Director Liu was under immense pressure.
As the head of Hunan Provincial TV's programming department, he was directly responsible for greenlighting the acquisition of My Fair Princess III.
Last year, a colleague had secured the rights to *Liang Jian* (Swordplay), and had since been promoted to deputy general manager of Hunan Provincial Film and Television Company. What stung most was that this subordinate was once under his command, and now outranked him.
This left Director Liu feeling extremely dejected. He was determined to acquire a hit drama to advance his own career.
Thus, he set his sights on *My Fair Princess III*. Disregarding any potential embarrassment for Hunan Provincial TV, he aggressively pursued and secured the rights, even risking offending the Jiangnan Group by forcibly changing the broadcast schedule.
In essence, Director Liu’s move was an all-or-nothing gamble.
Director Liu wasn't greedy. As long as the viewership rating reached 30%, on par with *Liang Jian*, he considered it a success.
The first two installments of *My Fair Princess* had achieved an average viewership rating of 60%, and the third part had garnered a 50% rating in Fengtian. Even if that region had unique tastes, a 30% national viewership rating should be attainable, shouldn't it?
So, he charged forward.
The market, it turned out, was indeed very welcoming to *My Fair Princess III*. At least, the audience was very interested. Everyone wanted to know what happened to Little Swallow later. Coupled with aggressive pre-broadcast hype, the first day's viewership rating for *My Fair Princess III* directly captured 18% nationwide.
This delighted Director Liu. According to past patterns, a doubling of the initial viewership would push it past 30%.
It wasn't uncommon for average viewership ratings to double the premiere rating. *Liang Jian* had once started with less than 1% and ended with over 36%, averaging a staggering over 30 times increase from its premiere rating.
*Soldiers Sortie*, which followed, had also seen a 12-fold increase. Now, he was only asking for a two-fold increase, which was hardly an excessive demand, was it?
Surely, the viewership for episodes three and four should at least break 20%.
Then, the viewership ratings came out. Episodes three and four had plummeted from 18% to 12%, losing a third of their audience.
Concurrently, news media across the board began publishing reviews of *My Fair Princess III*, all of them, without exception, negative.
Online media, in particular, showed up with satirical reports featuring images just two hours after the premiere of the first two episodes.
Initially, these media outlets focused their ridicule on the new cast.
Compared to the first two parts, the biggest issue with *My Fair Princess III* was the replacement of almost all the main actors, except for Zhou Jie. Ziwei, Little Swallow, Yongqi, and even the Emperor had all been changed.
If these new actors had performed well, it might have been acceptable. But the problem was, they performed poorly.
Some completely altered the characters' temperaments. For example, Ma Lili's Ziwei transformed from a clever, beautiful, kind maiden into a sorrowful, tearful young wife.
As for Di Long's Emperor... well, Di Long's acting was actually decent, but outside of the Emperor himself, no one could capture that imperial aura. The audience found it very unsettling.
Yongqi was no longer the bright-eyed, spirited youth, but a somewhat aged young man.
The most outrageous was undoubtedly Little Swallow. Although Huang Yi had tried her best to portray Little Swallow's cleverness, chatter, agility, and vibrant spirit, she ended up appearing awkward and erratic. And, most terrifyingly, Little Swallow eventually became a neglected wife. Did you dare to believe it?
The only one who maintained consistently high acting throughout was Er Kang, but unfortunately, one Er Kang couldn't save the entire drama.
In conclusion, from the moment the casting was decided, the entire drama was doomed.
Later analyses attributed all the problems to Chen Jiji himself.
First, the issue was caused by Chen Jiji. Some later claimed that the actors didn't want to be typecast by the *My Fair Princess* roles, or that their schedules didn't align.
This was utter nonsense.
Actors aren't afraid of being typecast; they're afraid of not being popular.
Secondly, schedule conflicts were also rubbish. This was *My Fair Princess 3*! Whatever other dramas or films you were shooting, they should have made way for *My Fair Princess 3*.
The real reason for the casting change was simple: Chen Jiji was unwilling to spend money. The main actors from the earlier *My Fair Princess* were mostly in the "not famous, not obscure" category. Moreover, Little Swallow was a newcomer plucked directly from acting academy, and she received virtually no salary, just the opportunity to act.
Therefore, the actors' salaries were exceptionally low, which wasn't strange in itself.
The problem was that after *My Fair Princess* became a massive hit, Chen Jiji still wanted to hire them for the third part at the same prices as the first and second parts. That was truly audacious.
For one thing, Little Swallow's value had skyrocketed from being free to demanding 15 million per film. She had become one of China's hottest actresses at the time, and if she hadn't self-sabotaged, she would likely have remained popular.
