Summer vacation is a very special time period.
According to the latest census results, by the end of 1993, the total domestic population was over 1.1 billion, with 0-14 years old accounting for 17.2%, and 15-22 years old accounting for 8.3%. Added together, it is 25.5%, which is more than 280 million people!
That is to say, from five or six year old kindergarten children to twenty year olds who have just come of age but are still not graduated from university, so many people, for as long as two months, are in a state of extreme freedom.
They have nothing to do!
They need to travel, they need to play games, they need to watch TV dramas, they need to watch movies, they need to listen to music, they need to date, they need to vent the excess energy in their young bodies...
For major TV stations, this is the only time period within a year when programs after 10pm have a chance to challenge the ratings of the golden 8pm slot. Even in these two months, the ratings for morning and afternoon slots will see a huge boost. As a result, dramas are broadcast continuously in the morning and afternoon, while various variety shows that rack their brains are staged in the evening! Following this is a significant increase in advertising fees!
For major film companies, from mid-to-late June to late August, the national box office for these 10-11 weeks will account for more than half of the annual domestic total! So, various big films, famous directors, stars, and large productions are rushing to be released, hoping to cut off the largest piece of fat from this grand feast!
For the record industry, summer vacation is also a time of absolute decisive battle!
Due to the long-term and sustained nature of album sales, as early as the beginning of May, the campaign had already begun. Almost every week, there were new songs on the charts, almost every week, new albums started selling. And various concerts also began to be held one after another.
By June, the fighting had intensified.
July and August, the two months of summer vacation, are the real decisive moments!
Almost all singers who plan to release an album this year will consider releasing it within these two months. As a result, many top artists in the music industry are simultaneously releasing their new albums.
Let's not mention the male singer for now, and just talk about the female singer. On July 23rd, the sixth studio album "Fen Xing" of the Queen of Sweet Songs, He Runying, was heavily released!
In just three days, "Fen Shou" has already risen to the fourth place on the Dongguan Bookstore's weekly album sales chart! At the same time, she also became the only female singer whose album entered the top ten among all female singers' albums on sale! The number one weekly sales of a female singer's album is naturally hers!
At the same time, the title song of this album "The Star in Your Eyes" also jumped to the seventh place on the Chinese Music Golden Chart!
Of course, it is also the only song sung by a female singer.
There is no doubt that this is a blockbuster for the record market!
Perhaps for the top male singers in the industry, this achievement is just a normal performance, but for female singers, except for Zhang Zhen who has not released a new album for more than two years, all others are hard to surpass.
Even if it was Zhou Xun back then, her first week's results were only sixth place on the album sales chart!
But this is the reign of sweet songs!
According to the plan of Long Sheng Records' promotion and distribution department, starting from July 30th, Liao Liao took Huang Wenjuan back and forth between major radio stations in Beijing, TV studios, and other places, working hard to promote her new album with the first single "That Summer" as the precursor, until August 8th.
Starting from August 12th, she will start touring the country again. Several larger provinces and markets will have her going to perform on shows and promote her new song and album.
Of course, recording a show is a small matter, and running around the venue isn't a big deal either. What's most unbearable is that recently many many top singers have been releasing new albums, so everyone is doing promotions. If you want to go on the show, it's okay, but one word: wait!
Everything has to wait!
Don't mention who came first and who came later, in the entertainment industry, there has never been a saying that whoever comes first gets priority. As a newcomer or a small singer, you have to wait patiently in line, whether it's for a performance slot or a recording schedule, and even after your schedule is confirmed, you still have to wait patiently for others to finish recording in the studio... but as soon as a big shot arrives, OK, they'll definitely go ahead of you!
Other big stars are hard to invite, and it's not easy for them to come on the show. They finally released a new album and took the initiative to come on the show, who would be willing to refuse? You're impatient... OK, sorry, we did breach the contract. How about this, if you don't want to record, then leave!
That's it!
So, in these days of doing publicity, Liao Liao's most frequent activity was: waiting, washing her face, reapplying makeup, and then continuing to wait...
Every night when she gets home, she falls asleep as soon as she lies down!
This task is more tiring than writing songs and recording!
Finally, after what seemed like an endless wait, August 6th saw the release of "Liao Liao"!
…………
At midnight, in the Li family living room.
