Internet moguls are being held hostage by the entertainment system!

Chapter 389, "The Xuanwu Gate Incident," is a hit; tax reform in the film and television industry.

Thursday, October 9th.

After half a month of promotion, "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" was launched simultaneously on CCTV-8, iQiyi, and Tencent Video.

The first two episodes of the pilot broadcast picked up where the story left off in "The Song of the King of Qin Breaking the Enemy's Formation".

Li Shimin captured two kings in a single battle outside Wulao Pass (the character "Hu" was changed to "Wu" to avoid using the character "Hu"), completely crushing the forces of Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande. He then led his army back to Chang'an and was awarded the title of General of Heavenly Strategy!

After realizing the promised windfall at the start, Li Yuan, who was staying at home in Chang'an, probably felt that the world was already in his grasp after this battle.

Especially after news came that Dou Jiande's troops had returned to Hebei and disbanded, this Tang emperor, who had always liked to use excessive bestowals and rewards to win people's hearts, suddenly became tough.

On May 8th of the fourth year of the Wude era, Li Yuan issued the "Edict of Amnesty for the Pacification of Dou Jiande" to the whole country, and then sent the people of Crown Prince Li Jiancheng to accept the surrender.

The subsequent tactics were clearly intended to set up Li Jiancheng and make him fight with Li Shimin, with Li Yuan acting as the referee. This was standard procedure and there was nothing wrong with it.

The key point is the "Amnesty Edict." Although it is called an amnesty, its content does not show any intention of showing leniency towards people.

In his edict, Li Yuan used insulting terms like "ugly scoundrels" and "captured" to refer to Dou Jiande's subordinates, and even had Dou Jiande, who had already surrendered to Li Shimin, killed.

The most fatal thing was that he also specifically mentioned in the amnesty edict that Dou Jiande's subordinates should voluntarily go to the government office to surrender themselves, with a deadline of 30 days.

His attitude was very tough. In stark contrast, in the second year of the Wude era, when the rebellion of Liu Wuzhou and Song Jingang was quelled by Li Shimin, Li Yuan issued an edict to pardon Jin, Lu and other prefectures.

This passage states that those who are forced to join the enemy due to the overwhelming strength of the enemy army will not be punished for their past actions.

The two imperial edicts were vastly different, which also showed that Li Yuan was confident that the world was no longer in danger and began to want to demonstrate his authority through forceful means.

However, as expected, Dou Jiande's subordinate Liu Heita gathered his men and rebelled, and then defeated the vanguard sent by Li Yuan.

Seeing this, Li Yuan, who had only been indulging in this way for a little over half a year, had no choice but to issue another edict in December of the fourth year of the Wude era, ordering Li Shimin to lead an expedition to annihilate Liu Heita.

That's all for the first two pilot episodes; the plot is very fast-paced.

The second episode's highest viewership rating reached 2.55%, breaking CCTV's records for the past few years.

iQiyi has recently adopted a new approach that uses a comprehensive evaluation of user discussion, interaction volume, and multi-dimensional playback metrics to display content popularity, replacing the previous numerical display of play counts.

After airing just two episodes, "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" reached a popularity score of 15000 on iQiyi, becoming the best work of the year so far.

Following a tripartite agreement, CCTV, iQiyi, and Tencent jointly announced that after the first two pilot episodes, the show would resume normal updates next week.

That evening, advertisers from all walks of life began calling the sales representatives of Kiwi and Tencent to offer their quotes.

Advertising fees, which had been declining due to inflated viewership and distorted data, immediately surged again after seeing the success of "The Xuanwu Gate Incident".

According to data from the two platforms, the sponsorship price for "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" was directly quoted by the two brands as 100 million yuan, and the creative interstitial mini-drama also cost nearly 10 million yuan.

Other services such as pre-roll ads, overlay ads, and pause ads are all priced at record highs in the industry.

For a time, related terms such as "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" dominated most of the entertainment trending topics list.

CCTV also posted on Weibo and Douyin, praising "The Xuanwu Gate Incident" and declaring that good works should focus on content and say goodbye to the era of prioritizing traffic!

The article's clear stance and choice of words made many people in the industry sense something was amiss, but they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was.

Ultimately, all the odds were confirmed on Monday.

The State Taxation Administration announced that the taxation of film and television studios will be changed from fixed-amount collection to audit-based collection, and the tax rate for celebrity studios will increase from 6% to 42%. The work of making up for the shortfall will also be carried out successively.

The entertainment industry was indeed shaken after this news was announced.

……

Inside the chairman's office of Datang Pictures.

Chen Xiu sat on the sofa, looking at Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai sitting on either side of her, and felt that they had been thinking about it for a long time, holding empty cups.

"General Manager Gong, General Manager Sun?"

"Oh, what's wrong?" *2
"You've finished your coffee, would you like another cup?"

"..."

Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai both showed a similar look of embarrassment before putting their cups back on the coffee table.

Chen Xiu asked curiously, "Is my suggestion really that difficult for you?"

"It's not that I'm troubled by this matter."

