Free Web NovelChapter 213: Chapter 190: Should Media Ratings Be Trusted? (Part 2)
After all their usual tricks failed, the Drama Guild was stumped. They had never encountered a situation like this.
At that point, a council member proposed a plan: why not just pretend nothing had happened?
It was only one mystery play. How much influence could it have, no matter how popular it became? It was only being performed by a single troupe.
A tour of the Continent would take several years, by which time the hype would have long since died down. It would pose no threat to the Drama Guild.
Could they really keep producing plays of that caliber?
’Who were they kidding!’
In the end, the Drama Guild would remain the sole dominant player.
This plan to lie low and wait it out received unanimous praise from the council members.
「Until today.」
"Has everyone seen the announcement from the phony Drama Guild?" Sir Turt asked, his voice hoarse.
In the Drama Guild’s eyes, Grandpa Galina’s organization had no right to simply add a "New" prefix.
"We have," the members replied in unison.
This announcement was arguably the biggest news in the literary and arts world recently.
The New Drama Guild had announced open recruitment, welcoming all theater troupes to join.
Any troupe that joined could rehearse and perform the guild’s provided scripts for the first year without any licensing fees.
Now, their influence was no longer limited to a single troupe.
Furthermore, after the first year, script licensing would only require a percentage of the profits. One didn’t need to do the math to see this was much lower than the Drama Guild’s licensing fees.
In comparison, it made the Drama Guild look like an unscrupulous sweatshop.
"So, tell me. What should we do?" Sir Turt asked those present.
"I have a humble opinion," said the same council member who had proposed the wait-and-see approach. "They only have one script right now, *Prosecution Witness*. There’s no guarantee of the quality of their future scripts. After all, all the famous playwrights are on our side.
"So, just because the phony Drama Guild is being ostentatious right now doesn’t mean we should take action."
If this council member ever had the chance to meet Sir Humphrey, they would surely have a lot to talk about.
When he finished speaking, many people nodded in agreement.
Doing nothing meant making no mistakes. If they did something wrong, who would take responsibility? The less trouble, the better.
Most of those present were not young. As long as the income from the Drama Guild could support them until the day they retired, they couldn’t be bothered with what happened after.
"Many small troupes have already quit the Guild," Sir Turt said, flicking his fountain pen and sending it spinning across the table’s surface.
The metal scraped against the marble, making a cold, shrill sound.
"The small troupes never brought in much revenue anyway," the Vice Chairman said.
"They represent a trend of departures."
"The larger troupes’ interests are aligned with ours."
"They’re just watching from the sidelines. As soon as the other side can offer them greater benefits, they’ll quit without a second thought."
"The big troupes would have to pay huge damages to leave."
"And what if the benefits outweigh the damages?"
"Then they’d need scripts, and we hold the copyrights to almost every play."
"They have them."
Sir Turt slammed his hand down, stopping the pen.
"They already have them. That author, Agatha Christie, has provided them with more scripts."
The Vice Chairman fell silent.
Agatha Christie.
A writer who had appeared out of nowhere. No background, no history, no connections could be found.
It was almost as if she had been fabricated by the Zog Group.
If she could produce work consistently, it would be enough to support a good number of troupes.
"And they have other creators," Sir Turt said. "In the future, even more playwrights will jump ship to their side. The compensation they offer is far better than ours."
The Drama Guild had always treated its creators like beasts of burden.
No, that wasn’t right. Even beasts of burden needed to be cared for.
The Guild’s creators were only fit to be treated like machines—as long as they could still move, they were worked to death.
"Do you want to see the Guild rapidly disintegrate?"
Everyone looked at each other, the answer already in their hearts. ’Disintegration is acceptable, but rapid disintegration is not.’
"We could send an undercover agent to that guild, have them memorize the script and repeat it back to us, then we can quickly adapt it and perform it first," the Vice Chairman suggested.
This was one of the Drama Guild’s signature moves.
When faced with a decent new script, they could swiftly plagiarize it and use their superior distribution channels to completely corner the market from the original work.
The difficult part was how to plagiarize without it being legally defined as plagiarism.
They were quite well-versed in this area.
"You signed their confidentiality Contract. You should know it’s impossible to repeat it from memory."
