Chapter 796 - 392: Chen Jincheng Lost 1.2 Billion

Chapter 796: Chapter 392: Chen Jincheng Lost 1.2 Billion

Huang Zhen was dumbfounded when he saw the data.

Yesterday, the average views per episode were 8,000, but today they’d fallen to just 6,500.

He immediately checked the television viewership ratings. They had dropped to only 0.95%.

It didn’t even break 1%.

He rushed to check the performance of their two new family dramas on iQiyi.

The numbers were even worse.

The average online views per episode were a mere 4,600, and the television rating was only 0.8%.

It was a catastrophic nosedive.

"This can’t be right, this can’t be right," Huang Zhen muttered. He quickly checked the data for *All is Well*. Its viewership rating had hit 1.74% yesterday—another increase. The average views per episode had also broken 50 million, up another 10 million.

The assistant’s expression soured. "President Huang, it seems the online reviews from yesterday weren’t some trick by Chen Jincheng. They might be genuine. The show we bought really does have some major plot holes."

Of course Huang Zhen knew that by now.

He realized he’d been duped by fraudulent data.

But his expression quickly soured.

If this was the case, they were about to lose their gamble with the advertisers.

According to the contract, that meant the advertisers would only have to pay half the agreed-upon fee.

At this rate, their advertising revenue would be minimal. And with the average views per episode plummeting, not many people would subscribe to the premium membership later on. After all, the first two days of a new series were always free.

They hadn’t earned a single cent from memberships yet.

When faced with a bad show, users would just wait for the next day’s free episode instead of spending 30 yuan on a membership.

And Penguin Film and Television had spent a fortune acquiring these shows.

They’d be lucky just to break even.

Huang Zhen immediately pulled out his phone to check the situation online.

If things were any worse, they might not even recoup their costs.

"Haha, the new data is out! Does Penguin Film and Television still think I’m Chen Jincheng’s stooge?"

"Let the data talk! This is what it means to let the data talk. The numbers for the two major platforms are in a freefall!"

"Told you it was melodramatic trash, but no one believed me. Looks like you really have to wait for the data to do the talking."

"..."

Seeing the uniform wave of mockery, Huang Zhen’s face grew even darker. He knew he must have misjudged the situation yesterday. He’d assumed those posts and videos were orchestrated by Chen Jincheng, and his public announcement had only provoked these people.

That’s why they weren’t holding back now. They were mocking him relentlessly, and there were clearly more of them than yesterday.

When he saw a post from a well-known film critic, he was so angry he nearly had a stroke.

"Previously, Penguin Film and Television and iQiyi claimed they’d gotten the better of Chen Jincheng, while Chen Jincheng claimed he’d done the same to them. It was hard to tell who was right before. But now, it’s clear: the two streaming platforms were truly played by Chen Jincheng.

Let’s review these three television series. Initially, it seems neither Penguin nor iQiyi had any plans to acquire them. Judging by the production companies’ actions, their first point of contact was Uku.

I did some asking around. It seems Uku was originally interested in acquiring *Taking Dad to Study Abroad*. But then, all of a sudden, *All is Well* went viral because of Chen Jincheng, generating massive hype.

Everyone knows what happened next. The two platforms ended up in a standoff with Chen Jincheng, which in turn generated buzz for these two shows. That’s right—the hype for these two dramas was sparked by Chen Jincheng himself.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but thinking about it carefully now, Chen Jincheng even made a public announcement stating he would acquire three shows to box out the two streaming platforms. Under those circumstances, the two platforms clearly felt provoked.

They couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, which caused them to lose some of their better judgment. They went and directly contacted the production teams for these two shows, and the rest is history.

Seriously, this young man, Chen Jincheng, is really something else."

"Fuck," Huang Zhen cursed when he read that.

’Bringing this up now... isn’t that the same as grinding my face into the dirt?’

The worst part was, thinking it over now, he realized he had well and truly fallen into Chen Jincheng’s trap.

’Damn it all.’

’At this rate, the shows are going to be a massive financial bleed.’

He hurriedly ordered his assistant, "Quick! Go hire a water army to hype up our shows. Have them subtly imply that all the negative online reviews are Chen Jincheng’s doing."

The assistant frowned. "President Huang, I don’t think that will be very effective. Most people have already seen the shows and know what they’re like."

Huang Zhen sighed. "There are always people who haven’t watched yet. We’ll fool as many as we can. We can’t let the numbers get too ugly. And even if the numbers are bad, we can’t let our reputation get dragged through the mud."

Hearing this, the assistant could only do as instructed.

As the people at Penguin Film and Television began mobilizing their water army, the arguments online did indeed flare up again. Huang Zhen’s plan was to muddy the waters.

But just as the online arguments reignited, Uku Video Network suddenly decided to make a scene. They replaced the content in their two main promotional banner slots with two giant smiley-face emojis.

This left everyone baffled.

Weren’t they wasting two valuable recommendation slots?

Soon, people began to guess the reason why.

Someone had just leaked that Uku had been in contact with these two flop-dramas and had even been planning to buy them.

Those two empty slots were likely where they had planned to feature the two dramas.

As for why they were displaying smiley faces now... it went without saying. Everyone understood. They had narrowly avoided getting duped. If Uku had acquired those two shows, they’d be crying their eyes out in a bathroom stall right now.

So, posting two smiley faces now was perfectly understandable, right?

The thing was, this move made them the center of attention. They quickly drew the eyes of countless people, leading to a massive influx of traffic.

It seemed that "wasting" two recommendation slots to have a little fun was actually more profitable.

It just made things even more unbearable for iQiyi and Penguin Film and Television.