Creation Competition". Except for the slightly smaller prize pool, the other rules and mechanisms were basically copied from the "Tianban" fan creation competition.
The following day, "The White-Haired Xiangjun," whose ratings had essentially dried up, also made a splash by launching the "Xiangjun's Promise Fan Creation Competition." However, due to the double failure of both its ratings and online broadcast, the production team was clearly unwilling to spend too much money to appease the fan creators. The meager prize pool attracted many netizens to forward and ridicule it.
Platforms that once mocked Ruguan TV for courting disaster are now following in its footsteps, picking up its leftovers; TV stations that once secretly cursed Ruguan TV as traitors are now trembling with fear due to the ratings of "Tianban," and apart from "Feihua Zhuyue Ling Pingsheng" which is still barely surviving, the ratings of the other platforms can't even barely protect themselves.
The advertisers at Ruguan TV were overjoyed. On July 20th, as soon as Ruguan TV announced its reform measures, many impatient advertisers packed up and ran away, or tried to haggle over prices. Ruguan TV, known for its fiery temper, couldn't tolerate such defiance. It refused to comply, sending them all away in a complete overhaul.
Ruguan is a thriving industrial center, home to many large businesses. Li Yiming, a hero of Ruguan, is a source of pride for the local people. Seeing that Ruguan TV had dismissed a group of ungrateful advertisers, leaving advertising slots vacant (due to Ruguan's refusal to lower prices), the Ruguan businessmen, in order to save face for their own heroic drama's advertising campaign, united to place advertisements with Ruguan TV.
The advertising prices set by Ruguan were too high. For Rushan merchants, such prices were no different from burning money on charity. After all, although the ratings of "Tianban" were high at the time, they were not unprecedented.
What started as an unintentional act to preserve the honor of their hometown hero unexpectedly led to a dramatic increase in advertising rates for "Tianban" within days, multiplying several times over. What was once an astronomical price now seems like a bargain!
Seeing the advertisers now eagerly eyeing the advertising space in Ruguan, jumping up and down, the Ruguan businessmen grinned from ear to ear, feeling a sense of exhilaration that fortunes change every thirty years.
Interestingly, Guanjing TV, a fierce rival of Ruguan TV, originally planned to air the family drama "The Legend of Hu Ji" during the summer season to compete with "Tianban." However, fans of Tao Xiang, the lead actress of "The Legend of Hu Ji," waited in vain until August, but the drama still hadn't aired. A check of the official website revealed that Guanjing TV had quietly moved the broadcast date of "The Legend of Hu Ji" to the winter vacation sometime during the summer break.
Of course, while Guanjing TV's move was cunning, it at least saved face by secretly changing the time slot. Another male-centric epic drama, "He Chong Tian," wasn't so lucky. Its premiere coincided with the climax of Li Yiming's insidious plan to kill three warriors with two peaches, resulting in a mere 0.7% viewership rating. Advertisers fled, and the TV station abruptly pulled it from the schedule after only two episodes.
Of course, not all currently airing dramas were completely crushed by *Tianban*. For example, *Silent Sheep Milk 2*—a low-budget web series also streamed on Tuiqi Video—coincidentally stars the same actor who played Di Ting. Furthermore, as a suspense drama, its cold and humorous style is somewhat similar to *Tianban*.
Riding the wave of success of "Half a Day," "Silent Sheep Milk 2" unexpectedly became a minor hit, surpassing the popularity of the first season and becoming the monthly champion of the suspense drama section on Tuiqi Video. Because the actor playing Di Ting portrays a detective from a rural background, many video editors have created pairings between this rural detective and Guan Yue, played by Shang Yechu, resulting in numerous edits. The CP name was even quite imposing: "Divine Guan."
In any case, wherever "Half of the Sky" went, it truly blotted out the sky and blocked out the sun.
The only bright spot for competitors was that after its ratings soared to 6.5, "Tianban" seemed to have experienced a long-awaited mid-term slowdown, no longer maintaining the formidable momentum of the previous days. In other words, while the ratings were still rising, the rate of increase had slowed.
Although it doesn't really matter to them whether "Tianban" is performing well or not, seeing that "7" never seem to go up makes their competitors feel a little better.
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