Chapter 45 - The Serialization of “The Wizard of Oz”! (1/2)

Afternoon.

The atmosphere in the office was very awkward.

Tian Bin was full of envy. Jia Yan, normally proud and full of confidence, also felt like he was now sitting on a cus.h.i.+on full of needles. He felt uncomfortable and had an ominous feeling. The breakout of “Old and Young Story Club” has given them significant stress. Wu Datao was annoyed about how “Entertainment Daily” had suffered an unprecedented slip from 2nd place, never before seen in its history!

Zhao Guozhou did not appear in the office for the whole day. Everyone was sure that he knew about Zhang Ye’s results, but no one made a sound, as they all simultaneously chose to remain silent. No one could tell what the other was thinking about. In accordance with regulations, a program’s last broadcast could only be decided by its ratings. Programs which placed badly for a long period of time were cut. But never had a program scheduled to be cut had its ratings increase so explosively. How should this situation be handled? Stop broadcasting? Continue broadcasting? The leader was silent about this and no one could really answer this either. But silence could also be a sign!

Xiaofang called out, “Teacher Zhang, the recording studio is ready.”

“Okay. Thanks for the hard work. I will head over immediately.” Zhang Ye switched off his monitor.

When he got up, Teacher Feng, whom he shared a table with, gave him a thumbs up. “Come on; write another good story. Failure or success will depend on these two days.” Teacher Feng had become hopeful now; perhaps the young Little Zhang could really create a miracle this time!

“I understand.” Zhang Ye replied.

As everyone watched on, Zhang Ye went to the recording studio.

As for the Leader’s thoughts, Zhang Ye had his own a.s.sumptions. Jia Yan was Deputy Station Head Jia’s relative; he would surely be well taken care of. But Zhang Ye was just a rootless duckweed and had even offended the Station Leader before. He would surely not be preferentially treated. It could then be said that if Sat.u.r.day and Sunday’s ratings had a tremendous drop, the Leader would not hesitate to axe “Old and Young Story Club”. But if the ratings could maintain at 2.40% or even higher, then the situation would not necessarily be fixed. With the results placed in front of them, they could not move him even if they wanted to!

So how was he to keep the ratings consistent?

Zhang Ye did not rush to record his program, but pondered in the recording studio for a long time. The situation was to his advantage now. Through the promotion of “Little Bunnies Be Good” and through the official announcement of the Education Ministry, many parents had already become audience members of his program. Zhang Ye had to make these people stay on and not let them leave after the fad was over. He also had to make some plans for his program!

Got it!

A serial!

In this world, a serialized fairy tale might seem unfamiliar. To the people, a story is a story. It ends after it has been read to the end. But in Zhang Ye’s new world, this was more common. There were uncountable famous stories which were serialized.

Why did he choose a serialization?

Firstly, Zhang Ye planned to gather popularity through serialization. For example, some sitcoms may have episodes which could stand on their own. There was not much continuity, therefore viewers were less enthusiastic towards it; even if they skipped an episode, it would not affect them much, as every story was independent. But serialization was different; a story that was read daily for 18 days would be affected if you missed a part in the middle. So listeners would be more enthusiastic about listening in to every episode. Secondly, since the station had sent out the notice that the segment would be axed after Sunday, by using a serialization, it was impossible to finish narrating it on Sunday. It was clear that he did not want to hand it over, and this would also give the station a problem. Since you can play dirty with me, am I not allowed to play dirty as well!?

This method was quite wicked, but Zhang Ye did not care. If others were good to him, he would return it without question. However, when others kept gunning for him again and again, then Zhang Ye did not care anything about professional ethics!

What story to choose?

Zhang Ye’s eyes rolled and, with a flash, he opened the game ring and saw that he still had quite a lot of Reputation points. He then went into the Merchant Shop to buy a “Memory Search Capsule”. These days, the Reputation gained from the acc.u.mulation of “Late-night Ghost Stories” and the result at the Essay Compet.i.tion with “Little Bunnies Be Good” had increased Zhang Ye’s Reputation to 200,000, as tallied by the game ring. “Late-night Ghost Stories” would give 20-30,000 Reputation points on a daily basis, which was not a lot. The main reason was the fame gained from the Essay Compet.i.tion. So he did not feel the pinch from spending 100,000 Reputation points to buy the capsule. After eating it, Zhang Ye immediately recalled a complete, full-length children’s fairy tale.

It’s this!

He began recording!

“Chapter 1: The Cyclone. Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room. And this room contained a rusty-looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs and the beds.”

That’s right. The children’s fairy tale that Zhang Ye had chosen was “The Wizard of Oz”!

Why did he choose it? This was because Zhang Ye had read this growing up. Although the translated names could cause some reading difficulty, history had told Zhang Ye that it would not be a problem. Children could perfectly accept it. There was no need to say how cla.s.sic this children’s fairy tale was. Not many people in Zhang Ye’s world were ignorant of its existence. And one of the reasons Zhang Ye chose “The Wizard of Oz” was because this story was different from “Little Bunnies Be Good” or “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. It was not limited to an audience below the age of twelve. “The Wizard of Oz” was a fairy tale that was suitable for all ages!

Boys? Girls?

Adults? Old people?

It covered all age groups! This was extremely rare among children’s fairy tales!

Zhang Ye still remembered when he had just became a freshman. He had watched the animation and television drama version of “The Wizard of Oz”, together with his parents. His parents had also liked it a lot.

Wouldn’t some people say that “Snow White” was the same? Actually, it’s not the same. “Snow White” was also a work that managed to wipe out all age groups. It had many animations and movies, but the point was that they were adapted. For example, “Snow White and the Huntsman”, “Snow White and the Magic Mirror “, etc. These had changed almost everything beyond recognition from the original version’s foundation. And, to put it bluntly, even “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” itself was not the original version. The original version sure was b.l.o.o.d.y, so let’s not talk about it.

From this angle, for “The Wizard of Oz” to cater to all ages was a very rare exception!

If there was a flaw that could be picked, it was that “The Wizard of Oz” first came out as a live-action version, and not as a children’s fairytale. So this might make it seem risky, but he still needed to take the risk, even if it was risky.