One week before the music festival, MusixZ TV began to warm up for the event by airing promotional videos on their channel. The effect was lukewarm at first. To many viewers, it was somewhat novel, but they didn't care about it much. But, they did notice Lilith's presence and were intrigued by her sexy figure a bit.
After two days of fermentation, the music festival's organizers suddenly saw a sharp increase in ticket sales for the event. They were overjoyed. So, they began to vigorously promote it offline as well. But, the effect wasn't big. It still had the same lukewarm reception.
However, the ticket sales kept steadily increasing. So, it kept their enthusiasm high. What they didn't know was that it wasn't their music festival that was getting popular, but rather a particular female presenter that was getting popular. Even Liam was unaware of it.
After a few days of repeated promotional videos, Lilith had a small fan following among the viewers of MusixZ TV. Her bombshell figure and charming on-screen presence had attracted the attention of various young males. This group of horny animals, who were local to Starlight City, were the ones responsible for increased ticket sales.
But, no one was aware of this phenomena. They just thought it was the promotional efforts that were reaping the benefits. Even Liam was unaware what a treasure trove he had gotten his hands on.
Soon, the day of the music festival arrived.
Liam sat in the production truck and oversaw the music festival production in a meticulous manner. While the production team was hard at work, Liam remained behind them and oversaw the broadcasting.
He called out switch in angles, gave out suggestions and ensured everything was on track. As this was a nationwide live broadcast, Liam didn't want to leave anything to chance. While he let the technicians handle things mostly, he didn't slack off either.
He had a vision in mind and made sure that such a presentation was put out.
The music festival was a three hour event. It started at 7PM in the night and continued till 10 PM. Mark opened the broadcast with his witty quips and introduced Lilith as his co-presenter. They exchanged some witty dialogue and comedy moments before switching to interview the crowd.
After some interaction with the crowd, the festival began in earnest. Throughout the music festival, Mark and Lilith appeared in interspersed manner keeping things live. One moment they will be interviewing the crowd, the other they will be backstage talking to artists, sometimes they will be interviewing sponsors, and sometimes they will have lively chat between themselves.
In this manner, the entire music festival came to an end. As Mark and Lilith closed out the show, Liam sat back in his chair and reviewed the whole event.
As he expected, the music wasn't top notch. There were no standout performances. However, the artists gave their all. The crowd was enthusiastic as well. There weren't any dull moments, at least on the broadcast side.
While the crowd weren't blowing out their tops, they were enjoying themselves. That was enough to provide a good viewing experience. The only standout from the show was the presentation of Mark and Lilith.
They had good on-screen chemistry. Mark was measured in his jokes, while remaining entertaining. He had a good grasp on the timing and kept things moving. That was a good thing as Lilith sometimes struggled due to her inexperience. However, Mark was able to cover for her quite well.
Overall, their presentation was a resounding success.
However, what intrigued Liam was the response Lilith had when she interviewed the crowd. The people looked more enthusiastic during those moments. Also, while Mark remained the undisputed lead of the duo, there were some moments where Lilith completely stole his spotlight due to her charm. It wasn't that noticeable at the beginning, but it was still visible if one paid attention.
To Liam, who had been watching the entire event like a hawk, this shined brightly even more. Liam recalled Dave's words from their discussion back then. He remembered Dave telling that he had to edit out some of Lilith's portions due to her overshadowing those artists in those MVs. Coupled with what he had witnessed with his own eyes, it became clear to Liam that Lilith had the qualities to steal the spotlight in unexpected moments.
If he could properly train her, then Lilith might have a good potential in the future. He noted this down in his heart. For now, he didn't want to jump the gun on things. MusixZ just broadcasted a music festival. He needed to see its effect before making any concrete plans.
Ratings determined everything in the TV industry.
Two days later, Liam headed the second channel-wide monthly meeting in MusixZ's conference room. This time, the number of participants had increased due to the addition of young employees that Liam had brought in to increase the vibrancy of the office.
Looking at the assembled faces, Liam grinned brightly at them and began, "Congratulations! We have officially crossed the milestone of 4.5 overall PERTI ratings last month. We have successfully recovered from the slump and have stepped foot on the road to recovery."
The crowd cheered. Liam let them enjoy themselves for a moment or two before continuing, "You efforts in the past month have paid off. We now have six programs that are above 5 in the overall ratings. Rock Night is at 5.6, Rap Zone is at 5.1, Artist Connection is at 5.4, Pop Mode is at 5.4, Rhythm Game is at 5.3, and finally, New Arrivals has the best performance and is at 5.9. One of our programs is close to breaking 6 on the ratings scale, people! We have bounced back strong last month!"
"And to top it all, our special program last month - the Music Rain Music Festival had an overall rating of 5.7. There were around 3.7 million viewers watching it live nationally. Congratulations, we have outdone ourselves."
"Now that we have stablized, it is time for us to focus on improving things. Just like before, make a list of underperforming programs, we will slowly weed them out. We will also be introducing two or three new shows into our programming this month. Also, make sure that eyes are always on the Billboard Top 100. If there is even so much as a sneeze there, we should be all over it."
After mobilizing the entire team, Liam returned to his office and found Rosa waiting for him. She had a bright smile on her face. As someone who was nominally in charge of Music Rain Music Festival, Rosa was overjoyed to see the event she participated in do well.
Liam understood her enthusiasm. He too was happy. After all, Music Rain Music Festival had 5.7 overall ratings. That was the second highest rated program of their channel. Even though it was a one-off broadcast type of program, it still brought in a lot of revenue for the channel.
Taking his seat, Liam opened the top file Rosa had left for his perusal. It was the financial report of the channel last month. Looking at the balanced numbers on the paper, Liam couldn't help but smile brightly.
He had broken even within two months. Last month, there was no loss for the channel. MusixZ had managed to stop their loss and break even. It was indeed gratifying to watch. However, Liam didn't get carried away.
Looking at the figures, he understood that it was because of the music festival broadcast that they managed to break even. That was a one off event and without it, they would still be struggling to make ends meet. That wasn't good for the company.
Now that they have burst into the event broadcasting scene, they can find other events to broadcast as well. However, it wasn't as if big events were happening every month. Even if they did, it wouldn't be their turn to broadcast them. MusixZ was still a nobody in the TV circle.
What the music festival had given them was a chance. A chance to breath and try to increase their momentum. Their other programs were doing moderately, but they needed a hit show to change the tides.
The three new shows he put out last month had decent ratings and viewership. He needs to churn out a few more of their kind to keep the momentum going.
Just then, Evan walked in after knocking on the door lightly. Liam's gaze fell on him.
"So, what's the verdict? Are our efforts worth it?" Liam asked unceremoniously.
"Definitely, we have received good response from viewers. The Rap Zone program has good reviews. But, it is mostly for the videos. Our MVs are different than what's usually being used. And it has generated some buzz. After three weeks of monitoring, we can safely say that there is a demand for such kind of MVs," Evan said with an admiring expression on his face.
Others might not know, but as the person who was most intimately involved, he knew that the entire thing from conception to execution was Liam's handiwork. The potential in this approach looked very large.
If this can be applied to other genres, then the viewership of the channel will increase drastically.