I am Really a Superstar

One after another, several people tried persuading Zhang Ye.

The first person to approach Zhang Ye was a staff member from a related department who was probably responsible for advertising sponsorship in Central TV. He said, “Little Zhang, your asking price for the advertising fee has a serious problem and deviates far beyond what the market can bear. Many people have already come to us to reflect on the situation. Although the advertising sponsorship for your program is handled by you guys in the program team and not my department’s responsibility, I still have to advise you. If those advertisers were already willing to settle for a higher than average amount, what more do you want? Right? Let’s just secure those sponsorships first. It’s better than ending up with nothing.”

“No way.”

“Little Zhang!”

“The price is already fixed.”

“You! Why can’t you be more flexible? Besides, even if your program team is not lacking any money, Central TV Department 1 lacks it.”

“The Voice will certainly make money but the way to make money is not just limited to the sales of a few advertising rights. That is only a small amount of money while the big bucks will be earned in the future. If we make those previous advertisers who have already signed with us feel disappointed because of this small amount of money, then we will lose our reputation and a lot of chances at money. Wouldn’t that end up making us lose more than we gain?”

“Please give it some consideration.”

“There’s no need to consider it further, Chief Zhou. Please return.”

One after another, people came to persuade Zhang Ye. Nobody knew who told them to come. Maybe it was Central TV Department 1’s Deputy Director Jiang Yuan? Or the other leaders from Central TV Department 1? Could it even be the station head of Central TV?

Finally, the executive producer of the program team, Fu Sihong also came to Zhang Ye’s office. He pushed the door open and entered. “Little Zhang, the boss of Heehee Dairy Industry has worked with Central TV before. I also know him personally. Why don’t you just reduce the asking price to 2 million and sell them the advertising rights they want. As for the other company that have already signed, they won’t know our agreed upon price with the other companies. We can keep the information confidential within our internal department and the details of the contract won’t be made public. If that doesn’t work, we can also give them a slight compensation, by placing that company which spent 3 million ahead of the other companies or handle it some other way.”

Zhang Ye retorted, “Just a slight difference with the appearance order and it can have a difference of a third of the advertising fee?”

Fu Sihong said, “Let me tell you this, every program does it like that. It’s not possible that every advertiser will buy an advertising spot for the same price. There are definitely going to be some fluctuations.”

Zhang Ye replied, “I don’t care how others do it, I only care about what I do. Since I have already set a uniform asking fee for everyone, then that is the fixed price.”

“Little Zhang!” Fu Sihong became slightly angry.

Zhang Ye gave a wave of his hand. “Don’t say any more, Brother Fu. I will not agree with this way of handling the issue.”

In the end, even Fu Sihong was rejected as he left with a blackened face!

Fu Sihong was just the executive producer of The Voice in name and was sent by Central TV Department 1 to supervise this program and had very high authority. If Zhang Ye was still the newcomer at the beginning, it would be uncertain who would be the final decision maker for the asking price of the advertising rights fee. After all Zhang Ye was still a newcomer when it came to Central TV.

But in all these days of the pre-production work for The Voice, from the program planning to the setting up of the stage to the invitation of the coaches to the securing of the title sponsor and even to the picking of contestants, all of these were handled by Zhang Ye alone. Fu Sihong did not even help much and could not be seen around at the program team office either. Perhaps he had other, more important work at the other departments, but because of that, faced with the current advertising rights fee issue, it could be said that Zhang Ye was already in full control of the situation. Of course he did not need to give in to anyone over this. Regarding how the pricing was set or what rules to enforce, he had the final say. As this was a program he had poured his blood and sweat into to create, people who were outsiders or did not help out much in the production usually, even disappearing when they were facing difficult times, were not going to have any influence over the decisions. Now that they heard that there was a lot of money involved, did they think they could just come here and dictate right and wrong?

Bullshit!

They only knew how to make trouble!

Zhang Ye was not in the mood to argue over such pointless issues with them. To be honest, he was not concerned about such a small amount of money. To him, if he had the time, he would rather go out onto the streets to canvas for some contestants with nice voices than waste time arguing with Fu Sihong over those advertisers. To get some peace, he decided it would be better for him to go downstairs to the recording studio. After supervising the work for a while, he found a quiet place to write down delegations for the next tasks. For example, the template of the recording for the contestants’ video clips and The Voice‘s program logo, etc.

Some of the tasks progressed smoothly.

On the matter of the advertising rights fee, it was really just a small bump and essentially harmless.

But then, just when everyone in The Voice‘s program team was busily making preparations for the program to be broadcast 20 days later, bad news arrived without any warning!

Zhang Ye was the first person in the program team to learn of the news!

Then, one after another, Ha Qiqi, Zhang Zuo, Wu Yi, Little Wang, and the rest also received this stunning notice: The Voice‘s broadcast schedule was going to be moved up ahead of time! The new time for broadcast had been set for next Thursday!

Upon hearing that, everyone was dumbfounded!

By next Thursday??

Our studio’s layout has not even been fully completed yet!

……

At a floor of Central TV Department 1’s offices.

In the deputy director’s office.

Zhang Ye was a little shocked. “Director Jiang, what’s the meaning of all this?”

Jiang Yuan was looking very depressed as this matter had also caught him off guard. “Can you start the recording of the program by this week? We must broadcast the program on time by next Thursday.”

Zhang Ye didn’t know what to say but still replied, “When I took over this program, the production time was set for one and half months to around two months. But now, after only half a month, you’re telling me we have to start broadcasting? If it was brought forward by three days, I wouldn’t have said anything. If it was a week, I would also accept it. But moving it forward by nearly a month? We haven’t even finish preparing much yet, so how are we going to be able to broadcast anything?”

