All-Star Weekend is over, and among fans, the conversation about All-Star Weekend has just begun.

The Skills Challenge, the Shooting Contest and the Slam Dunk Contest are all competitions that appear at one time. Historically, these three events have appeared separately, first in the slam dunk contest, then in the three-point contest, and finally in the skill challenge. Now Chen Qiang has thrown out these three projects in one go, which is indeed very impactful, and instantly stirs up the topic of the All-Star Weekend.

When I went to work on Monday, many fans who watched the All-Star Game were discussing the grand occasion of the game, especially the slam dunk contest, which became everyone's after-dinner conversation.

In this era, dunks are too rare, and now there are special games where fans can see all kinds of wonderful dunk actions, and fans are naturally addicted.

And those who watched the game on TV had one more thing to talk about, and that was the new rules of the game.

The new rules of basketball will have a faster offensive pace and a more exciting game, which will inevitably attract more TV viewers to become fans of the new league.

After two days of televising, many viewers in front of the television set have been attracted to the basketball broadcast, and even after the All-Star Game, they will stay by the television every evening to see if there is still a basketball game televised.

……

NBC's division in charge of television broadcasting.

The office errand boy came to the director's office with a whole box of letters.

"Director, these are all letters from the audience." The errand boy spoke.

"What do you do when you hear from the audience coming to me? Which program should it be, to the relevant editors. The director said impatiently, then he pointed to his cup, and then said, "Go and make me a cup of coffee, a piece of sugar is enough." ”

"Okay, I'll make coffee right away." The errand boy said, put the box down, and then continued: "But I can't distinguish these letters, they are not written to our existing program team." ”

"You're saying these letters are addressed to me?" The director asked incredulously.

"These audience letters are all about that All-Star Weekend." The errand boy explained.

"All-Star Weekend? Is it that basketball game? The director was slightly stunned, and then said: "Don't you say that I forgot that we broadcast a basketball game!" ”

"And what should we do with these letters?" The errand boy asked.

"That sports game is just a temporary program, and there really isn't a dedicated editor, so let's put these letters here first." The director spoke.

……

For NBC, broadcasting All-Star Weekend was just a fortuitous event, and after All-Star Weekend, they returned to their normal televised content. Play some old movies, report a few news, play music, and so on. The director who was in charge of broadcasting the All-Star Game at the beginning even left the All-Star Weekend behind.

Anyway, NBC doesn't have any requirements for TV ratings, they don't broadcast TV programs to make profits, but to help David Shanoff sell TV sets.

So whether the All-Star Weekend broadcast was popular with TV viewers is not on NBC's radar.

However, to NBC's surprise, letters from viewers were sent to the company like snowflakes.

All the letters were praising the All-Star Weekend program for being so good, and there were even many viewers who hoped that NBC would make televising basketball games a regular thing.

NBC didn't pay attention to ratings, and of course it was difficult to count ratings in the forties, after all, television sets in those days received wireless signals, and wireless signal transmission was one-way, and it was impossible to track ratings.

The same is true for radio, there are thousands of radio stations in the United States, and almost every American household has a radio, but it is also difficult to count the listening rate of radio.

Of course, if you really want to count the listening rate of radio programs, it is not impossible, and telephone sampling is a good method, and this method can be implemented in the forties, but most American households do not have telephones, after all, telephones only began to be popularized in ordinary homes after World War II.

You can also use the diary card method for statistics, that is, a card is issued to each household, so that users can record the frequency and time period of listening to the radio every day, and then take it back and then make statistics.

In the future, there will be a special instrument used to count the listening rate of radio programs, this instrument is a portable tester, the interviewee takes this portable tester, once he starts to listen to the radio, the tester begins to record the radio signal, so that the listening rate of the program can be counted.

In the forties, there were no testers, so at that time, the key to judging whether a radio program was popular with listeners was the situation of listeners' letters.

"Letter from the audience" or "letter from the audience" is a very unfamiliar word for many young people, and for them to live in the Internet age, writing letters is a very unfamiliar way of communication. However, in the 2,000 years since the advent of writing, letter writing has been the most common way to disseminate information.

In that era of poor information exchange, listeners loved to write letters to radio stations, viewers liked to write letters to television stations, and readers liked to write letters to magazines. The content of the letters is also varied, some give opinions, some make suggestions, some complain, some greet, and some confide.

The more popular a radio program is, the more listeners it will hear from. The radio station also attaches great importance to the letters from the listeners, some hosts will reply to the listeners' letters during the program, and some hosts will reply directly with a pen.

In that era, letters were probably the only way for listeners to interact with radio programs, and the audience's enthusiasm for writing letters was similar to sending a barrage when watching a live broadcast now, and if the host read a letter from an audience member in the program, it was equivalent to the anchor reading a barrage sent by an audience, and the audience who was read the barrage would have an additional sense of satisfaction.

NBC has hundreds of radio stations, and each radio station broadcasts a lot of programs every day, so NBC receives a lot of letters from listeners every day. In contrast, the television department is much weaker, and although it also receives letters from viewers, the number is certainly much smaller.