Li's father and mother were still awake, sitting in the living room chatting idly after taking a bath. They finally waited until 11:30, quickly turned up the volume of the radio that had been on all along, and their eyes, although bloodshot, were wide open as they strained to listen.
A few days ago, Li Qian came over for lunch and mentioned that Liao Liao's new album is about to be released, probably on August 6th. When Li's father heard that Liao Liao would be appearing on a show to promote the new album, he specially bought a small tape recorder back home.
For new singers like Liao Liao, the company tried its best to promote her and managed to get her two TV show appearances. One was as a guest in a group, where she didn't have a chance to sing, and the other was an opportunity to sing for one minute. However, right after she finished recording, a big shot came on, and the TV station called the next day to say that the broadcast time would be postponed by a week.
So Li's father and others could only listen to Liao Liao's program on the radio.
And they were all late-night broadcasts.
"Liao Liao hello! Welcome to our midnight newcomer show second segment!"
"Hello Le sister, hello everyone, I'm Liao Liao!"
"Last year, Liao Liao released her first single, called "Quiet You", I believe many listeners like me, loved that song, loved Liao Liao's unique and lyrical voice. So, Liao Liao, after more than a year, you're back on our Midnight Newcomer Show, what new work have you brought to the audience?"
"Uh, yes, over the past year, I've been working hard on my first album, and now my self-titled album "Liao Liao" is officially released today. Today, I'm bringing you the first main single from this album, called "That Summer".
"That summer... Is this a ballad?"
"Yes, this song was written by Mr. Zeng Zimo and composed by Ms. Guan Fei, one of the eleven very nice lyrical songs! Of course, I think it sounds good but it doesn't count if the audience also thinks so!"
"Haha, Liao Liao is still so humble! Alright, dear listeners, what's next? First, let me listen quickly! Here's a song "That Summer". I hope you'll like it! After the song, I'll have an in-depth conversation with Liao Liao about this song and the story behind this album. OK, here's "That Summer"!"
"The summer in my closet is that white shirt of yours, the summer in my photos has our smiling faces..."
Li's father and mother listened for a while, feeling that something was not quite right. The two of them turned their heads to look at each other, "How come it's this song again? Last night's program seemed to be playing this same song too! What is she... Why do so many radio stations keep playing this one song over and over? This isn't even a song written by our Xiao Qian for her..."
Li Qian sold the song to Liao Liao, and Li's father specifically asked Li Qian to write down the name of the song, planning to buy it after Liao Liao's album was released and listen to it one by one. When they heard that Liao Liao was going to be on a show to promote his new album, the two were suddenly excited and held onto their radios every day, afraid of missing the premiere of their son's work. As a result, the two had stayed up for three nights, listening to three shows, but each time they only heard "That Summer".
They don't usually watch or listen to any TV or radio programs, but when a singer appears on a show to promote their new album, the content is always roughly the same. After Li's parents watched two episodes, they could even guess what the guests would talk about next.
What does this mean?
Suddenly lost interest.
"Alright, go to sleep. Since we don't have work tomorrow, I'll just go out and take a look around the streets to see if any audio-visual stores have stock."
"Alright, go to sleep!" said Li's mother with a yawn.
They just stood there, neither of them moving.
Li's father lit a cigarette, his eyebrows furrowed like a ladder, glanced at the radio and said: "You say, those songs written by Xiao Qian, aren't they being neglected? If not, even if it's just a rotation, out of 12 songs, he has five, in these three programs, it should be his turn for one song?"
Li's mother said, "Didn't Xiao Qian say that the first wave of promotion was just for the first main song? What was it called... Ah, yes! It was 'My Hometown Love' and that wasn't the second main song!"
Mr. Li nodded and puffed on his cigarette.
"This song... isn't great!" he muttered.
…………
August 6th is Friday.
Of course, during the summer vacation, the concept of a few weeks only works for those who need to go to work. However, it cannot be denied that even if we exclude working people, the students who are on holiday already form a huge market, but when Saturday and Sunday arrive, and working people start shopping, this consumer market immediately jumps up by more than one level!
On August 6, the distributors on this side of Jinan Prefecture had already received the goods. On August 7, the album "Liao Liao" was already placed on the shelves of several large audio-visual chain stores. By August 8, at least 30% to 40% of the small and large audio-visual stores in the entire Jinan Prefecture city had put this album on their shelves.
