Deng Zheng was taken aback: "What...... Having a problem with ratings?"

Xu Tao nodded: "I suspect they bought the ratings." ”

Deng Zheng was even more surprised: "This ...... TV series ratings, can you still buy it?"

He was surprised, and he wanted to say "here", but when the words came out, he took them back.

Xu Tao smiled: "The hustle and bustle of the world is all for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit." Anything that involves monetary interests will be taken by someone. In fact, since the introduction of national standards for ratings data ten years ago and the involvement of the judiciary, the situation has been much better. Mr. Deng, you may not know very well that when I first entered the industry more than ten or twenty years ago, ratings fraud was rampant, and it has reached the point where it has seriously shackled the development of the entire TV industry......"

As Xu Tao said slowly, Deng Zheng learned about the dark side of the TV industry.

At that time, the most official and authoritative TV ratings data in China came from Sunny Media Research.

As a multinational company, Sunny is the absolute hegemon in the field of ratings surveys, according to the analysis of industry insiders, in the TV ratings market, Sunny Media Research accounted for about 80% of the national market share at that time. The current industry hegemon, Furui Company, ranked second at that time, but only accounted for about 10%.

At that time, the Internet was far less developed than it is now, and there were no such measurement methods as "real-time search popularity" and "new media composite index".

More than 80% of the annual revenue of TV stations comes from advertising sales. For TV stations, advertising revenue will only increase if the ratings increase. And for advertisers. In addition to the TV series and programs that have become phenomenal in thousands of empty alleys, the most important measure they use to evaluate the value of their delivery is ratings. There is no other way.

Driven by this huge interest, coupled with poor regulation at the time. As a result, the ratings data is heavily contaminated.

Later, there were two major scandals in a row:

First, a small program of a local television station in a major grain province in central China has been suspended for three months for some reason, but the ratings survey company does not know that it still provides the ratings of the program according to the previously drawn up "propaganda contract", and the local ratings are still very high, once close to 20%, which is simply ridiculous.

Second, when the summer advertising season came in the same year, most satellite TV stations followed the crowd and worked overtime to falsify the ratings, resulting in the overall national ratings exceeding 40.0 on a Saturday. According to this exaggerated data, theoretically, there is no one on the outdoor road in the whole country, all watching TV at home, and the data pollution is so serious that it is ridiculous.

These two big scandals have a great impact, the relevant departments urgently introduced a new national standard, and strong judicial intervention, dealt with and even resentenced a number of lawbreakers, after a long period of pain, the situation of the entire TV drama market has gradually improved in the past ten years.

And this thing. It directly led to the withdrawal of Senny Media Research Company from the Chinese market, and then there was the rise of Furui Company.

Deng Zheng was shocked, but also a little puzzled: "Lao Xu, I can still understand the first scandal." At that time, under the general situation, it was normal for small localities, small columns, and small ratings survey companies to be unprofessional in cheating. But this second case involves all the David TV stations. The research must be from Sunny, and it will be so unprofessional? Won't you feel that the overall ratings are too high and outrageous before the summary?"

Xu Tao smiled: "Mr. Deng." You mention this question, which means that you may not be very clear about how the ratings are obtained. TV ratings have always been the most commonly used method of counting: A ratings measuring instrument similar to a set-top box is installed on the TV set of the sample customer's home for a fee, so that when the family members of the sample household watch TV, as long as they stay on a certain channel for a certain period of time, the set-top box will record and generate statistical data. Like the previous Senny Media Research Company, there are nearly 80,000 sample households in the country, and 300-500 sample households are generally distributed in a city according to scientific sampling rules. Think about it, if you can pollute 10 sample households in the target city, then the show's ratings in that city will increase by at least 0.5!"

Deng Zheng was stunned: "The sample household must be kept strictly confidential, I want to ...... Pollution, it's not that easy, is it?"

"Mr. Deng is right. Senny used all kinds of methods to keep the sample households confidential, and even in order to avoid being followed by people with intentions, its staff also went to the police force to train them in detours and get rid of tracking skills, but they had no choice but to say that the production companies and TV stations could still find a way to pollute the sample households. Among them, the relatively 'honest' means is: the counterfeiters analyze the data released by Sunny, determine the area where the sample households are more concentrated, and focus on this area, and influence the residents' viewing taste by purchasing community media, such as light boxes, mailboxes, elevators, and advertising spaces at the door, so as to increase ratings. However, it is more common and direct to target a single sample of households. In order to be able to do this, some counterfeiters will hire private detectives, follow the staff of Sunny, and some people post on the community network, or post bounty advertisements to find them, and after locking the sample households, they will begin to visit the door, in-depth contact, and keep lobbying, so that the other party can turn on the TV for a long time to lock a certain channel or a certain program, some are directly given money, and some are sent rice, white flour, and peanut oil. ”

