Entertainment: 1990

Chapter 279 Using a fake foreign devil to enhance one's own prestige

The next afternoon.

Representatives from television stations in 22 provinces and municipalities gathered in the screening room of Tianjin Television Station.

Ma Yuan made a brief appearance and then left quickly, leaving Yan Xiaoming and Wei Liben to handle the reception.

As always, Deputy Director Yan was decisive and efficient. After saying the necessary formalities, he immediately announced the start of the screening.

"The extravagant desires of this mortal world are endless, the grudges and favors of humanity are countless, and all these generations are bound by fate..."

As Han Lei's melodious singing began, the first scene to appear on the screen was Li Fengjie [Chen Hong] gazing sadly from the bow of the boat. Her beautiful makeup and top-notch looks immediately drew gasps of amazement.

"My sister-in-law is getting more and more beautiful."

Sitting in the last row, Yan Xiaoming couldn't help but sigh, but he only glanced at it twice before turning to Zhang Yan and whispering, "Xiao Zhang, what do you think we should do with our second channel?"

It has been three months since it went live on satellite. After becoming familiar with and mastering the satellite broadcasting system, Tianjin TV opened a second channel, modeled after CCTV.

Originally, this channel was intended to be a movie channel in cooperation with Beijing Film Studio—even if Beijing Film Studio didn't come, cooperation with August First Film Studio would have been fine.

As a result, Beijing Film Studio sought cooperation with CCTV, but the deal was ultimately snatched away by the Optoelectronics Company.

With the intervention of the optoelectronics company, Tianjin TV had no choice but to back down. Its original satellite channel was reduced to a local channel. There was no other way; its own resources were simply insufficient to support two satellite channels, and it would also be easy for them to compete with each other.

Then this second channel was handed over to Yan Xiaoming.

"Yantai".

When Yan Xiaoming asked him for advice, Zhang Yan shook his head and said, "I think there's a problem with your idea."

"How to say?"

“We’re focusing on satellite TV right now. If I come up with any good ideas, it won’t be available for our second station to use. I think what our second station should be doing is not pursuing ratings, but providing training and support for our satellite station.”

"Right."

Yan Xiaoming suddenly realized: "We don't have as many resources as CCTV, and Channel 2 is also a comprehensive channel. It's indeed being developed as an experimental field, which is more in line with the station's situation. So, who do you think is more suitable among the young people in our station?"

"XX from the directing department, XXX from the production center..."

While casually making recommendations, Zhang Yan focused most of his attention on the representatives from various provinces.

Because at this point in the story, the female protagonist gradually falls asleep to the sound of the song "Rap Opera Masks," and is transported to an ancient street scene.

Zhang Yan was initially worried that some people wouldn't be able to accept the time-travel plot, but the facts proved that he had worried too much.

Upon seeing the female lead suddenly appear on the ancient street, the twenty-odd representatives were surprised to varying degrees, but none of them found it unacceptable.

Come to think of it, ever since he created the time-travel genre, from 90 to 94, time-travel novels have remained popular and have now become almost the mainstream of martial arts novels in mainland China.

Even if the representatives present haven't read this kind of novel, most of them have heard of it. With this prior mental preparation, it's naturally much easier for them to accept it.

The main plot of this episode is: Li Fengjie, because she does not believe that she has traveled to the Ming Dynasty, tries to expose the truth, but because of her clothing, appearance and behavior, she is regarded as a strange person and a madwoman and is surrounded by onlookers.

At this moment, Emperor Zhengde rode up on his horse and loudly mocked the people on the street, saying that 'Xuanfu' was indeed a poor and remote place, and they had never even seen 'Fu demons'.

The so-called "clothing demons" were a strange and unusual group that appeared in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty. They specifically referred to people who dressed strangely and exaggeratedly and spoke absurdly.

After Zhengde explained, everyone dispersed.

Zhengde then invited Li Fengjie to have tea by the roadside, trying to subtly find out her identity.

Li Fengjie was in a bad mood, so her casual and perfunctory answers were full of loopholes.

