Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 145: Follow the lead of "Mr. Meng"

"The development of online dramas is inseparable from the support and guidance of national policies, the promotion of the market and the innovation of the industry. As online dramas continue to grow and develop, their social responsibility and cultural responsibility grow in tandem with their influence. Promoting content innovation and production upgrades is the main track for online dramas..."

Seeing Meng Bai talking for more than ten minutes, various words such as "positive energy", "main theme" and "cultural innovation" frequently came out. Even Liu Jun, who was used to big scenes, couldn't help but twitch his lips.

MD, I knew Brother Meng was good at talking nonsense, but I didn’t expect him to be so good at it.

I looked at Director Nie on the other side. I didn't know how much he understood, but I saw him nodding continuously.

“…Use industry self-discipline to protect the market shift, use industry supervision to ensure the healthy development of online dramas, and contribute more high-quality works to tell Chinese stories well, show the Chinese image, and sing Chinese melodies.”

It was not until this moment that Meng Bai finally breathed a sigh of relief and ended his "thoughts".

"Well, you are indeed a leader in the industry. Your ideas are both highly-positioned and reflect industry thinking. They are very thought-provoking." Director Nie adjusted his glasses and nodded, "I hope that when he speaks at the seminar later, President Meng can also bring us more in-depth thinking."

"Of course, I will try my best."

Seeing Director Nie rubbing his brows and walking away, Liu Jun clapped his hands softly and said, "Okay, Brother Meng, it's you again. By the way, this is not the speech you prepared in advance, right?"

"No." Meng Bai took a bottle of water from the table and drank a sip to moisten his throat. "I have been studying the People's Daily and the News Broadcast for the past half month."

"Sure!" Liu Jun gave a thumbs up.

Before the meeting started, Meng Bai introduced the content of the conversation he had just had with Bai Yicong, and also mentioned that he planned to use "Forensic Qin Ming" to try to compete with "Grave Robbers' Chronicles".

Liu Jun's idea is consistent with Meng Bai's. There are advantages to avoiding popular works, and there are also benefits to competing.

However, there are some skills to compete. You can choose to move it forward or backward two weeks. It is not necessary to start broadcasting in the same week. After all, everyone's fundamental purpose is to make money, not to compete.

If you insist on dragging others into a life-and-death struggle together, that is not called competition, that is called stubbornness.

"By the way, our finance sister asked me to urge you guys. The investment share of "Psychological Crime" has not yet arrived." Meng Bai remembered something else.

"Haven't you paid yet?"

"No, they said that the financial settlement would be delayed for a while, so they haven't paid it yet."

"Okay, I'll ask for you later." Liu Jun said with a smile, "Don't worry, no matter who you are, your Arc Light will not be in trouble."

"Of course I trust your brother." Meng Bai laughed and said, "Why haven't I seen Boss Jia recently?"

"He went abroad during the period after the Chinese New Year, saying that he wanted to investigate the foreign new energy electric vehicle market."

Meng Bai frowned and said, "No way. Leshi.com has already expanded so much. Could it be that Boss Jia is still thinking about making cars?"

In the past few years, Boss Jia has been promoting his "ecological counter-attack" concept. With the video platform as its center, Leshi.com has expanded its business scope to seven areas: finance, cloud services, investment, mobile phones, television, sports, and film and television production.

This "circulation system" seems to be thriving, but in fact, except for Leshi Film and Leshi.com, the rest are all "losing money to gain publicity."

Especially in the past two years, in order to expand the mobile phone market, Leshi.com first spent 1.2 billion to invest in Coolpad mobile phones, and then used the "half-sale, half-gift" method with high discounts and high benefits to promote LeTV mobile phones.

Every machine we sell is a loss, and the whole thing is maintained by burning money.

Of course, having said that, which Internet company today is not spending money to grab market share? The competition is about who can survive to the end.

It’s just that Leshi.com burned through its money a little too quickly.

Liu Jun didn't quite understand his boss's strategic plan, but since he was involved in it, some things were not convenient for him to say out loud.

Although they were spending a lot of money, neither of them thought that Leshi.com would have any financial problems.

As a listed company, Leshi.com has annual financial reports and audits. So far, although it has been losing money every year, the rating of the audit report has always been fine.

The two chatted idly, and finally, seeing that most people in the conference hall were seated, the seminar was announced to begin.

Without mentioning the leaders' speeches, the meeting quickly moved on to the process of everyone making speeches, which was to allow the officials, video platforms and production companies to each propose their own desired "censorship methods."

There are two main approaches: one is the "comprehensive censorship system" proposed by the government and some traditional media experts, which requires "unified standards for TV stations and the Internet";
The other is the "industry self-examination and self-inspection mechanism" proposed by many video platforms and online drama companies, which manages through "ex post supervision" - in short, "if the people do not report, the officials will not investigate."

As the largest online drama production team present, Meng Bai's speech was given last.

"... Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to discuss the reform of the 'censorship mechanism' for the better development of the online drama market in the future. So what is the future development direction of online dramas? In the national New Year's report at the beginning of the year, three requirements were put forward for the cultural part - high-quality, popular and distinctive."

