Qingyun Group's Qingmao, Hongbing's Qiezi, and Yulin's Jixun—
These three mobile video streaming platforms
were expected to launch a large batch of drama content within the next two weeks.
Compared to Jing Yu's previous life in China,
Great Zhou's copyright protection laws for film and television were far more robust.
As a result, people were already accustomed to paying for content:
Music, television, movies, e-books—all paid.
So when new streaming apps like these appeared,
The public didn't really object to the idea of subscription or pay-per-view.
For the 100+ TV stations in Great Zhou, each of them had dozens of flagship dramas piled up.
For new dramas, profits might still be made in the first six months, through DVD sales and merchandise.
But over time, profitability faded.
Now, with these video platforms proposing to license those older dramas
with a 50-50 revenue split,
even the Big Six were showing interest—let alone the mid and small-sized stations.
After all, more platforms meant more income streams.
Besides Jing Yu and a few industry insiders who closely followed digital trends,
Even the executives of the Big Six didn't see these streaming platforms as a threat.
After all, their lifeblood was content.
As long as the stations could continue producing fresh, high-quality dramas every quarter,
There shouldn't be a problem.
No way those platforms could pull viewers away with old, dusty shows... right?
Unless the platforms started producing dramas themselves.
But making dramas—it's not exactly hard, right?
As long as you have money and talent, it should be doable.
But if it were really that easy,
why has the industry seen so few challengers to the Big Six in all these years?
Why is it that, aside from Jing Yu, there are barely any or two outliers?
It's not like the other 100+ stations lack money or people.
So everyone, including Yunteng TV, happily moved ahead with licensing deals.
Even Jing Yu's past works—like 'Hikaru no Go'—
were queued up for release on streaming soon.
Jing Yu blinked as he read through the latest reports.
Yep... just as I expected. The time has come.
In truth, Jing Yu had long foreseen the future of the streaming industry.
He had even considered starting his own platform.
But after weighing the options, he let it go.
It was just too expensive to get into.
In his past life, the major streaming giants had each burned tens of billions just to grab a piece of the market.
Every one of them was backed by corporations with hundreds of billions in capital.
And a few hit dramas wouldn't cut it.
Without strong capital support, even the best site would disappear in the crowd.
Companies like Qingyun had the resources—hundreds of billions in assets.
They could afford to burn money.
Just their quarterly marketing budgets could hit the billions.
Jing Yu wasn't about to jump in and become cannon fodder.
Sure, he could hire developers in Modo city to make an app, no problem.
But would it matter?
Even WeChat isn't technically complicated.
So why haven't other companies been able to copy it and take it down?
Same logic.
"Looks like it won't be long now," Jing Yu muttered, closing the app and clearing his mind of the news.
TV stations wouldn't disappear.
But they would inevitably be impacted—
If not by these three platforms, then eventually by others.
Jing Yu thought about it for a while, then dropped it.
But while he was staying calm and observant—
Others were not so relaxed.
For instance, the Modo-based headquarters of Qingyun Group.
That very afternoon, the team in charge of the Qingmao app had reached out to Cheng Lie.
"What's going on?"
Jing Yu had just finished filming when he noticed Cheng Lie's odd expression.
"Uh… someone contacted me."
"And?" Jing Yu asked.
"They said they want to collaborate with you on a drama."
"No interest. I'm already working with Yunteng TV. No need to complicate things.
The Big Six have already turned me down plenty of times.
They never accepted my terms—why are they still trying?"
"It's not the Big Six," Cheng Lie clarified.
"It's a representative from Qingmao's branch office."
"Didn't we meet them once during an interview?
They reached out and said they want to invite you to star in and write a flagship drama, exclusively for their platform—hoping your popularity can help boost their app downloads."
"...Huh?" Jing Yu blinked.
He paused, then let out a deep sigh.
So they finally get it.
They know if you want to make it in streaming, you can't just rely on leftovers from TV.
You have to cook up your own feast.
Whether through buying or producing—
They'd eventually have to go this route.
Targeting Jing Yu made perfect sense.
Most of Great Zhou's top-tier screenwriters were already under contract with the Big Six.
Jing Yu, as an independent talent, had the most buzz and popularity over the last two years.
"They said pricing is flexible," Cheng Lie added.
"Meaning they want to buy me out, right? All rights included?"
"Basically.
But they also said the price would be based on the commercial value of your past works—
So the payout could be much higher."
Jing Yu gave it some thought—
and shook his head.
"No need."
Hah.
He wasn't stupid enough to sell off the full rights to his work again.
In the TV era, where distribution was limited, older dramas didn't bring in much revenue.
But in the internet era, it was a whole different game.
Once your work became a classic,
People would still pay to watch it 10 or 20 years later.
Deals that seemed "worth it" now
could turn into massive regrets in the future.
Just look at the copyright sales of works like 'Ghost Blows Out the Light' or 'Jade Dynasty' in his past life.
Not to mention—
Qingmao had only been online for a few months, with just a few million users.
Even if Jing Yu sold them a drama, the boost to his own reputation would be minimal.
He wasn't against collaborating.
But if they wanted that, they'd have to scale up first.
"Got it," Cheng Lie nodded.
He hadn't been optimistic about the deal to begin with.
Even though the other side had hyped things up,
he didn't think it was worth the risk.
He had brought it up to Jing Yu just to be cautious.
But with 'Kimi ni Todoke' already topping the ratings,
What benefit could a streaming-only deal offer right now?
"Still, try to maintain a good relationship.
Be polite in the rejection.
We might not work with them now,
but who knows about the future?"
Jing Yu added.
Cheng Lie glanced at him curiously.
Usually, if Jing Yu wasn't interested in something,
He'd reject it outright, no hesitation.
So this half-open response felt strange.
"I understand," Cheng Lie said seriously.
While Jing Yu remained cautious and declined the offer for now,
The fledgling streaming platforms didn't stop there.
If they couldn't get Jing Yu,
They started targeting other people.
Many veteran writers, independent producers, and directors
Soon, I began receiving invitations.
Naturally, this trend sparked alertness from the TV industry.
But to be blunt—
awareness alone wasn't enough.
In Jing Yu's past life,
didn't the traditional TV stations see the rise of streaming?
Weren't they "on alert"?
But it still didn't stop them from losing viewers.
Tencent was wary of Douyin.
Taobao was wary of Pinduoduo and JD.com.
So what?
They all had to adapt or die.
Whether they liked it or not,
They still had to license content, collaborate, and flow with the times.
The playbook was simple:
Start by acquiring older content (domestic and foreign)
Build up your user base and library.
Then begin producing exclusive dramas and variety shows.
Thanks to Great Zhou's strong copyright laws, this wasn't hard to pull off.
It wasn't like Jing Yu's past life, where every streaming site started with piracy.
In the past, they'd pirate everything—dramas, movies, variety shows.
Once a few grew big enough to attract capital,
they'd flip the script,
turn "pro-legal,"
buy proper licenses, launch premium memberships,
and crush the smaller sites, trying to emulate their pirated path.
Sites like KuaiBo had been wiped out this way.
Eventually, only a handful of mega-companies remained.
That's not just how video platforms worked.
It was true for almost every internet industry:
Only the top 3–5 survive.
Each is worth hundreds of billions.
Dominating 80–90% of the entire market.
It was always the same play.
Jing Yu sighed.
He was tired of thinking about it.
He'd rather focus on filming.
And just like that,
Another weekend arrived.