Just then, several young beggars on the street were scrambling for chicken bones thrown down from the second floor of a restaurant. One of them got a bone stuck in his throat and was rolling around on the ground in pain. Seeing this, Li Fengjie went over and used the Heimlich maneuver to save the young beggar.

Then, to the waiter who felt sorry that her clothes were dirty, she said some of the most popular sayings of the time: life is precious and everyone is equal.

Emperor Zhengde greatly admired her for this and became increasingly curious about her background. So he told Li Fengjie directly that he was the emperor and that if she encountered any trouble, she didn't need to hide it, as he could help her solve it.

Then they took Li Fengjie to the government office and had the local officials verify her identity.

That concludes the first episode.

Zhang Yan gestured for the projectionist to pause for a moment, then went to the front of the stage to ask the representatives from various provinces for their impressions.

After some whispering among the audience, a representative from a southwestern province stood up and said, "Isn't this drama a bit too 'clean'? The costumes don't seem to match the clothing of ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, especially the Zhengde Emperor's attire..."

"This fellow."

Zhang Yan interrupted him, smiling as he reminded him, "This is a historical fiction drama, mainly aimed at a general audience. It's primarily for entertainment, so it's not as meticulously researched as a serious drama."

He himself admitted that he wasn't going to investigate further, so there's no point in dwelling on this point anymore.

However, this guy from the southwest was an active member of the network, so he certainly couldn't give up finding fault so easily. He quickly rallied and said, "A modern person going back to ancient times is something I've never heard of before. What if the audience can't accept it?"

Zhang Yan shook his head and laughed: "I don't think this is a problem. When I wrote the first time-travel novel in China in 1990, nobody knew about this genre. As a result, the sales exploded. The sales of Popular Fiction Newspaper increased by more than a million copies, and this record has not been broken to this day."

Since then, novels on similar themes have become commonplace, and I believe at least tens of millions of people have read time-travel novels—given the numerous successful examples in novels, there's no reason why a TV series would fail because of its subject matter.

After he finished speaking, the audience immediately started whispering among themselves. Many people knew about Zhang Yan through the MV incident and the variety show he planned, but they didn't expect that he was the first writer in China to write a time-travel novel.

While other people's examples might not be as convincing, Zhang Yan's personal testimony as the founder makes it truly irrefutable.

So the other person could only turn to a colleague in front of them for help.

This man was a representative from a northwestern province. He stood up and said in a deep voice, "Mr. Zhang, although some provincial and municipal television stations have become wealthy, but..."

[PS: Four or two hundred words were inexplicably deleted, probably to prevent any scenes of giving feedback to superiors.]

Got~
We really underestimated them. It turns out they didn't just want to lower the price; they wanted to use this opportunity to voice their opinions to their superiors.

"Haha~"

At this moment, Zhang Yan laughed twice to attract everyone's attention, and then said, "I don't object to any of you, I even support what you're doing, but opposing the marketization of copyright is definitely not an option..."

"why not?"

Someone immediately retorted, "Does that mean your proposal is some kind of golden rule or ancestral law that no one can change?!"

"I definitely don't have that ability."

Zhang Yan spread his hands and said, "But 97 is almost here, and the Hong Kong and Taiwan film and television industry certainly won't let us get away with it for free. It's one thing at the city and county level, but at your level, you have to consider the bigger picture, right?"

Although unwilling to do so, the effect of relying on fake foreign devils to enhance one's own prestige was immediate.

The provincial representatives who were arguing just moments before immediately fell silent upon hearing the word "overall situation."

Zhang Yan looked around and picked up their idea of ​​a joint signature again: "However, we can apply to the higher authorities to have the central government pay for some excellent TV series to be broadcast for free in poor provinces in the mainland, or allocate some special funds."

Faced with Zhang Yan's suggestion, the crowd looked at each other, but they had lost all their previous enthusiasm.

Seeing this, Zhang Yan said, "We can talk about these things later. Let's talk about everyone's thoughts on this TV series first."

(End of this chapter)