"It goes without saying that quality is what all content creators are pursuing. Popularity represents the fundamental purpose of our work, which is to meet the cultural needs of the general public. In these two aspects, both traditional film and television and online dramas are the same. But in terms of 'characteristics', online dramas and traditional film and television dramas must be separated." Meng Bai flipped through his manuscript and read the statistics of the past few years: "By the end of 2014, the number of users of mobile terminal video platforms reached 3.31 million, an increase of 25.6% over the previous year. Among all users, the proportion of users aged to is the highest, which is very different from traditional film and television."

"Therefore, when we consider the 'censorship standards' for online dramas, we must take into account that this new form of communication will inevitably have its own characteristics. If we still use the same censorship form or censorship standards as traditional film and television, then the so-called 'online dramas' are nothing more than 'TV dramas' broadcast on online platforms. How can they have their own characteristics?"

Although Meng Bai is a liberal arts graduate, he knows very well that the two most important skills in this kind of proposal speech are "appealing to authority" and "listing numbers".

Don’t you officials always like to exaggerate things like “the overall situation”, “a high-angle stand”, “the people” and so on?
Okay, then I will first take out the National New Year Report to provide a theoretical basis; then use the actual number of users as a representative to reflect the choice of the masses.

We must respond to the greater good and follow the will of the people at the same time.

The online drama practitioners and representatives from many traditional film and television companies present also expressed their approval, and seemed to be following the lead of "Mr. Meng".

This was obviously somewhat beyond the official expectations. Of course, it was not referring to Meng Bai’s speech, but the level of unity among these companies.

You have to know that more than a month ago, many of them were still fighting for the market.

But as Meng Bai said before, negotiation is all about the "art of compromise."

The authorities don't really expect to raise the censorship standards to the same level as TV dramas at once.

In the end, both sides usually make concessions, it’s just a matter of how much each side makes.

The seminar lasted for two days, with constant debates on various aspects of online dramas, including subject matter, standards, investment scale, broadcasting platform, and financial supervision.

Except for his outstanding speech on the first day, Meng Bai was in a half-hearted state for the rest of the time.

In fact, the main purpose of this kind of seminar is to express the attitude on the first day. The specific details do not affect the overall direction.

The biggest gain of the past two days was getting acquainted with the heads of several film and television companies and video platforms that attended the conference.

In particular, the director of the self-produced drama department of Penguin Video. When Meng Bai went to submit the script of "Soul Ferry", he pulled Meng Bai aside to chat and they got along very well. He was considered the most promising one.

Unfortunately, he missed the opportunity in the end, which made him feel regretful for a long time.

He then told Meng Bai that Penguin will establish two new businesses, Penguin Pictures and China Literature Group, this year, and fully enter the film, television and entertainment business including online dramas, and very much welcomes cooperation with film and television production companies like ArcLight.

Meng Bai was naturally happy to receive such an invitation. Since he decided to gradually reduce his reliance on Leshi.com, he has been open to cooperation with all other video platforms, such as Youku, with whom he had not had much contact, and Mango TV, which was just established last year.

The two-day seminar ended quickly. After many disputes, quarrels and compromises, the authorities finally came up with a preliminary "censorship reform" plan.

Starting from next month, a one-year trial period of the "Online Drama Filing and Registration System Review and Management Measures" will be implemented.

During the trial period, all key online audio-visual works on all online video platforms must log in to the filing website and fill out an "Information Filing Form" before production, including subject matter, duration, funding budget, project theme and plot outline.

Web dramas that have completed filing will be given a "dedicated filing number". Only web dramas with filing numbers can be pushed to users on the homepage of video platforms.

The review standards are still in the form of self-inspection by the website, but if any work is found to not meet the review requirements during or after the broadcast, it must be removed from the shelves for rectification before it can be put back online.

The whole plan is a lot of things, but generally speaking, it is a relatively "muddy" solution. In particular, the so-called "trial period" gives relevant practitioners a buffer period.

In general, although the results were not as good as initially expected in the online drama market, except that the standard for "removal and rectification" was not very clear, it was generally acceptable.

Meng Bai also "complained" to Liu Jun that if they had known this would be the result, there would have been no need to merge the second and third seasons of "Soul Ferry" and delete so many side units.

"What worries me now is how to deal with the stories of these branch units. We can't just make a 'spin-off'." Meng Bai said with a smile.

Liu Jun said, "Didn't you say that you were planning to publish a novel with the same title later? Just put it all in there."

"That's a solution, but it seems a bit wasteful." Meng Bai shook his head and said, "Or, let's see if we can find a new project."

I just don't know what project can use this kind of short story.

Meng Bai pondered, why not give these side stories a facelift and make a new project similar to "Black Mirror"?
However, as the saying goes, "the speaker may not mean it, but the listener may take it seriously." Before he could think of a suitable solution, someone came to him.

The day after the seminar, Meng Bai was studying the script of "Forensic Qin Ming" in his office when he suddenly heard Hua Yan knocking on the door to report that someone was visiting.

"The person who came was a woman named He. She said she was from Mango TV." Hua Yan introduced: "She said she had a project about online variety shows and wanted to discuss cooperation with us."

(End of this chapter)