If one were to ask who was the best TV series in the history of Hua Xia, it would undoubtedly be CCTV's Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
And this TV series was released nationwide in 1994.
It started airing in October of 1994. One episode a day, five episodes a week. It instantly took over the television of all the Chinese people. Previously, Ultraman Tiga's viewership ratings were quickly crushed. Then, when "Central TV's Romance of the Three Kingdoms" reached its highest viewership ratings in the country, it actually reached 97%.
And this TV series had just finished its first round of broadcast nationwide in March 1995.
But it didn't matter. All the major TV stations quickly followed and bought the domestic copyright of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Then, they competed with each other to rebroadcast it.
Boss Jia didn't have a TV station in China, so naturally, he wouldn't fight for the domestic TV rights. But Boss Jia was interested in the overseas copyright of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
So, in March, when Romance of the Three Kingdoms finished airing nationwide, he took the initiative to find Director Wang Fulin and CCTV, hoping to buy the entire set of overseas exclusive copyright of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
"How much are you going to pay?" Wang Fulin and CCTV were shocked by the words "the entire set of overseas exclusive copyright" and couldn't help but ask.
"A very reasonable price!" Boss Jia smiled and said, "Since it's overseas copyright, then we'll calculate it according to foreign investment. Then we'll use the universal USD. I've calculated that there are a total of 84 episodes. According to the calculation of 100,000 USD per episode, that's 8.4 million USD in copyright fees. What do you think?"
"100,000 … 100,000 … USD per episode …" Wang Fulin and Central TV were shocked to the core.
Although CCTV was used to seeing money, it was basically built in RMB. For example, the total investment for Romance of the Three Kingdoms was as high as 110 million RMB, much higher than the 8.4 million USD price.
But no matter how high the RMB was, it was difficult to convert it into USD in this era. CCTV had never created foreign exchange for the country. This was the eternal pain in the hearts of CCTV leaders.
Therefore, when Boss Jia proposed to buy the overseas permanent copyright of the level 84 CCTV version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms for 8.4 million USD, the CCTV leaders present knew that CCTV absolutely could not refuse this offer. This was a great contribution!
Therefore, Director Wang Fulin vaguely felt that it was a loss to sell the overseas copyright for 8.4 million yuan. Maybe he could get a higher price, or maybe it was just a temporary overseas copyright.
But with the leaders of Central TV pushing for it, Wang Fulin as the director did not have much say in it. After all, Central TV was the one who invested the money, and all the cast members were also from Central TV, right?
Therefore, at the beginning of April this year, the Daqian and CCTV successfully signed a cooperation agreement and got the overseas copyright of CCTV's version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The first country that Boss Jia wanted to attack was without a doubt Fusang.
Boss Jia remembered that in 1996, a leader of NHK TV went on a business trip to Hua Xia and accidentally saw a rerun of Romance of the Three Kingdoms on TV. He was so shocked that he spent 10,000 USD per episode to buy the Fusang copyright of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Then, he found someone to dub it and let it be broadcast in Fusang. Instantly, the entire Fusang market exploded.
After all, even though Fusang and Hua Xia had a love-hate relationship, they had the same cultural origin. Romance of the Three Kingdoms was very popular in Fusang. There were all kinds of manga, novels, games, and even animations about the Three Kingdoms, which made people wonder which country the novel was from.
From a certain perspective, in the 1994 Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the popularity of the Three Kingdoms in China was not as high as that of Japan. Japan had an extremely terrifying market for the Three Kingdoms.
After Boss Jia got the overseas copyright of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the first thing he did was to find a way to use computer technology to improve the definition. Then, he hired professionals from Fusang to dub a lot of voice actors who had similar voices to the characters of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Although it seemed like a lot of work, Fusang was already used to weekly broadcasting. They only broadcast one episode a week, so the progress was still able to keep up.
However, when Boss Jia took the first episode of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which had been optimized by computer and re-dubbed by Fusang, to NHK TV, and wanted to broadcast it in NHK TV's primetime slot, the TV station was very conflicted.
After watching the first episode's sample, they knew that their drama series was nothing compared to 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'. If both dramas were to be broadcast on TV, then wouldn't their drama series be completely shut down by others?
Just when NHK TV was a little hesitant, the Daqian said that if NHK did not have the intention to broadcast it, then the Daqian would not mind broadcasting it on other TV stations. NHK TV gave up completely.
If the Dahe drama flopped, so be it. After all, this wasn't the first Dahe drama to flop. But the viewership ratings were the most important thing. If they could guarantee NHK's viewership ratings while the ace Dahe drama flopped, then that would be a smart decision.
Therefore, after a discussion with NHK TV's Frontline, when the second episode of Legend of Ji Jong was just broadcast and the ratings were dropping like a dog, a brand new drama was broadcast in primetime on the afternoon of the second day.
"What is this? Why is NHK broadcasting a drama again? Look at the style of the opening. Why is it still in the style of a Daqian TV drama? " That night, many viewers in front of their televisions were dumbfounded when they saw the opening of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
When the special effects of the opening ended and four huge titles were revealed, the viewers exclaimed, "It's Romance of the Three Kingdoms! NHK TV really knows how to surprise people! "
From this, it could be seen that Fusang had a high understanding of the Three Kingdoms culture. Their first reaction was not to wonder what Romance of the Three Kingdoms was. Why would a Fusang TV station broadcast a Hua Xia cultural program out of the blue? Instead, they took it as a surprise from NHK TV and thought that it was a TV series produced by NHK TV!
This was because in the eyes of Fusangpeople, it was not surprising that their own TV station would produce a Romance of the Three Kingdoms and broadcast it!
As the TV series continued to broadcast and the plot of the first episode continued to be deduced, some Fusangpeople started to feel that something was wrong. This was because they did not recognize any of the actors in the TV series. Moreover, there were obvious traces of dubbing. It was not the actors' original voices at all.
If it were any other time, many people would definitely choose to investigate this issue.
Unfortunately, Romance of the Three Kingdoms was too good. It was so good that those who had doubts did not have the time to question it. They were completely immersed in the perfect world of Romance of the Three Kingdoms!
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