Jiang Yuan said, “We’ve also just received the news. The program you were supposed to replace still had about a month before they would finish initially. Counting everything, there were still going to be four or five episodes of recording for that program and the plan was for you guys to take over the slot when their program ended. But right now, there are some problems that have surfaced. The host of that program, Zhao Yuzhuang, has had something happen in his private life. You will understand once you check the internet, but for now, Central TV has decided to temporarily suspend him and take him off television for at least a year.”

News?

Private life?

Zhang Ye took out his cell phone and browsed through several pages before he found it. A selfie showed a woman dressed in a bathrobe and laying in bed. Beside her, Central TV host Zhao Yuzhuang was sound asleep and did not know anything about his picture being taken. His lower body was covered with a blanket but his upper body was naked and the woman was obviously not Zhao Yuzhuang’s wife. Zhang Ye immediately understood. Although these photos could not fully depict what was going on and could have been real or a setup, but as a host of Central TV, with such unglamorous pictures exposed in the media, there would usually be adverse effects. If it were other television stations, they might have tolerated this, but Central TV was definitely less forgiving. No matter how much money a host earned or how high their viewership ratings were, it was all secondary in Central TV. What Central TV emphasized most was political effects.

Zhang Ye put down his cell phone. “Can you schedule another program to fill the vacancy?”

“There’s no other choice.” Jiang Yuan said, “Recently in Department 1, only The Voice is slated to replace another program’s time slot, so there’s no one else who can take over. It will be too late even if we made a last-minute effort to produce a program to try to gloss over this situation!”

Zhang Ye said, “But we also can’t make it in time!”

Well-meaning, Jiang Yuan said, “You all have already been preparing for half a month now and I know that time is very tight. I also know that no one has ever managed to prepare and produce such a large-scale singing talent show in half a month, but there is no other choice. Whether the program is fully prepared or half prepared, even if it has an incomplete stage or no contestants, we have no choice but to put it out and give it a try!”

“The time is too tight. Our stage, the contestants’ rehearsals, the video clips, the program’s publicity shorts, and a series of other things all aren’t completed yet.” Zhang Ye said.

Half a month?

Even a month’s time was insufficient!

Like The Voice from Zhang Ye’s previous world, from the preparations to production to finally getting broadcast, all of that would take about 6 months or even longer. Zhang Ye had directly pulled The Voice in its entirety from his previous world and that helped him save the time for planning and conceptualization and allowed him to speed up the production timeline for the program. But that was as far as it went, since the time needed for stage setup, production of the publicity shorts, and selection of contestants couldn’t be skimped on at all! There was no way it could be saved!

Jiang Yuan said, “I know all about your difficulties, but this is the situation we’re in right now, so no matter what, you all have to do it. Little Zhang, what others can’t do, I believe you can. You are a legend in the industry and anyone would give you the thumbs up if you get mentioned. You certainly can do it! I have faith in you and confidence in your team!”

Whoa! Don’t try to suck up to me when there’s a situation like this.

Previously, didn’t you mention that my temper was bad? Yet you’re now giving me the thumbs up?

Zhang Ye repeatedly emphasized, “It’s too difficult, this is too difficult!”

Jiang Yuan stared at him and said, “Right now, all the station and I want is one word from you. Can The Voice‘s program team fill the vacancy?”

Zhang Ye kept quiet.

Jiang Yuan said, “We will provide anything you need, including equipment, manpower, even Central TV Department 1’s and other channels’ resources. As long as you ask, I will help you to get it even if it means that I have to plead with the others! Oh right, about the advertising resources that we previously allocated 75 seconds of free publicity airtime to you all, after the meeting regarding Zhao Yuzhuang just now, the station also mentioned that if necessary, we can still allocate another 75 seconds of airtime to you all as compensation. You don’t need to worry about where we will get this advertising airtime from; we’ll arrange it for you. You only need to submit the publicity clips and give us a time and date for when you want them to be aired. What do you think?”

Zhang Ye: “…”

Jiang Yuan said, “Regarding the station’s request for your program’s viewership ratings, they are also willing to lower their expectations. So long as it hits 0.7%, that will be enough. When we broadcast a hastily made production, we understand that the viewership ratings will certainly be affected as well. We have already considered such situations knowing that we have no choice but to rush it out for broadcast!”

Zhang Ye realized that Central TV had no other way out. They couldn’t even give his team another day for preparations. No one could have expected such a situation to happen all of a sudden, so matter how he considered what was happening, there really wasn’t anything Zhang Ye could say to this, could he? He could only clench his teeth and agree, “OK, but I can only say that I will try my best!”

However, Jiang Yuan said, “I don’t want to hear that, what I want to hear is a firm answer. Can you do it or not?”

Zhang Ye contemplated for a long time before finally committing. “—Yes!”

Although he hesitated for a long time, the moment he said “yes,” he did so with determination!

Jiang Yuan said loudly, “Good, that was what I wanted to hear from you!”

When he left Jiang Yuan’s office, Zhang Ye knew that this truly was an unforeseen disaster. The preparations were making good progress and all aspects of the production were going smoothly as well, but somehow, an incident like this happened. But Zhang Ye was not planning to give up yet, otherwise he would not have agreed. Since he agreed, he would certainly have to do it!

By next Thursday?

Only six days left?

Zhang Ye was counting the time he had left, going through every detail in his mind and thinking which part of the production could be sped up or which tasks would need more manpower and overtime.

As for cutting corners?

Zhang Ye never even gave this a thought!

The Voice must never have any “discounts”—this was Zhang Ye’s principle and also his bottom line!