WK1

Great! Every rating counts.

Great!! I am doing the same thing.

This may come true, because they already have the airing license for Part. 2. Really up to Youku.

Great. You will see the impact right away. It may take a while. And we need lots of people to push. One or two of us cannot counter all the haters.

Since these haters want to play games, we can play along with them. It is quite fun, actually. Because, when all of us fight back, we will see the mean score going up and up.

I once asked the MDL people, how is the mean score computed, she refused to tell me. Said they are afraid, once this is leaked, people will try to manipulate it. But, to be honest, it is not difficult to figure out. It is just mean score. Even though we do not know the exact way that mean is calculated (there are several ways to calculate the means), it is just a function of all our ratings. The higher the ratings we give, the higher the mean will go up.

Once there are 500-600 people rating TBW, all the haters' rating will be obliterated. But, it does not really mean that the mean score will jump sky high. Hardly. In the end, it is still the quality of this drama, and the quality of this drama depends not just on how Reba and Allen fans view this, but more on 'neutral', meaning people who are not the core supporters of our two big stars.

On the page of You are my glory, it was mainly the power of the neutrals who pulled up the score, because they really do like that drama.

This is quite fair. Allen and Reba fans can counter the haters, leaving neutrals to give a true reading of the quality of this drama.

Fans of our two leads will surely be our first line of defense. Followed by fans of any of any of the supporting cast. And then, neutrals who have simply enjoyed this drama, even if they are not a fan of any of the cast members.

Haters are fans of any of Reba's competitors, or Allen's competitors or fans of another drama (either airing now or done airing). Any of these individuals will have vested interest to rate this 1 or 2.

I think those who rated it 1 will not find it funny, once we fight back. On the page of YAMG, we fought back like crazy. And all the haters' ratings were completely negated.

Really simple. You to the MDL page of this drama, you will see the mean rating in big letters. Currently it is 8.2 On the right of this letter, you will see the words, Your Rating. You click on it on those five stars there, and it will lead you to another computer screen. On that screen, you can then do the rating. You can rate the series overall. and you can also rate each episode. Try and see if you can do it? If not, come back here and I will guide you along.

I have rated it 10. And will do so for all the individual episodes, as each airs. That will be my contribution, to push back against the haters.

It happens. On the page of You are my glory, I saw the rating dropped within a minute, by 0.4, which was huge. Hence, those of us who have watched TBW and who do feel that this is a good drama, we should know what to do, to counter all those haters.

There is not just one of them. One will not be able to much harm. There are lots of them. If we do not counter the haters, the rating will be stuck as it is. People who come here will think that this is lousy drama, which it isn't.

I just saw a photo in Weibo of a promotion of TBW in China. It was one of those large video panels that we see in a typical shopping mall. This time, it was a shopping mall in China. The panel clearly states in big big Chinese characters who were producers of TBW. Youku, Huace/Croton Media.

Avenue X, in her review of TBW, also clearly mentioned Youku as one of the producers of this drama, along with Huace and another company, which I cannot recall, but, it is in YouTube somewhere.

And, like I said preivously, dramawiki also mentioned Youku as one of the producers.

So, from so many different sources, various evidence, it is pretty clear, Youku is one of the producers, and did not merely secure the airing rights in the China. And because, each time those posters are shown, the Youku brand name is always in the biggest fonts, it leaves no doubt who is the largest investor of this drama: Youku.

Because they are the largest investor, by mutual agreement, Youku got the broadcasting rights in China, and Croton Media the broadcasting rights for the international market.

My educational background conditions me to look for evidence, and be driven by evidence, and only make assumptions, when we cannot find evidence. It is pretty clear where all the evidence points toward.

That is what I try to do here, encouraging people to share their views and opinions about their viewing experience in watching TBW. It is in sharing that we learn from each other. We are not always right, but also not always wrong. But we always learn from sharing.

Although you are not a native English speaker, you expressed your thoughts very well.

I used to teach for a living, and I would say that the key skill that I learned and used most often was to encourage all my students to speak up. If they were wrong, I will just keep asking questions to channel their thoughts, so that they could express themselves better, clearer. I would have done the same for you, but felt no need, as you expressed yourself quite well.

There was only one instance you were not clear, but after I asked you one question, just one question, you were already quite clear. I think it has to do the Ji Junhe quote, how she defined freedom in the novel, compared to what was actually said in the drama.

In the absence of specific publicly disclosed information , we have no choice but to make educated inferences on cost sharing in drama production in China.

I found this article online: http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201808/13/WS5b70c53ca310add14f3854b2.html

This article seems to suggest two things:

1. Wages of the big stars are foot by the big streaming compaines, the biggest three being: Tencent; Youku; Iqiyi.

2. Those bills are high, they feel the pinch, that is why they led the campaign to cap sky high payments for stars.

So, in a typical drama production, streaming companies like Tencent, Youku and Iqiyi are normally the ones who foot actors' and actress' wages, while companies like Huace and Daylight, who do the actual filming, will foot the bills for their own staff.

So, in the making of TBW, Youku paid for all the wages of the stars (quite many cast members, if we count), the two biggest are of course Reba and Allen. Huace handled the rest (wages of their internal staff, like camera crew, costumes people, etc).

Because wages of stars account for a bigger portion of the total production budget, Youku got the rights to stream it in China while Croton Media for the international market.

In terms of revenue though, I do not think that all the revenues collected from the Chinese market will go to Youku, nor all revenue collected from international market will go Huace (which owns Croton). They may have worked out a formula for revenue sharing as well, so that Huace will also get certain amount of money from the domestic market, and Youku certain amount from the international market.

