But to most citizens, this was just a night like any other night.
Some people had just returned home from school and some people came home from work. Some might be bored and others might want to relax, so they turned on their televisions.
So here's the thing.
Was today a usual day?
Or was it an unusual day?
Could it be that it was a usual day, but with a hint of unusualness?
Or perhaps, it was an unusual day that had some usualness to it?
Fuck, only a ghost would fucking know! Moving on to the next subject!
...
"It's starting!"
"Haha, the broadcast is starting!"
"It's finally beginning!"
"Chen Ye has come out on stage! Wow! Sect Leader Huo has appeared!"
"Did Fan Wenli get fatter? Don't tell me she's pregnant?"
"Fuck, Teacher Lili still doesn't look well on screen. But that can't be helped, since she's a professional dancer who does not make a living off of her looks!"
In the atmosphere of explosiveness and anticipation, Rise to the Dance was now broadcasting on Central TV Department 1!
On the TV screens, Chen Ye appeared onstage to the rapturous applause and cheers of the live audience. Everyone stood up, clapping as loudly and fervently as they could!
"Welcome, everyone, to the stage of Rise to the Dance. Our show is brought to you by our exclusive title sponsor, Chunhe Mineral Water! Thank you to Huali Appliances' and Lituo Detergent's strong support…" Chen Ye stood in the center of the stage, reading a long string of advertisements before smiling and announcing loudly, "Today, we're here with our three guest coaches to witness a feast of China's dance scene. Here, today, together with the entire country's millions of viewers, we will be witnessing what we call the miracle of dance!"
Thunderous applause rang out!
"First, let us welcome Teacher Huo Dongfang!"
"Teacher Fan Wenli!"
"Teacher Shen Lili!"
The guest coaches were smiling and waving to the cameras!
They were all wearing very magnificent looking costumes. From the looks of it, it could be seen that the program would have cost quite a bit to produce. It was definitely not cheap and the outfits all looked like they were individually tailored for each of the guest coaches.
The entire stage was also very beautifully decorated. Due to the incident that basically destroyed it, Central TV Department 1 reconstructed it with a lot of money and the stage no longer bore any resemblance to The Voice's stage. It was as good as a new stage altogether, looking very bright and ritzy!
Following that, Chen Ye introduced the competition rules and regulations.
Chen Ye started off on television doing interview programs. Although he had done quite a few variety shows before as well, he gained his fame through interview programs before stepping up to hosting galas. Chen Ye's hosting style was clearly different from Zhang Ye's.
Zhang Ye focused on humor, eloquence, as well as individual talents. This fellow's hosting style would never be replicated by another. The humor and wit he showed in his talk show? His vast knowledge as seen in Analysis of the Three Kingdoms? His recital speed that was displayed through his hosting act in The Voice? No one else could mimic all of that as his style was extremely distinct. As long as he was on stage, then he would be the focus of everyone. He was a shining light that was independent from a show. It was a trait that was Zhang Ye's own. In the field of hosting, his existence was always going to be a unique one.
Meanwhile, Chen Ye's trait was his affinity with the audience. He focused on the audience mood and atmosphere of the venue, and could adapt to different situations very well. No matter what the characteristics of a show were, he could bring it out to its fullest at all times. His was a strong and stable style of hosting which could keep everything under control, and this was also the basis for his appointment as one of the Spring Festival Gala hosts.
A few minutes later.
The main event began!
"Next, let's invite our first contestant onto the stage!"
The scene cut to the contestant's intro clip.
"My name is Qi Fang and I've loved dancing ever since I was young. At the age of five…"
On this, Rise to the Dance had learned from The Voice's style of story presentation. The industry had long ago analyzed and broken down the factors that contributed to the success of The Voice. Zhang Ye's model for making shows as well as his storytelling had also been studied by everyone. They knew that by doing this before a contestant appeared on stage, it would help the audience build empathy and identify with the contestant. Facts had proven that this was not a segment that they could leave out, and it was also where Zhang Ye's cleverness could be seen. With his successful show as a model, the people who came after followed suit and did not miss out on implementing this successfully proven method. However, Rise to the Dance did not fully copy everything from The Voice and still made the necessary changes according to their genre.
The contestant went onstage.
The live audience let out faintly discernible exclamations!
The netizens went crazy with their discussions!
"Ah?"
"She's so fat?"
"This woman has to weigh at least 90 kilograms, right?"
"Fuck, can she even dance like this?"
The music started, and so did the dancing.
Nobody expected that this contestant named Qi Fang immediately started wiggling around as she started dancing a samba!
Everyone watched dumbfounded!
"Holy shit! Holy shit!"
"She can dance this well?"
"My god, this is too exciting to watch!"
"This contestant is really quite good!"
On screen, Huo Dongfang and Fan Wenli could be seen giving each other a look of surprise, then focusing back to Qi Fang as they gazed at her in admiration. It was as though they were already prepared to take this contestant onto their team. Meanwhile, professional dance artist Shen Lili also looked at the female contestant without blinking, before finally standing up from her seat with a smiling face and couldn't help but start dancing along with her!
The audience went wild!
The atmosphere in the venue was extremely passionate!
Being a talent show, it was needless to explain how important the first contestant was. The effects could be considered decisive for the show, because if the first contestant could grab the attention of the audience, then the show was already half successful. On this, without a doubt, Rise to the Dance had achieved it!
...
At Zhang Ye's parents' house.
His mother was watching the show and said, "This show is quite good!"
His father looked to him. "Do you think this show will be popular?"