However, since the All-Star Weekend was broadcast, the number of viewer letters received by the TV broadcast department has increased exponentially.

……

A few days later, the director looked at the pyramid of boxes in front of him, which were full of letters from viewers about All-Star Weekend.

With so many letters, the director must not be able to read them all, but from the number of letters, the director can judge that the broadcast of All-Star Weekend must be very popular, otherwise it would not be possible to have so many letters from viewers.

"It seems that the TV audience enjoyed this basketball game." The director frowned and began to think.

In NBC, the television department is not important, it is not able to bring economic benefits to the company, and the purpose of their existence is to help Chairman David Shanoff sell television sets, and in this respect, it is a department that uses power for personal gain.

In addition to the strong support of Chairman David Shanoff, the reason why this department was able to exist in a grand manner, was also under the guise of developing new broadcasting technology, after all, television broadcasting was a new technology at that time, and within the National Broadcasting Corporation, the television broadcasting department was also regarded as a technology research and development department.

The TV broadcasting department has no real power, and it can't bring huge profits, this station director usually does a lot of heart-wrenching, watching other people's radio stations eat and drink spicy food every day, the director is very unhappy, he is engaged in broadcasting work, and he has also mixed into the position of station director, he must have ideals and ambitions, no one wants to be a salted fish willingly.

Now, so many letters from readers have made the director realize that there is an opportunity for the salted fish to turn over!

Even if you can't turn over, at least you can make your salted fish a little saltier and kill you!

……

The director prepared a plan and came to David Shanoff's office.

"You're going to broadcast a basketball game?" David Shanoff asked with a frown as he looked at the planner.

"Chairman, we had a basketball All-Star Weekend broadcast before, and the response from the audience was very good, and I received more than a dozen boxes of letters from viewers, all of whom were praising our broadcast All-Star Weekend, and they also hoped that we could continue to broadcast basketball games." The director spoke.

David Shanoff thought for a moment and said, "There is a lot of cost involved in broadcasting basketball games, have you considered this?" ”

"Chairman, we can cooperate with the basketball league and see if the basketball league can give us some sponsorship." The director replied.

David Shanoff shook his head: "I'm afraid it's difficult, if you let others pay for it, at least you have to let the other party see the return, for now, we can't get a return at all for doing TV broadcasts, our TV broadcasts have been losing money, do you think the basketball league will be willing to pay money?" ”

"We can find a way to reduce some costs, and if we can form a fixed program broadcast, our costs will drop a lot." The director spoke.

David Shanoff did not speak, but thought seriously.

At this time, the director said: "Chairman, I think broadcasting basketball games will also be conducive to the increase in TV sales." ”

Selling TV sets is David Shanoff's own business, and when he heard that he could increase TV sales, David Shanoff was immediately interested.

"You're saying that those fans will buy a TV just to watch a basketball game?" David Shanoff said, but shook his head to himself: "Impossible, the price of a TV is so high, how can someone buy a TV in order to watch a basketball game!" ”

"Chairman, at the price of a TV, it is true that individuals will not buy a TV set specifically to watch a basketball game, but the business is not necessarily. Many of the letters I've received from readers are watching games in bars or restaurants, and the average person may not be able to afford a television, but they can definitely afford to pay for a few bottles of beer or a meal, so they can watch a whole basketball game in a bar or restaurant. The director replied.

"You mean, sell the TV to bars or restaurants so that they can attract more customers?" David Shanoff's eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was thinking about the feasibility of this plan.

"Chairman, basketball is a great sport to watch, and a game is two hours long, which can bring a lot of money to a bar or restaurant, and for these businesses, they can easily make money for a TV set. And we've just aired All-Star Weekend, so it's perfect to promote it while basketball is still hot! The director then persuaded.

David Shanoff was finally moved, he nodded, and continued, "I can let you try, but this matter needs the cooperation of the basketball league." ”

David Shanoff said and took out a business card from the drawer: "This is Chen Qiang's business card, you can talk to him about broadcasting basketball games." Don't forget to ask for some sponsorship money from him, that Chinese is a multimillionaire! ”

……

Chen Qiang was overjoyed to learn that NBC was willing to broadcast basketball games!

Although the TV All-Star Weekend is only an attempt, the results achieved are very good, but Chen Qiang also knows that the TV broadcast is not in a hurry, and it will take several years of hard work to really move the basketball game to the TV set.

What Chen Qiang never expected was that NBC took the initiative to come to the door and put forward a request for cooperation, hoping to broadcast the basketball game of the new league, which was a big gift.

In the face of such a request, Chen Qiang must have agreed without hesitation, even if the other party proposed that he needed some sponsorship money, Chen Qiang did not refuse, but said that as long as it could be broadcast on TV, everything was negotiable.

Broadcasting sports games on TV, this big cake is really tempting, whoever can take the first step into this field may become the "boss" of American sports in the future!

In the forties, there was a loss of money on the television broadcast of sports games, but it was a small loss compared to the future revenue. At that time, who would have imagined that the copyright of sports competitions would sell for billions of astronomical sums in the future!

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