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

Chapter 348: The New Year’s Drama Champion!

"'Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons' was withdrawn from theaters the day before yesterday after its release date expired. The final cumulative box office was 7.5 million. According to the investment ratio, our share of the revenue is about 6000 million..."

In the president's office of Arc Light, Liu Jun looked at the information in his hand and introduced the film.

"The box office performance is not bad." Meng Bai, who was sitting opposite, said, "But the reviews must have been badly criticized."

"Indeed, the score has dropped to three points." Liu Jun said, and suddenly smiled: "Hey, do you know the Chinese Film Golden Broom Award?"

Meng Bai nodded: "I have heard of it."

The China Film Golden Broom Award is a spoof film award initiated by Cheng Qingsong, editor-in-chief of Youth Film Handbook, imitating the American Golden Plum Awards. A group of film critics, media people and netizens vote to select the most disappointing films and actors of the year.

As a "three-no" award with no funding, no sponsors, and basically no award-winning guests, the Golden Broom Award has been held for ten years since its inception in 2009, and its popularity is growing.

It has to be said that the audience really enjoys watching the fun.

Liu Jun chuckled, "A few days ago, the Golden Broom Awards announced the new nomination list. Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2 became the most nominated film of the year, with the most disappointing film, most disappointing director, and most disappointing screenwriter."

Meng Bai also laughed after hearing this. The movie just ended its run, and it won such a high "popularity" award. He really wanted to know how Brother Baoqiang felt right now.

Forget it, this guy is still busy with a divorce lawsuit at the moment, so don’t stab him in the back.

Although the reputation of "Buddhist in India" collapsed, Meng Bai didn't care much. After all, Arclight was just an investor, and it was fine as long as they didn't lose money. How the film was made had nothing to do with them.

But then again, should we set up another small company like "Touchstone" or "Searchlight" in the future? If there are any projects like this with bad reputation but can make money, we will let the new company cooperate to avoid dragging down Arc Light's reputation.

After talking about the returns on the film investment, Meng Bai turned around and asked about the situation of "Peace Hotel".

"The ratings have been increasing steadily. As of yesterday, when the latest episode aired, the average ratings per episode had risen to 1.85."

Speaking of this, Liu Jun's spirits lifted again: "At present, the progress of the whole drama is only two-thirds, and there is still about half a month of broadcast period. CCTV predicts that according to the current data growth rate, it should be no problem for the ratings to exceed 2 before the finale."

Meng Bai was also delighted when he heard this.

The ratings of Peace Hotel's first broadcast exceeded 1, which can be said to be based on CCTV's huge audience base. However, with the gradual improvement of the performance in recent years, it has fully proved the value of this drama.

If a rating of "over 1" means that a drama has passed the test, then a rating of "over 2" means that the drama has surpassed a number of ordinary dramas and has been promoted to the category of "hot dramas".

Moreover, although the revenue from the first round of broadcasts has been determined, the prices of subsequent second rounds of broadcasts and copyrights on other platforms are directly linked to the ratings.

If "Peace Hotel" can really successfully "break 2" before the end, the subsequent revenue will inevitably increase significantly.

For ArcLight, this also means that its first step in the field of TV dramas can be firmly established.

"What are the ratings of other dramas?" Meng Bai asked.

"Moscow Operation" and "The Legend of Phoenix" are still hovering around the previous figures. Both TV stations have recently started to speed up their broadcast schedules. They should be planning to finish the show quickly and start a new one."

Satellite TV stations receive advertising fees from advertisers, and they also have ratings assessment. These two dramas were inherently flawed from the beginning, and there is no hope if they continue to drag on. It is better to end them early and switch to new dramas early. Maybe the next one will be a hit.

"What about Mr. Love?"

Liu Jun frowned. "This drama has performed quite well, and its ratings have been rising since it was first aired. Currently, the ratings of the latest episodes on the two satellite TV stations are around 1.4 for one and around 0.7 for the other."

I have to say that although Jin Dong’s reputation has not been very good in the past two years, his screen appeal is still very strong.

Moreover, the male protagonist in "Mr. Love" this time has more "relaxed and lively" elements than before, which is also somewhat innovative. In addition, the plot is also in the style of urban light comedy, which is quite attractive.

Therefore, as the series was broadcast, more and more viewers followed the show.

If the data from the two broadcast platforms are added together, the current ratings of this drama have already exceeded 2.

"It's not calculated that way." Liu Jun explained: "If the scores of the co-broadcast dramas on each platform are directly added up, a lot of duplicate data will be generated. Therefore, the industry currently generally calculates each of these dramas that are co-broadcast on two channels separately."

Before the implementation of the "One TV Series, Two Stars" policy, there were many TV series that were broadcasted by four channels at the same time. Some popular TV series even achieved a score of "breaking 1" at the same time.