This way, for the revenue stream, both their business risks will be mitigated. If the international market does not do well, Huace will still get some money from the China market. Likewise, if the domestic market does not do do well, and Huace managed to sell some of the international rights to Netflix, Youku will also get some money from it.

In the absence of published figures, that would be my educated guess, how they share costs and revenue, thus resulting in Youku streaming TBW in China and Croton Media for the international market.

Very good response. Detail answers that can come only from someone who read the novel, watched the drama and is able to compare and contrast between the two

Even her face in TBW looks really thin. Much thinner than in TLB

I am not 100% sure. May need to Google and get the facts right. But I think big swings in body weight may not be good for our bodies.

Going to get more info right now.

Since you cover the Chinese media names, maybe you know of public statement of investment amount by Youku and Croton Media for TBW? Is it in the Chinese media somewhere?

Previously, you said investment cost is about RMB 200m. Is this number the total investment put in by all investors, or just Huace? If it is just Huace, any document to show they are the sole investor of this drama? If not, and if RMB 200m is the total investments put in my all parties, do we know who put in how much?? Any official document of this??

Thanks! So, no problem. I was wrong about who owns the rights. But, here is another assumption I would like to make. In the total production cost, rights for a novel is likely to be far lesser than contract fees for cast members, director, screenwriter, etc. So, if Youku paid for these, they are likely to be the major investor of this drama, compared to Huace.

I used to teach Business Strategies and Management for a living, before my retirement. Just basing my comments on what I feel about most business arrangements. Whoever who invested more, gets the broadcasting rights to the bigger market. In the absence of public statements about relative investment amounts by Youku and Huace, that is a fair assumption.

Which is why I asked if there are any public statement of the relative investment amounts, public document of the kind that you have shown me in the link above.

I did not read the novel. But I have read comments from a quite a few novel readers. I will not say all, but great majority feel that the plot follows the book closely. Actors' portrayals are close the the characters in the book, with some fine adjustments, to make the drama a more pleasant viewing experience . So, in general, most feel that this is a satisfying adaptation that has added value to the novel, and therefore novel readers should find it a satisfying experience to watch.

We can wait for confirmation from some of the novel readers, many of whom will surely respond to your post.

I did some very very simple research. The actor who plays Lin Chaglan is Hai Yi Tian, a veteran actor. Acted in countless dramas/movies, so very time consuming to check all his dramas/movies.

I just use a sample of one, which may or may not be accurate, to illustrate. His up and coming drama in a leading role is 'Not Easy to Forgive'. There, he plays a character who started as 'bad', but gradually became good.

So, no prize money will be given for guessing whether Lin Changlan is good or bad. Sometimes, things are not always what they seem. More things yet to unfold, as we are only up to E10. Good not be fixated on him being a bad guy, though it is clear that even if his motive is good, his method of poisoning people is clearly not.

So is Youku. It is also a publicly listed company. It has a market capitalisation of US 5.4B. Huace has market capitalisation of rougly US 1.6B. So, we know who is bigger.

Dramawiki clearly states The Blue Whisper is a joint production between Croton Media and Youku: https://wiki.d-addicts.com/The_Blue_Whisper#Production_Credits

We do not have all the investment details. If you do have the link, it will be great to pose it here. Sincerely, I would love to know. TBW may very well be Huace biggest investment this year, until we know the investment details, between Youku and Huace, we do not know who invested more. I am guessing Youku, because it is a much bigger company, and it was given the broadcasting right to China. It is a fair assumption. Who pays more, who gets the bigger market. If Huace pays more, why should the China market be given to Youku? Unless, broadcasting right is done via lucky draw? I doubt that.

If it is done via some kind of open bidding process, we will need to know more information how that is done, and where the results are published.

If it is done via internal bargaining between Youku and Huace, then Youku likely got the Chinese market, because, at the outset, Youku was always to pay more, in the production process.

The entire production process comprises many elements, including rights for adaptation for the novels, plus, likely the biggest of all, salaries for our two big stars and all the cast members. So, even if Croton Media do have in-house production staff, Youku likely paid for salaries of all the cast members. And these cast members are certainly not paid staff of Croton Media or Huace. Only technical crew like cameramen, lightings people, people who made the costumes, etc. may be full time staff of Croton Media. Since Croton Media makes dramas all the time, it makes sense for them to have these people on their payroll, but certainly not the actors, actresses, like not even the director and screenwriters. These are free agents. Youku, being the bigger of the two, likely paid for all their salaries or contract fees.

As evidence that Youku likely put in more money than Huace, just look at all the character posters up in the Photos section above. Even though they were used for the overseas market, Youku's brand name is clearly stated in big and bold letters, whilst that of Huace and Croton Media in much smaller fonts. If Croton Media had invested more, would they allow Youku to use a bigger font, and get more prominence? I think not.

Prior to its airing, it has always been emphasized that this will be aired exclusively on Youku. I would like to think that Youku feels that this is a great drama and would rather not share it with Tencent, regardless of what is happening at Tencent.

Tencent is streaming The Oath of Love now. More likely, it does not want to stream TBW on Tencent Video concurrently, just in case TBW clobber TOOL. TOOL is clearly a Tencent production. It will be totally embarrassing for Tencent, if TBW was shown on Tencent Video and its own production got beaten by Youku's. Already we know from Twitter, that lots of people have gone on the Tencent platform, asking to watch TBW, thinking this is a Tencent production.