Chapter 69: Little Zhang Reached the Top of the Literature Channel!
Saturday.
There were only a few people who came to work.
Zhang Ye was one of them. As he had rested from Wednesday all the way to today, he definitely needed to work overtime. However, his colleagues had worked overtime last week, so they were on break now.
The telephone in the office rang.
Zhang Ye noticed that a few editors and clerks were busy, so he picked up the phone, “Hello. How are you? This is the Literature Channel.”
“Little Zhang, right? I’m Zhao Guozhou.” The phone call was from Director Zhao, “I was just looking for you. Come over to my office.”
“Alright.” Zhang Ye went over the moment he put down the phone. He knocked on the Director’s office door. Zhao Guozhou was reading the listenership ratings table inside, “Are you looking for me?”
“Here, take a seat.” Zhao Guozhou lowered his hand. “Take a look for yourself.”
Zhang Ye sat down and looked at the form that was passed into his hand. It was the ratings rankings for Friday. “Late-night Ghost Stories” had dropped back down to 1.9+%. Clearly, it had lost momentum. It would be difficult for it to go higher. After all, it was a late-night segment that had a limited audience. This was nothing to be surprised about, but the listenership rating for “Old and Young Story Club” made Zhang Ye pleasantly surprised. It had increased once again!
Its listenership rating was 3.31%.
And at first place, “Talk About the World” only had a 3.63% listenership rating.
One had dropped, while the other had risen. The gap between the two segments had once again narrowed!
This was something that had never happened before. No one had managed to force the number one girl, Wang Xiaomei’s, segment to such a dire point!
To see Zhao Guozhou say, “Maybe it was because many students were having a school holiday on Friday afternoon, but your segment’s numbers have once again sharply increased. Even the station’s management has been startled. Beautifully done, Little Zhang. I knew I didn’t make a mistake with you.” Following that, he said, “I saw the segment chart for today, just now. The program after yours at 1 P.M. is ‘Weekend Laughing Forest’. This program should be no stranger to you. Typically, it doesn’t have an anchorman; it just broadcasts some skits or cross talk that we bought the copyrights to. However, as skits and cross talks are slowly deteriorating, as there are too few good works, we have been broadcasting the same skits over the past few weeks for ‘Weekend Laughing Forest’. It has lost a lot of its audience, and has also been greatly criticized. Hence, for this weekend, I’m thinking of temporarily halting ‘Weekend Laughing Forest’, and handing you the time period from 1 P.M. to 2 P.M.”
Zhang Ye said, “Is that alright?”
“It’s only for this weekend. Can your story keep up?” Zhao Guozhou asked.
“There’s no problem on my side. If I’m given a total of four hours for today and tomorrow for my broadcast, I can definitely finish ‘The Wizard of Oz’ this weekend.” Zhang Ye said.
Zhao Guozhou tapped the table as he thought, “Alright. Then, let’s do it. This opportunity is yours, so it’s up to you to grab the opportunity well.”
Zhang Ye promised, “Thank you, Leader. I will do my best!”
Zhao Guozhou said, “Go to the recording studio and get it done as soon as possible.”
…
Walking into Recording Studio #4, Zhang Ye felt his body full of energy again. It felt like he had inexhaustible strength, so he quickly got down to recording the segment for the weekend. This was a great opportunity. He had also seen a glimmer of hope of surpassing Wang Xiaomei for the first time. Although he knew that it was still very difficult, and was almost unrealistic, Zhang Ye still wanted to fight for it. He wanted to do it for his records of service, for a chance at grabbing one of the Silver Microphone Awards and for him to be able to enter the television station!
The recording began.
“Hello, everyone. Today’s program will have some temporary adjustments. ‘Old and Young Story Club’ will be broadcast from 12 noon to 2 P.M., so please do not change the channel. After it ends at 1 P.M., there will be a short advertisement before ‘The Wizard of Oz’ carries on its broadcast. And this weekend, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ will also come to its end. I hope that everyone will listen to it punctually.” After adding these words, Zhang Ye began recording.
Working until the afternoon, he finally managed to finish recording “The Wizard of Oz”.
After he came out, he wanted to look for Zhao Guozhou, so that he could ask about the listenership ratings; however, he could not find him. The Leader had gotten off work, so he could not do anything but wait until Monday.
…
He had a day off on Sunday.
The listenership ratings were not out and the announcement was delayed.
…
Monday.
Today seemed to be the day that was destined to be enshrined in the Literature Channel’s historical annals.
After Zhang Ye got off the subway, he met Wang Xiaomei, who had been recognized by two male fans, in front of the station platform. Teacher Xiaomei was giving the fans her signature.
“Thank you, Teacher Xiaomei.”
“You’re welcome. Is that all?”
“Can we get a picture together? I really like your ‘Talk About the World’!”
“Next time. I came to work late today, so I’m running late.”
Seeing Wang Xiaomei cross the road, Zhang Ye also walked up to her, “Teacher Wang.”
Wang Xiaomei turned at look at him and acknowledged tersely, “I heard your program’s listenership rating on Friday had increased once again? 3.31%, right? It’s very good.”
Zhang Ye said, “There are more children resting on Friday, so it went up.”
Wang Xiaomei said, “Aren’t there even more resting on Saturday? Also, parents do not need to work.”
“Uh, I don’t know. It’s of course good if it can increase a bit more.” Zhang Ye said nonchalantly.
However, Wang Xiaomei said, “Work hard, then. It’s not that easy to surpass my listenership ratings.” Her tone sounded a bit prickly. She left after she finished speaking.