On August 7th, Li's father rushed to the largest audio store in Jinan Prefecture early in the morning and contributed five copies to the sales of this album.
…………
On August 9th, Zheng Changsheng obtained the album sales ranking of Dongguan Bookstore for the past week through his connections.
Unlike the rankings listed in "Dongguan Weekly" without specific data, this ranking list is provided internally and the data on it is accurate to individual digits.
From August 6th to August 8th, in just three days, the sales of Liao's album at Dongguan Bookstore were: 1128 copies!
It ranked 19th on the album sales chart!
So, on the Dongguan Weekly which only lists the top ten rankings, its name is nowhere to be seen.
Dongguan Bookstore is currently one of the largest chain bookstores in China, and its data has always been considered extremely referential by the publishing and record industries. According to the statistical method consistently recognized by major companies, Dongguan Bookstore's sales multiplied by 20 times are roughly equivalent to the total sales of all audio-visual stores, bookstores, and supermarkets across the country.
So, in the first week of listing "Liao Liao", sales were probably around 20,000 to 22,000 copies.
Although the album sales are not as good as the box office, the first week's sales may not be a big explosion, especially for singers like Liao Liao who have only released one single. After a week or two of fermentation and brewing, the sales will explode again, which is completely normal... However, with sales of 20,000 copies in the first week, it is equivalent to directly declaring that the platinum record is hopeless!
Even if it sells out for two weeks, and sells a gold record within a year, that's already close to its limit!
Zheng Changsheng rubbed his eyebrows, comforting himself: "Wait a little longer, wait a little longer, at least look at the sales for the first three weeks to count." But as he said this, he couldn't help but let out a sigh.
What a headache!
Let's not talk about the post-production and all that, just the production cost is already 800,000!
Oh no, Liao Liao was actually quite kind, she allocated 800,000 to her, and she didn't even spend it all, at least leaving behind 30,000... but what's the use of that!
Liao Liao is a newcomer, the result of the company's discussion was to take the low price and high volume route. Although her album has 12 songs, including 11 new ones, the fixed price for this album is only 10 yuan.
At this price, the audio-visual store sells to consumers at a discount of 20% off the original price, wholesalers sell to audio-visual stores at a discount of 40%, and record companies sell to wholesalers at a discount of 50%!
50% off! Only 5 yuan per ticket!
Sold 500,000 copies, total revenue is only 25 million!
After deducting production costs, production fees, and publicity expenses, and then deducting the 7% sales commission for Liao Liao, and holding another celebration banquet, this album's maximum revenue would be around 5-6 million.
Only 500,000 to 600,000 yuan! The company has so many people eating, drinking, and using the toilet, water fees, electricity bills, phone bills, salaries, bonuses, benefits, insurance... This is equivalent to not making a single cent!
Zheng Changsheng let out another sigh and subconsciously shifted his gaze to the top ten of the rankings.
In its third week on the market, He Runkui's "Starlight" still maintains strong sales momentum, selling 7,433 copies in one week and ranking fifth!
If this data is extended nationwide, her sales last week should be around 1.5 million copies!
Also considering that she had 160,000 last week and 130,000 the week before... In the three weeks since her debut, seventeen days, she has probably taken down sales of around 440,000!
No need to think about it, next week will definitely break 500,000! Breaking 1 million in two or three months is also absolutely no problem!
Even within a year, it's no problem for this "Starlight" album of hers to go double platinum!
This is simply a money-printing machine!
The higher the sales volume, the thinner the cost will be spread. This logic is understandable to everyone. So, once you get a platinum record, it immediately becomes a money tree!
What's with shooting MVs, what's with releasing selected collections, what's with releasing commemorative editions... That's just purely ripping people off!
Even if it's understated, He Runkui's "Starlight" can still bring in tens of millions of dollars in profit for Sony Records!
That's tens of millions!
Taking into account various commercial performances, concerts and the like... a He Runkui can bring in at least eight-figure pure profit to Sony Records every year!
This alone is enough to cover all the profits of Changsheng Records for a whole year!
Zheng Changsheng rubbed his eyebrows and thought: "I don't know when my Changsheng Records will produce a He Runkui!"
