Chapter 175: Chapter 170: Unscientific Ratings
"Recently, a man was unexpectedly attacked at night by an unknown group. The group’s methods were extremely cruel. According to the victim’s description, they forcefully slammed and rubbed his private parts against a tree trunk, repeating the action multiple times..."
’What kind of weird news is this?’
Zog watched the morning news while eating breakfast.
On the rare day he woke up early, this news was making him lose his appetite.
’Why does a weird game like Aruba exist in Twin Tower City? I’ve never heard of it here before.’
’It couldn’t be that they got the idea from *Tom and Jerry* when it aired, right?’
’And it seems like they weren’t treating it as a game, but as a genuine method of punishment.’
The news report described it in vivid detail: the condition after the impacts, the victim’s painful testimony, and they even used a poor pig for a reenactment.
It reminded Zog of those shows he used to watch as a kid, the ones about rescuing children stuck in fences.
’Is this really news? This world’s understanding of journalism seems a bit off.’
’Could this be the result of the revenue rules I set for Demon Vision programs?’
Content broadcast on the Magic Vision Devices now received bonuses based on weekly ratings, on top of a basic broadcasting fee.
This drove every content creator to do whatever it took to grab people’s attention and chase higher bonuses.
Even the Prophet Mages doing the weather forecast had to find a gorgeous host.
The news team, on the other hand, had transitioned from a tabloid newspaper; they were absolute pros when it came to sensationalism.
They could spin any story into something flashy and ostentatious.
They could even take the Loman Empire’s military buildup in the west and twist it into a story about the Grand General’s wife running off with an artist from a small neighboring country.
’It seems the methods I used to screw over the Potion Factory brought "modern journalism" to this world far too early. I really didn’t do a good thing.’
’No, Demon Vision needs some legitimate news. I have to change the rules. Certain types of programs should receive a flat fee.’
’But they can’t be allowed to just coast and collect a paycheck. There should be a ratings baseline. Anything that falls below it and has no audience should be canceled.’
’Then again, in the current Demon Vision market, you’d have to be talented to make a show no one watches. There’s no competition in any given time slot. You can’t even change the channel. The only options are to watch or turn it off.’
Zog decided he would roll out the new rules in the next couple of days.
After finishing breakfast, he pushed open the door to his office.
The shortest commute imaginable: his home and office were connected.
The Zog Group was his home, and his home was the Zog Group.
Anyone who didn’t know better might mistake it for a small convenience store or a greasy spoon—shop in the front, bedroom in the back. All that was missing was a child perpetually doing homework in the corner.
It wasn’t officially work hours yet, so Elsa hadn’t arrived. She was part of the grand army of employees who clock in at the very last second.
Bored and feeling the itch to play some cards, Zog slumped into his chair and started a game of *Yu-Gi-Oh!*.
’Is the boss slacking off really slacking off? This is called personally inspecting the fruits of our recent labor to ensure game quality.’
’I’m miles better than those producers who don’t even play their own games after release.’
To differentiate it from the physical card game, the online version of *Yu-Gi-Oh!* featured characters from the manga who had special Skills you could use during a duel.
Besides enriching the gameplay, it also—more importantly, of course—let them sell characters.
And you couldn’t just sell the complete characters. You had to split up their mechanics, unlocking a little more each time you pulled a copy.
You couldn’t just pull whenever you wanted, either. Each character was only available in the summoning pool for a few weeks. After that, you had to wait for a rerun, and who knew when that would be.
It had a death grip on impulse buyers. ’Learn from the master, you crooked merchants of this world!’
Half an hour later, Elsa finally arrived.
The first thing she saw upon arriving was Zog’s thunderous expression.
Her mind immediately started racing. ’What set him off this time? I can’t afford to step on a landmine and lose another month’s pay.’
’Serving a monarch is like accompanying a Dragon. It’s not easy.’
What she couldn’t have known, however, was that Zog was just salty from getting his ass handed to him in cards for several games straight.
He was at a disadvantage, unfamiliar with the more recently designed cards. For the game’s nominal creator, it was a huge loss of face.
"Why are you so late? You got here even later than I did. You have absolutely no passion for your work," Zog said, launching a preemptive strike. He was in the kind of mood where everything rubbed him the wrong way.
Elsa thought, ’Your commute is literally pushing open a door. Don’t you dare pretend to be the hardworking one here.’ But for the sake of her paycheck, she held her tongue.
"I just wish my employees could show the same whole-hearted dedication as their boss," Zog went on.
As a seasoned corporate drone of just twenty years, Elsa knew that when a boss starts talking about "dedication," he’s about to spew some bullshit.
That kind of talk only worked on recent graduates. She’d been tricked by it herself back when she worked for a theater troupe.
So she decided to interrupt his Casting.
"The ratings for *Tom and Jerry* are in," Elsa said, steering the conversation back to work.
Zog might hold a grudge, but he didn’t have a bad temper. Any Dragon with a short fuse would have recklessly gotten themselves killed in their youth.
As a result, you just had to distract him, and he’d immediately forget what he was upset about.
"Oh? How are they?"
*Tom and Jerry* was their flagship project, the result of nearly a thousand people’s hard work over the past few months. Expectations were sky-high.
They didn’t have the technology to gather ratings data directly yet, so viewership was calculated through sample surveys.
Viewers of different ages, races, and professions were selected to log what they watched each day. Volunteers who participated received perks like a lifetime warranty for their Magic Vision Device and other small gifts.
The viewing data was collected once a week, which was why they were only getting the ratings for *Tom and Jerry* two days after its premiere.
"45%," Elsa replied.
"45%!" Zog was shocked.
Not because the number was too high, but because it was far too low.
This wasn’t like on Earth, where a rating of a few tenths of a percent was common, hitting the single digits was cause for celebration, and a double-digit share was a monumental blockbuster.
In Feilin, where entertainment options were scarce, Demon Vision was utterly dominant.
The all-time ratings record was held by the finale of *Mechanical Warrior*, which had reached 82%.
The highest premiere rating belonged to *Firepower Young King*, whose first episode pulled a 74%.
Compared to those two, *Tom and Jerry*’s performance was frankly embarrassing.
Even the commercial breaks regularly pulled in ten or twenty percent.
And this was after a massive advertising campaign, not to mention the historic opportunity of it being the first broadcast in color.
’What went wrong?’
’Could it be that people here just don’t like cartoons? The humor and artistic quality of *Tom and Jerry* are definitely higher than those two record-holders.’
’But it’s true that in the market, the best quality product isn’t always the most popular.’
Zog just couldn’t accept it. Judging by the comments on social media, the public reception for *Tom and Jerry* had been excellent. People were even making memes of Tom and Jerry.
To encourage more discussion among the fanbase, he had even turned a blind eye to meme creators using the characters’ likenesses.
"Let me see the detailed report," Zog said.
When he got the data sheet, he was even more bewildered to see that *Tom and Jerry* wasn’t even number one for the week.
The top show had beaten it by a margin of 1%.
Zog looked at the number one show. It wasn’t a Zog Group production. In fact, it came from a very unexpected place.
A Craig Clan production.
The title: *Young Hero Craig*.