Zhang Ye smiled bitterly.
At the unit’s office, today’s atmosphere felt particularly weird.
“Did you hear? The rating for ‘Old and Young Story Club’ on Friday was 3.31%!”
“I knew about it the day before yesterday. It’s really such an exaggeration!”
“Say, do you think Teacher Little Zhang will really reach the top of our channel?”
“It might have just been a fluke. I don’t think it will happen. Teacher Xiaomei has been number one all these years. Her segment’s foundation lies deep, so it shouldn’t be taken down.”
“But Teacher Little Zhang is too fierce! He has already chased to just about 0.3% left. Besides, I’ve heard they are giving him an additional hour over the weekend. They have halted ‘Weekend Laughing Forest’ for two episodes. There are also more people resting over the weekend, so an afternoon session might be able to rival a prime-time session at night!”
“That is still impossible.”
“Right. Teacher Xiaomei isn’t a pushover.”
Everyone was discussing about this matter. The moment that they saw Wang Xiaomei enter, they stopped talking. Following her in immediately to the unit was Zhang Ye, who received a lot of attention from everyone. For a full half an hour, the entire office was quiet. No one spoke a word. Everyone was not really into their work. Today was the Literature Channel’s battle of the top boy and girl. Even if it did not have anything to do with them, they were still curious.
Suddenly, everyone put down the things in their hands.
“Director.”
“Leader.”
Zhao Guozhou had arrived, “Alright.”
This time, he did not need to speak any further, as everyone stopped working and uniformly looked towards him.
Instead, it was Wang Xiaomei and Zhang Ye, who were the people directly involved and today’s main characters, that did not have many changes in their expressions. They seemed nonchalant.
Zhao Guozhou looked at the listenership ratings in his hand. His eyes looked very complicated, “Let me first announce the ratings for the programs on Saturday. There are quite a lot of things today, so I will not announce all of them. I’ll first announce the top three.” Looking up to look at everyone, “First place, ‘Talk About the World’, listenership 3.81%!”
3.81%?
Teacher Xiaomei was indeed not someone simple!
Actually, the listenership ratings for “Talk About the World” had been dropping over the past few days, so that even Zhang Ye had managed to chase up to it by quite a bit. People were even worried for Wang Xiaomei. But today’s results made everyone understand that Zhang Ye had no chance. Teacher Xiaomei had gotten serious!
“Second place, ‘Old and Young Story Club’, listenership… 3.55%!”
Holy ****! Many people gasped again! It added another 0.2%?
Teacher Xiaomei had an explosive increase, but Teacher Little Zhang was not far off, either? However, it was still off by a bit; “Old and Young Story Club” would definitely not be able to catch up!
Sure enough, Zhao Guozhou said, “Next I’ll announce the listenership ratings for Sunday.” When he said this, Zhao Guozhou specially looked at Wang Xiaomei and Zhang Ye, “Teacher Xiaomei’s ‘Talk About the World’, the listenership rating is still at 3.81%!”
Big Sis Zhou sighed as she murmured, “Little Zhang, there will still be plenty of opportunities in the future.”
Aunt Sun also comforted Zhang Ye, “Don’t lose heart. Second place is already very formidable. Don’t compare your segment with ‘Talk About the World’. It’s nothing disgraceful to lose to it.”
Zhang Ye smiled. “It’s alright.” He had not given up, because he had noticed that Zhao Guozhou may have first mentioned Wang Xiaomei’s listenership rating, but he had not said that she was first. On Sunday, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ had came to an end, and that was also the climax of the entire story. It was also a two-hour segment, so Zhang Ye believed that even if he did not get first place, his listenership rating would definitely be much higher than Saturday’s.
It was not over!
He still had a chance!
Zhang Ye was not confident in himself, but confident in his own story. This was ‘The Wizard of Oz’, one of the greatest fairy tales in his world!
Tian Bin funnily looked at Zhang Ye. He was thinking, “To think you still hoped to get first place? To really surpass ‘Talk About the World’? You sure are funny!”
From the eyes of Jia Yan and Wu Datao beside him, one could tell that they were thinking Zhang Ye was having fantasies!
Alright!
The situation was fixed!
Time to do whatever you had to busy yourself with!
With this outcome, people no longer had any intention of listening.
However, what Zhao Guozhou said next stunned everyone. Zhao Guozhou looked at them and said, “But Sunday’s first place is not ‘Talk About the World’.” After everyone stared widely with their mouths agape, Zhao Guozhou said, “First place, Zhang Ye’s ‘Old and Young Story Club’, listenership… 3.82%!”
What?
Higher than “Talk About the World” by 0.01%?
With a “Hula” sound, the entire office seemed like a bomb had dropped! It exploded instantaneously!
Tian Bin was dumbfounded! Jia Yan’s eyeballs stared like a cow! Big Sis Zhou was so shocked that her throat vibrated for a long while! The looks of the other colleagues were each more astonished than the last!
Zhang Ye had reached the top!
Zhang Ye had actually reached the top!
Although the gap was tiny, first place was still first place!
No one understood how Zhang Ye had managed to do it! No one could understand why ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was full of magic! But the facts were placed in front of them! This newcomer, Zhang Ye, had managed to use a segment that was ranked right at the bottom to pull Wang Xiaomei’s star segment down from its divine spot!
It went from first from the back to first from the front!
Zhang Ye had used less than two weeks to achieve it!
What the heck! What sort of perverse existence did this Zhang Ye come from!