Chapter 93: Shortlisted for Rookie of the Year Award

  Variety shows also need to evolve on their own, the interestingness of a certain segment that was just created is absolutely incomparable to something that has been summarized through countless experiences after more than a decade. Zhou Xiao hasn't watched all of the 99th episode's final exam plans, but he has watched several episodes from 11 years later, especially those with AKB members participating. Just from these, and referencing the first episode's final exam plan from 2000 that was just broadcast not long ago, Zhou Xiao can easily see many differences.

  Although the plan is someone else's, Zhou Xiao is very clear that the differences he will put forward are so important. For a show, these details are the most important part of making up a show. As for the real plan, it's just about finding a group of people to take an exam, which is not fun at all.

  "You... are you going to get involved in planning variety shows too?" Watanabe Keiko covered her face, although she had been prepared for Zhou Xiao's "multi-talented" nature, but getting involved in planning variety shows was a bit too much.

  However, Zhou Xiao also has his reasons. In fact, Akb's father, Yasushi Akimoto, is also a very famous and powerful program script planner. The entire 80s was extremely famous for "The Best Ten", which he co-planned with several other producers. As a music program, this music episode even achieved a rating of 41.9%, which is extremely astonishing.

  Having such a predecessor makes Zhou Xiao extremely concerned about the reputation of the TV station, and one of the reasons why AKB will encounter difficulties in the future is also because he attaches great importance to the TV station.

  The main reason for AKB48's popularity is the national handshake event, but even with the handshake event, AKB can only be a niche monster group at best. Relying on handshake events to popularize AKB nationwide is useless.

  There is only one way to nationalize, that is, they have a good regular program on TV, such as AKB's rival in various fields, Arashi of Johnny's, and they always have programs like "VS Arashi", "Secret Arashi" and "Leave it to Arashi" broadcast during prime time. This is something that Zhou Xiao has experienced in the past, but AKB has never done before.

  To grasp the golden time slot, AKB made a lot of efforts. The program "True or False" invited Tamura Jun, who was quite influential at that time, as the MC, with large funds invested, heavyweight guests and comedians, but due to various reasons such as dull planning and AKB members not being able to hold up the show, this program still did not achieve good results, with a lowest rating of only 3%.

  In addition, AKB also attempted to do a music program, which pulled in AP's MC old man Nakajima Kento and Shusei 2nd grade sister Ogawa Haruka as MCs. However, the program was so dismal that it couldn't even compare to "Is it True or False?", and it only lasted for just over a year before quickly ending. (In fact, the broadcast time was extremely insufficient, and many times they had to give way to other programs because no one watched.)

  He thought that if he could create a program that would make people's eyes light up in the five years before AKB was founded, it might greatly improve his relationship with the TV station. With this relationship, he tried to create good programs after AKB was founded, changing the situation where AKB became popular but had no decent programs on TV, which could be said to have no foundation at all.

  As for how to lead AKB to survive in the golden time slot in the future, Zhou Xiao still has no idea, but this goal is a must-do for him, so now if there is an opportunity, it is also very necessary to participate more in the production of TV programs.

  "Alright, since they've invited us, I'll go ahead and write a script first to show them. If they think it's good, we can use it; if not, no big deal. When is the recording scheduled?" Zhou Xiao asked.

  "Once on November 9th a week later, and once more three weeks after that. The broadcast time will be one week after the recording is completed." said Watanabe Keiko.

  "I'm on it. I know their recording process for this thing, and time is a bit tight. Come to my place tomorrow, and I'll give it to you once I've finished writing it," said Zhou Xiao.

  Most planning can be completed in one shot, but the final exam plan is divided into two shots because the first shot is for answering papers and the second shot is for announcing results. However, the two weeks in between are not used for grading, which only takes a few hours to complete. The time in between is left for the program team to work on the script. In other words, before the recording of the show starts, the program team basically has no script.

  But Zhou Xiao was very clear that there were still many things that could be done before announcing the results.

  Firstly, in terms of selecting participants, this project initially chose fixed members from the 99th term, such as Akira Kuroba, Hiroshi Hamaguchi, and Takeshi Kitano. However, Shuhei knew that these people were not enough, and it was necessary to add transfer students to increase conflict, such as adding highly educated people to oppose Akira Kuroba, adding other fools to oppose Hiroshi Hamaguchi, and so on. In the early stages of the program, members would simply enter the classroom one by one at the beginning of each episode. However, this became boring in later episodes, so during the final exams, members were given various fun or bizarre tasks when they entered, and just as they were focused on doing these actions, the door next to them would suddenly open, bringing laughter to the program.

  For example, the host Okamura Takashi has many places that need more humorous elements. For instance, every time before the program starts, the camera will focus on Okamura's feet wearing slippers. At the beginning of this project, the camera simply focused on his feet in a boring way, and there was no later addition of Okamura suddenly standing up on tiptoes, which would inevitably create a humorous effect.

  After such small changes, there are many more in the later stages, not only for the performing members but also for the surrounding environment. These subtle changes are what truly attract people to this project that has been done many times and still has many fans.

  A few days later, Zhou Xiao appeared on TV again because of his song "Small Love", after several months, the Japanese Music Association finally certified the sales of 2 million copies and issued a certificate to him. Along with this certificate came news that he was nominated for the Best New Artist award at the Japan Record Awards and the Album of the Year award. Of these two awards, Zhou Xiao had almost no chance of winning the Album of the Year award, as the top prize in 2000 went to "Tsunami", and whether in terms of popularity or sales, Zhou Xiao was definitely no match for Souta's "Minami no Hoshi". Even if the top prize didn't go to Souta, there was still Fukuyama Masaharu's "Sakurazaka" behind him. Although Zhou Xiao's "Small Love" had surpassed many other songs, it still fell short of winning an award.

  In terms of sales, Bingchuan Qingzhi can't compare to Zhou Xiao's 2 million sales, but he has an advantage over Zhou in two aspects: first, he debuted as a singer-songwriter, and secondly... most of the time, Zhou Xiao doesn't feel like being a Chinese person makes a difference in the Japanese entertainment industry, but at critical moments, when facing off against a Japanese opponent who is also a singer-songwriter, even Zhou Xiao himself can't help but associate it with nationality and country.

  He himself, of course, did not want to be associated with these things, and on the surface, Japanese media probably wouldn't even mention this, but when judges choose new people to give awards to, Zhou Xiao can't guarantee that they will really be as fair as he hopes.