Gong Yu explained, frowning, "What we're considering is how much impact this matter will have, whether those who need to make up the payments will be affected, and whether the dramas they starred in will be able to air. These are the key points."

"Well, I'm quite optimistic."

"Has Mr. Chen received the news?"

Sun Zhonghuai took over the conversation, indicating that he was also worried about what Gong Yu had said.

Meeting their expectant gazes, Chen Xiu shook her head and said, "I only analyzed it based on the released announcement. Since the supplementary payment work will be carried out successively, it means that this matter is just a typical case and we don't want to involve too many people."

"Otherwise, why bother with this process? We could just check the pay list one by one; there aren't that many people anyway."

These words struck a chord with Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai.

They were hoping for this outcome, otherwise the losses would be too great. After a moment of silence, Sun Zhonghuai suddenly said, "President Chen, why do you look so relaxed? Are all the artists in your company okay?"

"It was very safe, they cooperated actively, and most of them were newcomers. They wouldn't have made the list for this incident."

Chen Xiu said dismissively.

The artists under Datang Pictures have always paid special attention to their personal safety.

The only thing that worried him was Yang Mi, who joined the group halfway through...

Hearing his confident answer, Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai understood the origin of the topic they had just discussed.

After much deliberation, Gong Yu asked hesitantly, "President Chen, you just said that you would use this incident to promote new talents and new dramas, discover fresh blood in the entertainment industry, and force those top artists to voluntarily reduce their salaries and bear their own taxes?"

With hot money flowing into the film and television industry, top stars have become a scarce resource, and the seller's market dominates. The film and television salaries of stars are all borne by the project leader.

Chen Xiu's suggestion was to use new actors to film new dramas and reverse this problem.

"With the current tax rate, the risks and uncertainties of film and television investment are increasing. It is expected that the production of film and television works will be significantly reduced. I think that only by making good content and retaining the support of the audience can we continue to develop."

Why try to change things because of this incident?

"The power of an individual or a company is limited. Only by going with the flow can we achieve twice the result with half the effort."

"Are you an idealist?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Xiu instantly understood Sam Altman's feelings...

"I was just doing normal things. Judging from the overseas sales price of the copyright of 'The Xuanwu Gate Incident,' domestic stars are indeed too comfortable, so comfortable that they have become somewhat complacent."

"really."

Gong Yu nodded reluctantly, also feeling sympathetic for the high salaries that Kiwi paid out.

After listening to their conversation, Sun Zhonghuai still had concerns and asked, "What if the audience doesn't accept the new actors and new dramas?"

"Mr. Sun, this is just a general statement."

Chen Xiu explained with a smile: "The so-called new actors and new dramas refer to finding stars who already have a basic level of popularity but are not expensive, using high-quality dramas to boost their popularity, and at the same time, achieving long-term cooperation."

“These young actresses and actors who have been in the industry for a few years only receive one-tenth or less of the top stars’ pay, and they don’t have as many problems, so the possibility of accidents is relatively low.”

"But their popularity isn't as high as the top stars!"

Sun Zhonghuai retorted that he wasn't stupid or rich and liked to give money to top celebrities.

The main reason is that the fan market is willing to pay, which is why top celebrities can earn so much money. Over the years, this has become a path dependency.

It would be too risky to rush into taking a new path.

"Are we gradually turning things around for the better?"

Gong Yu held the same opinion and was also concerned about the risks.

Chen Xiu nodded silently, then changed the subject, saying, "If you're worried about the risks, why don't you release a few dramas first and find more partners to share the risks?"

"That's not a bad idea."

“Last time, when we implemented the salary cap plan, we prepared a few suitable scripts! We can start by producing these and have Lemon Pictures and Huace Media join in.”

"I think that's okay too."

Haste makes waste. If we first launch a few new dramas with new actors to test the waters, Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai will be much more willing to accept it.

The six representatives who came to the meeting last time were all companies that had cooperative or investment relationships with them. Tencent's name was on the list of companies receiving funding for Lemon Pictures, so cooperation would be relatively smooth.

Having reached a consensus on the concept of cooperation, all that remains is to discuss the project details.

Chen Xiu's request is quite simple: in addition to selective investment projects, she wants to obtain role opportunities from her own artists as much as possible.

The so-called actors who have been in the industry for a few years, have a base of popularity, and whose salaries are not as high as those of top-tier celebrities.

Most of the new talents signed by Datang Pictures meet this standard, indicating a very strong focus.

After the cooperation was finalized and Gong Yu and Sun Zhonghuai were sent away, Chen Xiu called over Yang Ming, who was in charge of artist management, intending to have him take charge of the later role resource coordination.

"...That's about it. In the next few months, Kiwi and Tencent should be launching a lot of new projects. Take a look at which ones are suitable and try to secure them."

"Understood, boss. There's something I need to report to you."

Chen Xiu stopped, looked up at Yang Ming, and found that his expression and tone were both full of difficulty.

"What is it?"

Yang Mi wants to talk to you alone.

"Is there something you can't handle and you absolutely have to talk to me about it?"

"From what she said, it seemed like she wanted to borrow money..."

(End of this chapter)