Regardless of whether it was a tense plan or a relaxed and gentle one, all the arrangements made beforehand would eventually come to fruition.
May 7th, Wednesday.
MBC and New Village Entertainment's Shuimu drama "Triangle" premiered.
KBS's drama at the same time was "Golden Cross", which aired on April 8th.
In an era where "New Village Entertainment's production" could attract a large number of trustworthy viewers, MBC's drama attracted a lot of anticipation when it was announced.
However, due to the influence of the "Epoch" incident in April, the casting of the cast and crew was carried out in secret. Even the opening ceremony was just a simple act. There was no promotion to speak of. Even the usual photos were rarely circulated. It was as if the drama was being shot in secret.
Compared to KBS's drama that was already at its climax, such a method obviously had no advantage.
When the entertainment industry recovered, T-ara's mini-series 9 started to become popular. The drama that all of them were cast in finally entered the public's eyes.
On Twitter and Instagram, T-ara's girls promoted the new song and the drama at the same time. Fans were scolding MBC for not knowing how to promote the drama, yet they had to rely on the actors to promote themselves?
Actually, this had nothing to do with MBC. For more than half a month, MBC had been using the excuse of "not cooperating" with the filming to change a group of management. Due to the internal power struggle, the people's hearts were not stable.
By the time they were done, there were only two days left before the drama aired.
At this time, the promotion could only be said to be better than nothing. After all, the drama was too fast. Filming started in March, filming started in April, and airing in early May. The main problem was the scheduling. Previously, "Breaking Heaven" was crushed by KBS's "Legend of Zheng Dao". Later on, the drama that was made at the last minute did not improve. MBC was in a hurry to collaborate with New Village Entertainment to take over the schedule. With so little time, it was difficult to promote.
This was also an important reason why Long Ya and T-ara did not have much confidence. It was too rushed.
Even though most Korean dramas were filmed and aired at the same time, the preparation period was usually very long. They had never seen such a rush.
Not to mention Tang Jinyan's magical changes. The male perspective was turned into three pairs of lesbians …
The three pairs of lesbians were from the same idol team. Other than the fans who were overjoyed, everyone deeply doubted whether the mainstream TV audience would buy it.
On this day, T-ara did not need to hit the charts. The group of girls huddled at home and watched their weird drama on TV with cold sweat all over their bodies.
The theme song was one of the main songs of their new album, "Hide and Seek" … Anyway, it was full of self-indulgence and unreliability.
At this moment, Tang Jinyan rushed back from outside. When he saw them gathered around the sofa, he almost burst out laughing.
Their sitting posture was like this … Park Soyeon, Park Hyomin, and Park Ji-yeon were sitting crookedly on the sofa, almost taking up the entire sofa. Quan Baolan was leaning on the sofa's armrest with half of her butt. Li Juli and Han Eun-kyung were standing behind the sofa, staring at the TV screen as if they were so nervous that they forgot to sit down.
Accompanied by the background music of "Hide and Seek", Tang Jinyan was overjoyed. "You can't help but pose like you're in the MV even when you're listening to your own song?"
Eh?
The girls looked left and right. They did not think that this pose was similar to the one in the MV. Then, they heard Tang Jinyan laugh. "Or is it the Park family bullying the outsiders?
Only the Park family can sit here? "
Everyone finally understood what he was complaining about. The MV did indeed have such a styling arrangement, and it was jokingly called "Park Youzuo". Li Juli didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Who would be so bored that no one would notice this?
Come, come, let's guess the ratings for the premiere. "
Tang Jinyan was about to speak when a text message rang. He looked down and smiled. "Guess how much?"
Park Suk Yeon hesitated. "10 … 10%, I think?
If not … did someone send you the ratings just now?
How much? "
The girls stared at his phone nervously. Tang Jinyan smiled. "During the opening theme, the ratings were already 10%."
"Phew …" Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Under the circumstances where no one knew the plot of the show, the ratings for the opening theme alone could only be attributed to one thing: popularity and publicity.
Now that there was not much publicity, popularity was the only factor.
On one hand, it was T-ara's own popularity, or rather, the entire fandom, whether it was Queens or not, had a certain level of expectation for this kind of full-team drama. Passersby fans would take a look. On the other hand, it was the public's trust in New Village Entertainment's productions.
In fact, everyone had missed out on one thing.
The public was curious. Whether it was movies or TV shows, there were many openly gay shows in the past ten years. For example, "The King's Man".
However, there were very few openly gay shows, so few that you could hardly see them.
Many people thought about it and felt that it was unheard of. This seemed to be the first officially promoted gay drama they had heard of after watching TV shows for so many years …
Moreover, there were three pairs of gay couples, and all of them were from the same team.
Could one say that it was fortunate that this team had an even number of members?
The Korean fandom was not surprised by this. In the fandom atmosphere where there were no couples, people would cheer to be a couple. It could only be said that this kind of thing was commonplace.
Of course, they had never seen a couple publicly displayed in a TV show. They were so excited about it that they even quarreled over who should be paired with whom.
For example, the Soraya Nation was very unhappy recently. The Soraya Nation was torn down and became someone else's wife. The Soraya Nation was overjoyed because in this show, Han Eun-kyung and Li Juli were a couple …
This show also created the most adorable couple. The Lan Yan couple, the biggest and the smallest, the tallest and the shortest … When this couple was still in the official spoilers, the Lan Yan couple was built on the same day. It was as if they could not wait to be scratched into their hearts.
Tang Jinyan's official wife was NTRed by Pu Hyomin in this show. People even guessed whether or not Tang Jinyan would make a cameo appearance in the show.
All in all, the discussion about this show on the internet had far exceeded T-ara's imagination. It was a show that did not have much publicity, but in fact, it had become a hot topic a month ago. Almost everyone knew about it.
Tang Jinyan's confidence came from this. Creativity and novelty, at least in the first episode, would arouse people's curiosity. Even if the plot was not good, it would be a matter for later. The ratings for the first few episodes would definitely not be low.
His text messages kept ringing. Almost every few minutes, the viewership ratings would be refreshed.
T-ara was not in the mood to see how his performance was. He watched nervously as his phone kept ringing. Then, the smile on his face grew wider and wider until it was about to overflow.
"How, how much?" Li Juli asked carefully.
Tang Jinyan shook his phone and smiled. "At the end of the first episode, the highest rating was 27.33%. I won't report other statistics."
Who had the time to listen to other statistics? The six of them had their mouths half open, wondering if they had heard wrong …
27% for the first episode?
What did that mean?
With the rise of the internet and cable TV, the ratings for the traditional third channel Shuimu drama had not exceeded 30% for many years.
Even "You from the Stars", which had been hailed as a national godly drama, did not have this number!
Could it be realized in this magical remake of the show?
Was this a victory for Lily?
Tang Jinyan looked down at his phone and silently sent another text message. "Plan No. 1, start."
(Note: The original version of "Triangle" had a ratings of only 8%. I chose to modify it because there were three pairs of protagonists.
The original series was not this cute. If you get curious and go watch the original series, it's not my fault …)