Historical dramas are warming up, but it is difficult to see the popularity of those days

In Liu Heping's view, no matter which historical period it is, the important thing is that the audience can have strong realistic observation and emotional resonance after watching the drama. Being able to achieve this is what historical drama producers should pursue.

A historical drama that was once unparalleled in the limelight has experienced ups and downs. Last Thursday night, the costume historical drama "The Rise of the Great Qin Empire" suddenly started broadcasting at 8 o'clock on CCTV Department 1 after two years of backlog, and "parachuted" into the hot search list without any publicity. Early this morning,"Ming Dynasty 1566" will be replayed as a member drama on Youku. com, and will also be available on Chongqing Satellite TV's prime evening slot on the 25th of this month. For a time, it seemed that the historical drama was warming up. After ten years of ups and downs, the drama has not changed, but people's hearts and the market are undergoing earth-shaking changes.

History: The trilogy was only broadcast ten years later.

Speaking of the launch of "The Rise of the Great Qin Empire", in the audience's words, it was "waiting until all the flowers withered." As the third part of the trilogy of the "Great Qin Empire" series, the series has been finally broadcast for a full ten years since the first "Fission of the Great Qin Empire" was filmed in 2007.

"Great Qin Empire" is based on a series of historical novels of the same name written by scholar Sun Haohui. There are six original works in total. In 2008, after the filming of the first film "The Fission of the Great Qin Empire", it waited for CCTV to schedule it. However, after waiting for three years, it failed to do so, and in 2009 it chose to premiere in the United States and Taiwan. After that, the play was broadcast on several satellite TV stations including Shaanxi, Southeast, Hebei, and Henan. In 2011, the director of the show was changed from Huang Jianzhong in the first film to Ding Hei. The filming of the second film,"The Verses and Verses of the Great Qin Empire", was completed that year and premiered on CCTV in 2013.

Although the pace of only two years to broadcast one movie is already slow enough, the third movie "The Rise of the Great Qin Empire", which was scheduled to premiere at least in 2015, has not been released yet. In fact, when director Ding Hei was filming the second one, he had already planned the third one at the same time. The filming time of the third one was very similar to that of the second one. That is, around 2013, the third one was actually in preparation for broadcast.

It was not until February 9 this year that the third part was quietly premiered on CCTV 1. Even before it was broadcast, the show changed the rule of domestic dramas being announced at least half a month in advance. It was announced on official Weibo last Thursday night with only four hours left before the premiere. It was ridiculed by the audience as "zero publicity".

Reality: Historical dramas are unlikely to be popular back then.

If a historical drama is defective in quality, it is reasonable for the platform to refuse to broadcast it. However, according to the rating website Douban, the first part of "The Great Qin Empire" scored 9.0 points, and the second part scored 8.5 points. The third part,"The Rise of the Great Qin Empire", which premiered less than a week ago, also quickly reached a high score of 9.0 points. There is no problem with the drama, but it has not been broadcast for a long time. In the final analysis, it is still closely related to the market changes of domestic dramas in the past decade.

Back in 2013, the market response received by the second part of "Daqin Empire" was not satisfactory. After the show was broadcast on CCTV 1, the audience rating was only 0.87%, which was disastrous. Compared with the 3.19% rating for "King of Drama" and "Let's Get Married" in the same year. "At that time, the arrival rate of this drama was not high, and there was no online platform to continue broadcasting after it was broadcast. Whether it was in terms of ratings or reputation, it was actually not ideal." Film and television observer Yang Wenshan pointed out that the broadcast effect of the second installment will have a direct impact on the release of the third installment, and historical dramas around 2013 were in the market again.

Since 2013, historical dramas have been defeated one after another. The opening drama "The Legend of Chu and Han" has been criticized by the audience. The ratings of "Zhao's Orphan Case" are even inferior to the same period's "Million Brides". The historical drama effect of famous directors, famous editors and celebrity stories has begun to work in the market. Completed plays such as "The Book Saint Wang Xizhi","The Legend of the Northern Wei Dynasty","The Legend of Kublai Khan","The Legend of Da Yuer","The Twilight of the Empire", etc. Although there are many famous directors Hu Mei and famous actor Tang Guoqiang, they are also among the backlog of dramas. Some plays are broadcast through overseas distribution and terrestrial channels, but it is difficult to reproduce the scenes when traditional dramas such as "Kangxi Dynasty" and "Yongzheng Dynasty" were popular across the country in the early years.

In June 2013, the "Ancient Restriction Order" issued by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television poured cold water on historical dramas. The ban requires that the total number of episodes of costume dramas broadcast annually by satellite TV during prime time shall not exceed 15% of the total number of episodes of all dramas broadcast by satellite TV during prime time that year. According to estimates, this directly led to satellite TV's broadcast capacity of costume dramas falling to two a year, and the already heavily backlog of historical dramas is facing a more difficult broadcast environment.

Reflection: Formal drama is not out of date, and its demands are still in

historical drama. The ebb tide of formal drama is not sudden. After Liu Heping, the screenwriter who once wrote "Yongzheng Dynasty", launched his new book "Ming Dynasty 1566" in 2007, the ratings of the play also fell. It is regarded as the beginning of the decline of historical formal drama. "This is also due to the times." Liu Heping later concluded that the show premiered on Hunan Satellite TV in 2007. Hunan Satellite TV was established for entertainment, and the audience group overlapped little with the target audience of historical dramas. Coupled with the non-prime time slot at that time, the broadcast time was arranged after 10 p.m., it also led to a decline in ratings.

Yang Wenshan deeply agrees with this. With the cold weather of costume dramas in the market, the broadcasting environment of domestic dramas has also undergone earth-shaking changes."After the rise of satellite TV, commercial and market-oriented drama selection standards will naturally tend to be more favorable. The genre is tilted towards the genre that is easy to win the audience. When overhead historical dramas such as "Legend of Zhen Huan","Legend of Lu Zhen" and "Palace" set ratings records, the types of dramas that satellite TV can easily pay for have also become these costume idol dramas." When video websites entered the market and could offer higher drama prices than satellite TV, genres represented by fantasy costume dramas such as "The Legend of the Sword and Fairy" and "The Thousand Bones of Flowers" became the mainstream again. Historical dramas, as a branch of costume dramas, were completely squeezed to the margins.

However, the audience's appeal for high-quality historical dramas still exists. When "The Legend of Mi Yue", which reflects the legendary life of the female politician Mi Yue, was on the hit, many viewers took the initiative to propose that Mi Ba Zi, created by Ning Jing in the "Great Qin Empire" series, is closer to historical reality, and once inspired the reruns of the first two parts of the show on the Internet. The recent revival of "The Rise of the Great Qin Empire" and "The Ming Dynasty 1566" can be seen as a sign of recovery. In Liu Heping's view, no matter which historical period it is, the important thing is that the audience can have strong realistic observation and emotional resonance after watching the drama. Being able to achieve this is what historical drama producers should pursue. "Although China is currently in a period of cultural transformation, and 'IP' and 'small fresh meat' are lively for a while, practitioners must keep a clear mind, because these phenomena are popular for a while, will decay quickly, and will not become mainstream."

Editor: Nancy