"I understand that, the overall national ratings exceeded 40.0 that Saturday, which looked ridiculous, but Senny could only knock out its teeth and swallow it in its stomach, because it was a solid statistic. It's just that the sample households they distributed across the country have been heavily polluted in large areas. ”

After Deng Zheng sighed, he raised his hand and took a sip of tea, and said with a smile: "Lao Xu, I see, you are familiar with the road here?"

Xu Tao coughed, but he didn't shy away from it: "Don't hide it from Mr. Deng, the 'Little Bird Culture' I worked for before was an expert in this area more than ten years ago. ”

"You've been stalking, too?"

Xu Tao was drinking tea and was almost choked, so he hurriedly waved his hand: "Ahem...... Not really. Polluting sample households is a common and conventional method, but there are also less common methods, such as bribing Sunny's employees to make a fuss about internal data, or using special hacking methods to interfere with the original data company's computer room servers to adjust the ratings at the corresponding time and in the region. 'Little Bird Culture' was actually a well-known data company in the industry at the beginning, and it was very good at counterfeiting, and later after the judicial intervention of the relevant departments to crack down, Chen Chao Chen saw the opportunity to acquire a bankrupt program production company, reorganized and laundered, and it became the later 'Little Bird Culture'. ”

After a pause, he continued: "In fact, there are several more active production companies in the market now, all of which made their fortunes by data before whitewashing, and they can be said to be the masters of 'counterfeiting' in the past. For a period of time, the left hand was responsible for manipulating data behind the scenes, and the right hand was responsible for production and operation. However, in recent years, as the industry has become more and more standardized, national standards have become more and more transparent, and the legal system has become more and more sound, there are basically very few. ”

At this time, Qian Shihao, who had been frowning and silent, suddenly interjected: "Not much, but there are still ones." The first case I worked on independently after graduation was one in this area. ”

Deng Zheng glanced at Qian Shihao, and asked Xu Tao again: "Old Xu, tell me about your previous suspicions." ”

After Senny withdrew from China, Furui learned from the experience and now uses a massive sample collection method, that is, 3,000-5,000 households in each city as a collection system, and it is changed every year. First, the sample size is greatly increased, making it easier to ensure the accuracy of the data, and second, most of the samples are recovered from the user's set-top box, and the sample households themselves do not know that they are sample households, avoiding the possibility of contamination. It can be said that in the past ten years, Furui has been very successful, and has become an absolute trump card in the industry with its excellent reputation, and its credibility is also very high, and there has been basically no pollution of batch sample households. However, in the past two years, some underground 'propaganda companies' have emerged, telling you that as long as you outsource the publicity part to them, you can help you spread it all over the country, how much the ratings will be improved, and it will be effective soon. I don't know exactly how these 'propaganda companies' work, but I found that although they can have an immediate effect on the increase in ratings, the magnitude they can achieve is actually very small, so I suspect that they are desperate elements who use special channels to hold a small number of samples. ”

"Do you think Nan Taiduan bought part of the 'publicity' for "Prime Minister Xiao Ganluo"?"

"In my experience, nine out of nine yes. However, because of the small amplitude, this kind of ratings anomaly cannot trigger Furui's ratings, and it is difficult to obtain evidence from the judicial side. ”

Xu Tao was very indignant and depressed, but Deng Zheng was relieved after he understood the reason:

"Listening to Lao Xu's explanation, I am relieved. Look at this table, every time it can beat us by 0.01-0.02 percentage points, it shows that the real ratings must have always lagged behind us, and from the point of view that they have always had reservations every time they dare not exceed more, in fact, the gap between the real ratings between our "True Little Monk" and "Prime Minister Xiao Ganluo" is actually gradually widening. ”

Xu and Qian were stunned: "What do you say?"

"No matter how good these indiscriminate 'propaganda companies' are, because of Furui's massive sampling method, the number of sample households in their hands must be very limited. If it weren't for the too much pressure on "Prime Minister" from our ratings, "Prime Minister" would have shown a little bit of a trend that could stabilize us, and with Nan Taiduan's ignorant and arrogant appearance of great joy, it would definitely be released all at once, throwing us out of a position! Alas, it seems that the TV series itself is not good, even if it is to buy ratings, it will be very hard!" (To be continued......