Feature Shows Extravaganza - Chapter 55

Chapter 55: Pan Qiliang’s New Job

The premiere broadcasting rights still went to Mr. Tao in the end.

After all, Meng Lang and him had gotten along well, and the terms of Jiangchuan Children’s Channel had met Meng Lang’s expectation. If nothing else, Jiangchuan was Pengda’s base camp, so giving the first-round broadcast rights to a local TV channel could be considered as consolidating Pengda’s base.

With some negotiation, Explosive Boys was set to be aired on 1st June.

It would be Children’s Day!

And the show was going to be a gift for all children!

Once the date was set, the rest of the preparation was much easier.

The filming of Explosive Boys officially finished in early May. After a lively wrap-up party, everyone went their separate ways.

Thunderbird Studio started working overtime.

The scenes in Explosive Boys that needed special effects were quite compact, and most of the work was done beforehand. Hence, it didn’t take the studio much time to finish up everything.

Most importantly, Director Meng wasn’t stingy with paying the bill at all!

Not every production company was the same. Some of them would hold onto the remaining balance while making a thousand requirements on the work. Needless to say, it would take much longer to complete such work.

Working with Pengda was so much easier!

After pulling out most of their hair, the programmers of Thunderbird submitted their final work.

Meng Lang went to Zhonghai to check the work before accepting it.

It was quite impressive!

The virtual images of all popping balls came out rather vivid and were much better than the original version.

Of course, it wasn’t Hollywood standard.

But it was good enough for a TV show.

Even if the special effects weren’t satisfactory, it wouldn’t be much of a big deal. All kids nowadays wore glasses, and they wouldn’t be able to tell mediocre special effects from good ones. So, why bother?

Now, the making of the show had been completed, and the broadcasting time had been determined.

The only task left was promotion!

Considering the fact that Explosive Boys was a live-action feature show targeting young teenagers, most of their audience would be middle and primary school students. Hence, Meng Lang had left an instruction to the PR department.

“Just forget about online advertisement.”

He would rather save the money for offline publicity events. As for the TV platform, Jiangchuan Children’s Channel would take care of it.

Posters should be seen everywhere!

All toy and stationery stores that were Pengda’s distributor had posters of the show all over their walls.

The message the poster sent was very straight forward.

Wang Bin, Tao Mi, Li Yu, and other main characters were all on it, each holding a popping ball with their signature posture. The line above their heads read: “June 1st, popping balls ready to launch!”

And posters had been sent to distributors all over the country.

In order to encourage the shop owners to cooperate with the promotion, Pengda had come up with a discount plan.

All distributors putting up the posters in their shops could have a discount when they purchased the toys.

Yo-yos and fairy toys had been selling well, especially the yo-yos. Probably toy and stationery shops all over the country were selling them.

Two types of yo-yos were being sold nationwide.

One type was made by Pengda Toy Factory and was distributed by Jiangchuan and neighboring provinces and cities by dealers.

Another type was made by other licensed toy manufacturers and would be distributed across the country.

In order to promote the popping balls, Pengda Toy Factory had agreed to give all distributors who had put up the poster a discount price.

As for the licensed manufacturers, Meng Lang had agreed to reduce the proceedings rate by 1% and gave the money to all major distributors.

The measures were very effective.

Any place that had been selling yo-yos also had the promotion poster of Explosive Boys.

The coverage was incredible.

Nearly all toy and stationery shops all over the country had put up the posters of Explosive Boys in the most eye catching spot, and almost overnight, all middle and primary school students had heard about popping balls.

And they couldn’t wait to see the toy in action.

“When can we see it? All we see now is the poster! Where is the toy?”

The most attractive things would always be those that one wouldn’t have. That was the perfect description of the children’s mentality now.

The more mysterious the toy was, the more curious they became.

Naturally, the curiosity for the new toy transferred to the coming show Explosive Boys.

Meng Lang had delayed the launching of the toy just to increase the viewership ratings.

He wasn’t alone. Mr. Tao had been doing his job as well.

Jiangchuan Children’s Channel took the debut of Explosive Boys very seriously and had allocated a lot of resources to the promotion.

Starting from late May, Jiangchuan Children’s Channel began to run advertisements of Explosive Boys whenever they could to promote the show.

With all the posters Pengda Pictures had been distributing, Explosive Boys was already a hit show before it was broadcasted.

…

It had been a while since Pan Qiliang went to Sprout’s website.

Ever since he lost his job, he had become a stay-at-home dad. Apart from looking after his son, he had to send out resumes and look for jobs. He never seemed to have enough time, so it had been a while since he last watched a TV show.

However, he received good news today.

He had found a new job—a customer service specialist at an online game company.

That was right! It was customer service again!

To Pan Qiliang, the customer service of an online game had no difference from that of high-end robots.

Players who had made a lot of in-game purchases could talk to the game designers directly, and Pan Qiliang was only there for players who had paid little or no real money for the game.

As far as these players were concerned…

The instruction was pretty straight forward.

“Note down the bugs they report and ignore the suggestions on the actual settings of the game. If they won’t stop, just minimize the window. Wait for a while before telling them that we’ve received their feedback and thank them for their wonderful suggestions. Make a copy of all the standard replies, and you can start today…”

In other words: ignore the non-paying customers.

They just hadn’t spent enough money on the game!

Those who had paid enough could go directly to the game designers. They didn’t need customer service specialists.

It was as simple as that!

With that job description, Pan Qiliang had time to watch TV shows again.

“I can’t find anything good!”

After going through the titles of the recent TV series, Pan Qiliang heaved the sigh.

What had they been doing?

All he could find were either costume shows or stories about the war between mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. How about something else for a change?

He decided that he would watch Blazing Teens. That way, at least he would have something to talk about with his son.

When he opened PenguinTube and was going to type in Blazing Teens, the poster of a new show caught his attention.

Explosive Boys?

Produced by Pengda Pictures, and directed by Meng Lang…

Again?

Pan Qiliang was suddenly on guard. Blazing Teens directed by this Meng Lang had made his son infatuated with yo-yos, which in turn led to the drop in his grades. After that, this man made Balala the Fairies to do the same thing to little girls…

With this logic, his next show should be targeting grownups, but why did he come back to swindling the money of little boys again?

Pan Qiliang was already cutting back on his cigarette just to get his son the yo-yos he wanted.

But now, there were the popping balls. The thought of his son being infatuated with this new toy made Pan Qiliang want to pass out.

Life was so hard.