If we add them up directly, the total ratings of the show is close to 5%, which is obviously inflated. So when the producers announced the results, they would only say "four channels broke 1 at the same time" instead of directly saying "ratings broke 4".

Since the rise of online dramas and mobile terminals, the audience of TV stations has been declining year by year. Not to mention the ratings of "breaking 4", there are very few dramas that can "break 3".

Moreover, this only looks at the peak data, not the average data of the entire series. Otherwise, there would be very few series that even break 2.

The ratings discussed by Meng Bai and Liu Jun before also refer to the ratings of a single episode. If we talk about the average, then Peace Hotel is only just over 1.4 now.

The only drama in recent years with an average viewership rating of over 3 is "In the Name of People".

Unfortunately, no matter how high the ratings of this drama are, there is no second round of broadcast. If you want to watch it again in the future, you can only watch it online.

Although "Mr. Love" is currently performing well, Liu Jun doesn't care too much about it, because the ratings of the show have basically stabilized and there won't be any significant increase in the future.

It can be said that as long as "Peace Hotel" does not encounter problems like "withdrawal" in the future, regardless of whether the final ratings can "break 2", it has already secured the championship of the 2018 New Year's drama.

Fans and audiences were amazed at the achievement, but ArcLight was only briefly happy and not too excited.

There is no way, as the top team in the field of online dramas, they have been in the "top 1" position for a long time. Now they are just the "contemporary champion" of a TV series, which can't trigger everyone's G-spot at all.

If I could win something like "Drama of the Year" or the three major awards, that would be worth getting excited about.

"The registration period for this year's Feitian Awards has passed, so we have no chance, but we can try for the Magnolia Awards and the Golden Eagle Awards."

"I remember the magnolia is in June, right?" Meng Bai asked.

"Yes, it will be held in June. The nomination list will be announced at the end of May and the registration will close at the end of March." Liu Jun smiled and said, "We have already submitted it to the Peace Hotel."

“Which awards did you apply for?”

"I've applied for everything I could, but I'm not sure which ones I'll be nominated for in the end." Liu Jun said, "But I should be a sure bet for Best Screenwriter, at least I can get a nomination."

"What's the point of being nominated?" Meng Bai didn't care. "Who would remember if I don't win the award?"

"You can't say that. Being nominated is also a kind of affirmation." Liu Jun smiled bitterly. "You also know that the Magnolia Awards have always favored the Shanghai community, which has nothing to do with us. So whether we can win in the end depends on our ability for 30% and luck for 70%."

The three major awards for TV dramas have always had their own styles and preferences. The Feitian Award is a government award, and its selection style tends to favor serious dramas; the Magnolia Award is an industry award, preferring industry reputation and the Shanghai circle; the Golden Eagle Award is a popularity award, preferring the hot dramas of the year.

"Peace Hotel" is not a serious drama, nor is it from the Shanghai circle. The producer Hu Guang is from the online drama background, so in fact, compared to the Magnolia Award, the Golden Eagle Award is more suitable.

However, this year's Golden Eagle Awards is in October, and there is still more than half a year left, so I will apply for the Magnolia Awards first to test the waters.

After all, this is the first time that ArcLight has a work participating in the selection of the three major awards.

Meng Bai was not in a hurry either. The nomination list would not be announced until May anyway, and it would take some time.

After chatting for a few more words, Liu Jun stood up and prepared to leave. But before leaving, he mentioned another thing.

"The film and television department reported that recently, clips of Peace Hotel and some of our previous works have appeared on many short video platforms. Do you want to report it to the platform?" "Clips?"

"They just cut out the more exciting parts of an episode and play them in order. They said that if someone watched them all in order, it would be like watching most of the show."

Meng Bai became interested: "Are there any other dramas?"

“All of them. No matter how bad the quality is or how old it is, including overseas dramas, basically someone will edit and broadcast them.”

"In that case, don't worry." Meng Bai said, "Let me take a look first."

After seeing Liu Jun off, Meng Bai took out his cell phone and planned to check the details.

However, there is only one video application on his mobile phone, Bilibili, and other applications such as Douyin, Volcano, and Kuaishou need to be downloaded first.

While the application was downloading in the background, he searched on Bilibili first.

In fact, when video platforms were just emerging a few years ago, many other platforms opened diversion ports to Bilibili in order to increase traffic.

After all, the main audience of mobile terminals is young audiences, and it just so happens that Bilibili has the largest number of "young groups" in the country.

Including Arc Light’s previous works "Soul Ferry", "Psychological Crime", "Forensic Qin Ming", and Mango TV's "Star Detective", they can all be watched directly from Bilibili.

