Translator: Henyee Translations
Editor: Henyee Translations
The first-round broadcast of Blazing Teens in Jiangchuan Children’s Channel didn’t make much of an impact at all.
Although a small group of parents had been asking “where can we buy yo-yos”, the number was negligible when compared to the tens of millions of residents of Jiangchuan.
While that was happening, in the industrial zone in suburban Jiangchuan, Pengda Toy Factory quietly ended the contract with U-Fun Anime and stopped all OEM work of Kitaro on the assembly lines. Instead, the factory made a major purchase of injection molding machines and bearing parts. After that, batches of yo-yos with novel designs and exquisite packaging began to hit the shelves of major malls in Jiangchuan and the toy stores outside primary and middle schools.
Meanwhile, several provincial satellite TV channels that had reached agreements with Meng Lang also started to run Blazing Teens in time slots such as noon time or late night when viewing rates were low.
Some of the satellite channels broadcasted the show on comprehensive channels and some on children’s channels.
Some even ran the show on the comprehensive, drama, and children’s channels all at once!
Since the show was given to them for free, with each cycle, there was more advertisement revenue. So, why not?
If the viewing rate turned out to be miserable, they would probably stop after the first round.
To everyone’s surprise, viewing rates of Blazing Teens turned out to stay very steady.
It wasn’t exactly a hit show, but the viewing rate had exceeded that of some low budget romance dramas and family ethics dramas.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that after the first round, the average viewing rate was 1.152%, which barely reached the passing line, but the viewing rate rose to 3.21% during the second round, which exceeded that of the full-scale costume drama of the year, “Quarrelsome Lovers”!
That result made many jaws drop.
That shouldn’t have happened!
Wasn’t a TV series supposed to have the highest viewing rates on the first round? The viewing rates should have dropped by half on the rerun.
No one had seen a show that had mediocre performance on the first round, but defeated the drama of the year on the rerun.
The unusual phenomena had forced a lot of professionals to drop their stereotypical comments and sit down in front of the TV to watch Blazing Teens from the first episode to the last, trying to find out why this show was able to create such a strange pattern in its viewing rates.
“It goes up and falls down. It flies out and comes back.
The to and fro contains so many patterns. It’s not all that simple.
A flame set the heart on fire. Break through all obstacles. Don’t be afraid.
Get stronger. Growing up is all about breaking through.
It’s my youth and it’s up to me! Wow! Wow!”
As soon as the catchy theme song rang out, many TV directors nodded their heads in approval.
Nice song!
It was a bit of candyfloss and the melody was nothing sophisticated, but that was what one wanted in the theme song of a TV series: catchy and befitting the show itself. By that standard, Blazing Teens had done a great job. At least, this song was loved in every aspect by its targeted audience, a.k.a. young kids.
The only thing was that the singer was sloppy. The song itself was passable, but he sounded as if he hadn’t been eaten for days…
The title scenes were excellent!
They consisted of yo-yo duels and were loaded with special effects of flashy yo-yos spinning around. With the passionate theme song, it was able to catch kids’ attention right away.
Then, there was the show itself.
Xiangnan Satellite TV was showing Episode 26 of Blazing Teens that night. Because most people didn’t watch the previous episodes, they didn’t know what the storyline was. All they saw now was a butterball known as “Song Yuan” stepping out of the line at the command of his coach, who then started playing his yo-yo in front of his teammates while shouting out every stance he was carrying out.
It looked so embarrassing that it could take one’s breath away.
“Yeah! Super Spin!”
“Break Ice!”
“Retrieve Satellite!”
“World Tour!”
Imagine a chubby boy playing a yo-yo with a serious face while calling out silly names. Imagine again that his teammates were all watching it with their hands behind their backs.
The title scenes were so great, but why was the actual show so sloppy?
“No! I can’t take it anymore…”
A certain famous TV director couldn’t stand the “torture”, especially when he was watching it on the 40-inch screen in his house while the chubby kid’s embarrassing lines were coming out of his stereo system…
It was more than he could take. He quickly switched off the TV, took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves, then went into his study, sat down at his home computer, and lit a cigarette.
He smoked half a pack in a row. Even when the ashtray was filled to the brim with cigarette buds, the renowned successful producer in the TV industry still couldn’t figure out how the show turned out to be so successful.
…
Did the kids like Blazing Teens?
The answer was yes without a doubt!
Every employee of Pengda Toy Factory could verify that!
In a short period of two weeks, Pengda Toy Factory had shipped out over 1 million yo-yos in total!
Orders from all over the country flew into Meng Minghui’s office like snowflakes.
All three assembly lines in the factory were working 24/7, assembling yo-yos before loading them onto trucks and sending them to other parts of the country.
Distributors were calling Meng Minghui’s personal line around the clock with the same request. “I need yo-yos! Give me everything you have at the moment!”
For the past few days, Meng Minghui couldn’t keep himself from smiling.
He had never expected that a whim of his son could have created a miracle!
Blazing Teens was still getting more and more popular. Gradually, yo-yos had gone beyond primary and middle schools of Jiangchuan to those all over the country.
The show might have had less than impressive viewing rates, which were lower than those of the hit show of the year, but that didn’t mean that yo-yos weren’t popular!
Even if there was only one kid in a school who had watched Blazing Teens and bought a yo-yo, after he brought the yo-yo to the school, dozens of kids who hadn’t watched Blazing Teens would be attracted and buy yo-yos themselves!
Blazing Teens was only one factor of the hype over yo-yos. The real reason lay in its novel playing method and the design.
The toy market was a place where innovative and conservative concepts coexisted. To sell a toy, one had to make sure that their toy met one of the two criteria.
It had to be either novel enough or conservative enough.
For instance, Robot Dog, the hit toy in recent years, was a representative of novel toys. Various dolls in the market, on the other hand, were examples of the conservative type.
Yo-yos were of the novel family. Apart from its promotion method, its popularity fit the law of the market.
Novel toys could always get the pocket money right out of kids’ pockets.
Even if some kids weren’t really into yo-yos, as long as their friends were playing with them, these kids would have to accept yo-yos just to fit in.
Whether it was the well-received Blazing Teens or the special ways of playing yo-yos…
In a word, the yo-yo had become the “it” toy!
And that was an understatement!
The hype over yo-yos was soon demonstrated in a special place: the school ground!
For example, Jiangchuan Meilin Third Primary School soon came up with a new regulation.
Students were forbidden to bring yo-yos to school to play. Any yo-yo found on the school ground would be confiscated!
This was done because yo-yos had affected the order of the school.