Zhang Ye shook his head and answered, "It's difficult for me to say, but I don't think that it will do too badly. Xu Yipeng and Chen Ye are also very smart, knowing how to take the essence from my previous show and apply it here." Actually, seeing it now, Zhang Ye was quite surprised. He had not thought that Xu Yipeng and Chen Ye could churn out anything good. But clearly, after the show was broadcast, it left Zhang Ye surprised as it turned out even better than he had expected!
His mother said, "Even if it were to do poorly, the viewership ratings will still be much higher than your documentary."
"Mom, don't speak too soon." Zhang Ye rolled his eyes. "That might not necessarily be true."
His mother said, "What's not true? Yours is just a documentary and you really think that it can compete with a variety show?"
Zhang Ye chuckled, "Why can't it compete? Who says that a documentary's viewership rating has to be less than a variety show's? Looking at this lively start to Rise to the Dance, you might think that the viewership ratings will be quite good. But actually, there is also a disadvantage, as a dancing talent show has one setback, which is that dance is an art not everyone can understand. There won't be too many people who'll appreciate it, so as to how many people actually like the show, it's still a question mark. Even if the show gets popular, there's still a limit to how popular it'll get. Once it reaches the upper limit, it will be difficult for it to get more viewers."
In this world, there were not many dancing talent shows. For such a large-scale one like Rise to the Dance, it was still the first. However, in Zhang Ye's previous world, dancing talent shows numbered many, while their ups and downs were all known by Zhang Ye. Naturally, he knew more than the people of this world where the disadvantages lay in a dancing talent show. That was why he had only written the program proposal informally for Central TV Department 1, because they requested it. If it came down to it, he had no plans to do it at all!
His mother disagreed, "But a documentary's target audience is even smaller."
"That opinion of yours would surely be accepted by another, but I don't agree to that." Zhang Ye laughed. "A normal person would surely think that no matter how specialized a subject a variety show does, it still would attract a larger audience than a documentary. But that's not necessarily true, because my documentary is about food. From a three-year-old kid to a ninety-year-old senior, who doesn't eat? How many people don't like eating? My documentary might not seem like it would have a large audience, but in fact, it actually appeals to all ages. Ignoring the accepted range of viewers between a documentary and a variety show, my documentary definitely has a larger appeal to a wider range of people than a dance show!"
His mother pouted. "Why am I unconvinced by what you're saying?"
Chenchen let out a "hur hur" at that.
Zhang Ye could not say anything to that and just stopped trying to convince his mother.
...
On Weibo.
A few simultaneously discussed Weibo posts were attracting a lot of attention!
"It's good!"
"I like the second contestant! She danced really beautifully!"
"Yeah, that woman looks fine as well. She'll definitely be very popular!"
"I still think that the first fatty contestant danced better! That image of her dancing has a really strong impact. So even a fatty is able to dance that well. That's truly inspirational! I've decided that I will go and learn dancing starting tomorrow!"
"I wanna learn too!"
"I like Chen Ye's hosting style. He's so down to earth!"
"Here for Sect Leader Huo. He has definitely not disappointed me!"
"Sect Leader Huo and Fan Wenli's dance battle really made me laugh hard! Hahaha!"
"The viewership ratings definitely aren't going to be bad! The way I see it, the first episode is surely going to exceed 1%."
Of course there were also others who did not think the show was good.
"I think it's only average."
"It's not as good as The Voice, a little worse than what I had expected."
"Yeah, I don't get dancing at all, so it's not interesting to me."
"A dancing show definitely won't attract as many people as a singing one. But it should be enough for it to get at least a 1% viewership rating for its premiere episode. How many TV shows these days can manage to surpass 1% in the nationwide viewership ratings on their premiere episode? I think only The Voice managed to do so this year? With a few more episodes, the later episodes of Rise to the Dance should still go up. It seems like the talk about it right now is quite good and a lot of people are watching it."
"I heard that Rise to the Dance will have their finals broadcast live. Back then, Central TV Department 1 did not give this privilege to The Voice even though Zhang Ye had applied for it many times. But that privilege has been given to Rise to the Dance now, so when it comes to the day of the live finals, there might be a chance that they can surpass The Voice's highest viewership ratings."
"Who says that the premiere episode can have 1% viewership ratings? I believe it would be at most 0.5%."
"Impossible, 1% and above is a definite figure! 1.5% is possible too!"
"How fucking unfair. Central TV Department 1 is treating Rise to the Dance so differently from the way it treated The Voice. They even approved for the finals of Rise to the Dance to be broadcast live?"
"Ahem, previous poster, actually, we cannot blame Central TV Department 1 for that. Don't you know about Teacher Zhang's notoriety? When has a live broadcast involving Teacher Zhang ever ended without a problem? The incident at Father Wei's memorial, the Shanghai SARFT press conference, they always ended in an earth-shattering uproar. It's fine for other people to do a live broadcast, but to let Teacher Zhang Ye do that? Whose heart wouldn't tremble at the thought? If it were you, would you approve letting Teacher Zhang do a live broadcast? So that's why all this has to do with Teacher Zhang's reputation being really bad! So bad that everyone fears him!"
"Oh yes, how is Zhang Ye's show doing?"
"I don't know, I haven't watched it yet."
"You guys intend to watch a documentary? Fuck, you're all super amazing."
"Rise to the Dance has gone into their commercial break. I'll go and have a quick look at Zhang Ye's documentary. What's it called again?"
"It's called A Bite of China."