However, since last year, as copyright management policies have become stricter and Bilibili began preparing for its IPO, these ports have been cancelled.

If you search for Meng Bai now, all official videos have been removed except for the content uploaded by users themselves.

Even so, he still found a lot of cut clips of arclight dramas on Bilibili, some of which even had "complete series" directly marked in the title.

Meng Bai didn't pay much attention to the previous dramas. One reason is that it is difficult to manage, and the other is that it is mainly for the platform to deal with. For their producers, the impact is actually not that big.

But if it is a drama currently being broadcast, such as "Peace Hotel", he cannot ignore it.

After downloading several short video platforms and searching by keywords, Meng Bai was quite satisfied with the results.

As Liu Jun said, there are indeed many clips of related plots, but most of them are concentrated on a few famous scenes, and the rest are scattered fragments.

If you really want to watch the entire series here, it can be quite troublesome.

After turning around, Meng Bai put his worries aside. With the current unsystematic editing method, it would not have any impact on the broadcast of the main film.

It may even play a significant role in attracting traffic.

During the time he was watching, he had already seen many people asking similar questions in the comment section:

[Hello everyone, what is the name of the original drama of this clip? 】

[My brother is called Shunliu and he will never look at the lower left corner]

[Is the name so long? Why can't I find it on Baidu? ]

[The person above is asking you to look at the lower left corner of the video. ]

[Is the video called "Lower Left Corner"? I still can't find it? ]

[…Honest people, please stop asking. This drama is called “Peace Hotel”. Don’t watch it online. Just turn on the TV and watch CCTV8.]

[Found it, thank you! ]

【…】

Although the process was somewhat tortuous, the result did add new audiences to the show.

Meng Bai thought about it and felt that there was no need to interfere with this "tap water".

However, he did discover from this incident the potential of short video platforms in promotion and dissemination.

Compared with traditional websites, Weibo, public accounts, etc., emerging short videos seem to be more suitable for attracting more audiences to pay attention to the main film through a small and exciting plot.

For a TV series, the effect may not be very obvious. After all, the plot is too long, and it is difficult to see anything just by looking at this clip of less than a minute.

But for movies, it works wonders.

ArcLight has two more movies to be released. In addition to the usual promotional media, it can also increase its promotion efforts in the field of short videos.

Currently, several mainstream short video platforms, such as Kuaishou, Xiaokaxiu, and Shanpai, do not quite match the tone of film and television, but Douyin, Huoshan, etc. are quite good.

We can ask the Film and Television Department to contact ByteDance later to see if there is any possibility of advertising cooperation.

Although he thought so, Meng Bai did not take this matter too seriously.

The main content of short videos nowadays is still cross-dressing, technical flow and funny jokes. Film and television editing is a niche, and he just wants to test the waters.
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When "Peace Hotel" was first aired, it received high praise from the audience due to its novel "escape room" setting and the male and female protagonist characters that were different from traditional spy war dramas.

At its highest point, the score reached 8.6, on par with "The Disguiser".

However, as the plot unfolded, the number of viewers increased, the number of people who rated also increased, and the score slowly slipped.

At the end of the current progress, the score has dropped to 8.3.

Although the ratings have declined, they are still far higher than most spy dramas. Moreover, the ratings and online broadcast volume of this drama have always maintained a steady growth, and have not been affected by the reviews at all.

The first breakthrough was in the ratings. Just three days after Liu Jun and Meng Bai reported the results, the single-episode ratings of "Peace Hotel" exceeded the 2% mark and continued to grow, but the growth rate began to slow down.

Until the finale, the growth momentum finally slowed down and stabilized at around 2.3.

As for Mr. Love, it was broadcast earlier and ended a few days ago. The highest single-episode ratings were 1.56. Even if you add the 0.7 of another channel, it is still lower than Peace Hotel.

There is no doubt that in this year's battle of opening dramas, CCTV won the championship of the same period with this unique spy war drama.

This is not the end. Although it is just the beginning of the year, the ratings of "Peace Hotel" can still be ranked in the top three among all prime-time TV dramas on CCTV-8 last year.

For CCTV, this not only means that they have broadcast a popular TV series, but more importantly, it proves that their new policy reforms this year are "completely correct."

For such public institutions, one more or one less popular drama does not matter, but the political achievements under the noses of such leaders are real.

All of a sudden, CCTV's film and television department's favorability towards Arc Light Films soared.

The director of the film purchasing department of Channel 8 even directly stated that if the next drama is still broadcast on CCTV, the highest standard of treatment can be provided.

This condition was actually quite good, but unfortunately CCTV’s price for purchasing the film was indeed a bit low, so Arc Light did not completely agree, but it did not refuse either.

After all, CCTV always represents the official position, so it always does good to improve the relationship.

(End of this chapter)