"Let’s make sure they can’t buy any stage props."
"The Zog Group can produce them."
"Bribe the local security forces. Wherever their troupe performs, have that theater investigated."
"Are you going to bribe the entire Continent?"
"Then what do you suggest we do!"
"Why are you shouting so loud!"
The members in the conference room chimed in with suggestions from all sides, only to have each one shot down.
But from beginning to end, not a single person suggested improving the compensation for the Guild’s creators and troupes.
In their minds, that was never an option.
’Give the tools a raise?’
’What’s the difference between that and slitting our own throats!’
Half an hour later, the arguments in the conference room gradually subsided.
All eyes turned to Sir Turt. After all, he was the Chairman.
He who enjoyed the best treatment had to bear the greatest responsibility at the most critical moment.
Seeing that the time was right, Sir Turt finally stood up and cleared his throat.
He said, "My idea is this: we leverage our advantage of having a large number of professional critics to establish an evaluation system on the internet that we control."
"But wouldn’t that just be providing content for the Zog Group?" someone asked doubtfully.
"Yes. But we will be using the network’s resources. What we earn back in the future will certainly be more than our investment, as long as we can seize control of the narrative of evaluation."
Sir Turt’s eyes were filled with greed.
This was the conclusion he had reached after repeatedly studying the film and television database in recent days.
A new section related to drama had been opened there.
The foreseeable trend was that this database would become an important standard for audiences to judge whether a work was worth watching.
And right now, it only contained audience scores, lacking any highly professional evaluations.
This was precisely their area of expertise.
Sir Turt detailed his plan to the council members.
They would have their critics collectively publish content online, using their professional advantage to establish an evaluation system distinct from the audience scores in the database.
The goal was to make it so that in the future, when people discussed whether a work was excellent, they would inevitably consider audience score and professional rating as two important indicators.
That way, in order to get good reviews, creators would have to maintain a good relationship with the Drama Guild.
Then, they would expand the original Drama Guild Annual Work Award into a general Annual Work Award, judging all film and drama productions of the year.
This award would become the highest honor, the most recognized by the public and sought after by all professionals in the industry.
With an awards ceremony, there would be a great deal of room for manipulation.
From then on, the Drama Guild would transform from an organization that managed troupes into one that evaluated them.
As for the arduous work of creating, rehearsing, and touring—all those thankless tasks—they could leave that to the New Guild.
They were going to make the easy money.
But the prerequisite for this plan was controlling the narrative—they had to seize control of the narrative of evaluation.
After hearing his description, the Vice Chairman asked uncertainly, "So, are we supposed to praise *Prosecution Witness* now?"
"Of course not!" Sir Turt said excitedly.
"We must attack this work more intensely, more thoroughly. Our critics must refute anyone on the internet who praises it.
"We are going to tame the audience!"
He spoke with a fanatical look in his eyes, uttering a mad boast that would have guaranteed his utter ruin and disgrace if the audience had heard it.
"Ordinary people have no discernment. They need to be led by the elite. We will be that elite. We must make them pursue our aesthetic, to accept our standards.
"Only then, only then can we completely seize control of the narrative for evaluating drama! No! Not just drama, but the narrative for all forms of literary and artistic works."
In Sir Turt’s vision, the Drama Guild had already transformed into an absolute, hegemonic Empire of artistic evaluation.
Just as they had achieved in print media.
But this would be more authoritative, more influential.
He would be the ruler of this Empire, wielding the supreme power to distribute awards, guide aesthetics, and control the reputation of artistic works.
He never considered that perhaps the audience could form their own judgments, and that the process of opposing the audience’s preferences was a process of gradually eroding public trust until it collapsed completely.
Meanwhile, a certain meddlesome Red Dragon would surely give this process of collapse a little push to speed it along.
His arrogance made him ignore the risks.
"Will this really work? I’m worried it will provoke a backlash from the public."
The secretary, whose philosophy was simply to get through the day, dutifully voiced his concern.
Inwardly, however, he was already planning his next move.
"Of course it will work. It must work."
While others were fearful, he was greedy, Sir Turt said, his tone firm.
"If there are no better plans, then let’s get started now. Time waits for no one, my friends."