Her online traffic at the time surpassed the combined traffic of the "Four Dan Actresses" of the future.
Yet, Chen Jiji only wanted to cast her for *My Fair Princess 3* for less than 1 million. Of course, she wouldn't agree, leading to the excuse about not wanting to be typecast as Little Swallow forever.
The other lead actors were in similar situations. It was only Zhou Jie who, believing in being upright, agreed to participate in the third installment. At that time, Zhou Jie's *Young Justice Bao* was immensely popular; he was truly an honorable person.
Chen Jiji was stubborn, believing that replacing all the actors wouldn't be an issue. He thought *My Fair Princess*'s success was due to his brilliant script and character designs, so it would succeed with new actors as well.
Then, the biggest problem with *My Fair Princess 3* lay in the script itself. *My Fair Princess 3* completely ruined the characterizations established in the first two parts.
Ziwei became indecisive, overly sentimental, and constantly crying, which was unbearable to watch.
Yongqi actually took a concubine, and not only that, but the concubine actually gave birth.
Finally, Little Swallow truly turned into a resentful woman; all her spiritedness was drained away.
Of course, one could argue that this was the brilliance of the script, demonstrating how the corrupt imperial court could torture human nature, eventually twisting them into distorted forms.
However, such a script was meant for writing world-class literature, not for this kind of melodramatic idol drama. Coupled with the complete cast change, the audience naturally couldn't accept such drastic alterations.
As a result, viewers who had enjoyed the earlier seasons began to abandon the show. The ratings continued to drop, and by the time *My Fair Princess 3* concluded, the final viewership rating was a mere 3.2%. The average viewership rating for the entire series was 4.9%.
Well, it wasn't bad, actually. After all, it was the number one drama on the 2004 television ratings chart, provided no dramas aired in the following eleven months surpassed it.
Such ratings naturally caused a huge stir throughout the entire station, especially since the station had spent 100 million RMB on the broadcast rights. According to the station's expectations, they needed to earn at least 150 million RMB.
When the drama first aired, numerous advertisers clamored to insert their commercials. It was calculated that by the end of the broadcast, advertising revenue alone would recoup 80 million RMB. The remaining 70 million could be earned back by re-broadcasting a few times, and then selling variety shows, making it easy to break even.
However, before the first ten episodes were even broadcast, almost all the advertisers fled, or demanded price reductions for ad placements. This was because the price of an advertisement during *My Fair Princess 3* was more than ten times that of other dramas.
If *My Fair Princess 3* had maintained its popularity, they would have accepted the advertising fees, even at twenty times the price, eagerly throwing money at it.
But now, with such dismal ratings and relentless national media criticism, why would these brands, unless they were out of their minds, insist on placing ads in this drama?
Well, due to the extremely positive initial projections for *My Fair Princess 3*, the advertising department pulled a rather clever maneuver: they stopped selling ad slots in bundled packages and instead began selling each individual ad slot within each segment.
An episode of the drama featured two ad breaks, each lasting five minutes, totaling ten minutes. Assuming an average of thirty seconds per advertisement, that equated to twenty advertisements.
The price for each advertisement ranged from 30,000 to 80,000 RMB.
The 80,000 RMB slot was for the first ad at the beginning of the break and the last ad at the end. Other ads, depending on their insertion time, cost a minimum of 30,000 RMB.
The advertising revenue for just one episode alone was estimated to be 2 million RMB, which would amount to 80 million RMB for forty episodes.
And if the drama's viewership ratings continued to rise, the advertising fees would also increase daily with a brand new price.
But the problem was, if the drama's viewership and reputation both tanked, then everything was over.
By the time *My Fair Princess 3* concluded, the most expensive ad slot was only 15,000 RMB, with half of them given away for free to major clients for relationship maintenance. That's how severely the advertising revenue was lost.
And with advertising going downhill, recouping the 100 million RMB investment became impossible. This 100 million RMB cost was inevitably destined to become the annual deficit for 2003. Thinking about this, Director Liu's legs began to tremble uncontrollably.
"I can only hope that *Chinese Paladin*'s viewership ratings also explode, so I won't be in such a bad situation!" Director Liu prayed inwardly.
Hunan Provincial TV had purchased two dramas with over 100 million RMB in 2003: one was *My Fair Princess 3*, and the other was *Chinese Paladin*.
Now, *My Fair Princess 3* had blown up. If *Chinese Paladin* also blew up, the responsible parties would increase from one to two. And the person who greenlit the acquisition of *Chinese Paladin* was already one of the main leaders of Hunan Provincial Culture and Entertainment.
So, if *Chinese Paladin* failed, it would be impossible for him to advance further, and he himself would likely face severe punishment. Otherwise, how could that person live with themselves?
Then, *Chinese Paladin* exploded.