PROJECT 1 · TELEVISION RATINGS AND SUCCESS

What Makes a Show
Successful?

A Programme Analysis of Blossoms Shanghai (China)
and Squid Game (Korea / Netflix)

Team China · 4 presenters · 8–10 min + 2 min Q&A · [DATE TBC]

THE QUESTION

Success has three meanings — but ratings pay the bills

AUDIENCE RATINGS

Sets advertising income and market position.

AWARDS & PRESTIGE

Awards, critical review, prestige.

CULTURAL IMPACT

Tourism, language, public debate.

Success is always relative to a channel's goals and its audience.

THE MEASUREMENT TOOLKIT

RATING (AMR)

% of total population watching — scale

SHARE (SHR)

% of viewers at that time — competition

REACH

Everyone who watched at least one minute

GRP

reach × frequency → advertising value

SOURCE Course slides: 5. Audience Rating, pp. 2, 5, 6, 10 (adapted from Péter Kolosi).

THE CASE

Blossoms Shanghai: a drama that became a city event

FACT FILE

PREMIERE: 27 Dec 2023 · CCTV-8 prime time
PLATFORM: Tencent Video · Mandarin + Shanghainese
FORMAT: 30 episodes · directed by Wong Kar-wai
SETTING: Shanghai in the 1990s · literary adaptation
AFTERLIFE: Landmarks, dialect and 1990s songs revived

2.6%PEAK RATING · CCTV-8, FIRST 10 MIN

1.785%AVERAGE RATING · CVB, FULL RUN

31,129TENCENT VIDEO HEAT INDEX

5MAGNOLIA AWARDS, 2024

Nearly 30% of all drama plays · 14 days at #1 Dengta / Lighthouse Professional Edition, Jan 2024

SOURCE China Audio-Visual Big Data (CVB); Tencent Video; Dengta; Magnolia Awards; The Paper / CNR, 2024.

WHY IT WORKED

Five drivers behind one hit

01 GENRE & FORMAT

Literary adaptation, film-level craft — an event, not a daily soap.

02 TARGET AUDIENCE

1990s nostalgia, Shanghai identity and dialect.

03 SCHEDULING

Year-end CCTV-8 prime time; satellite follow-up and a second dialect version.

04 PROMOTION

Tencent homepage takeovers and a national news cycle; the main Weibo topic reached roughly 3.58 billion reads.

05 CULTURAL SPILLOVER

Peace Hotel and Huanghe Road became landmarks; the novel sold out and Shanghainese enjoyed a revival.

SOURCE Project brief, slide 2 (genre, format, target audience, scheduling, promotion); The Paper / Fujian Daily / CNR, 2024.

READING THE NUMBERS

Three claims: rating, share, reach

HIGH RATING (AMR)

Many people watched, measured against the whole population.

HIGH SHARE (SHR)

It beat the competition in that time slot.

HIGH REACH

Many tried ≥ 1 minute. Low reach + high share = a loyal niche.

APPLIED TO BLOSSOMS SHANGHAI

2.6% in 10 minutes = a lead-in effect, NOT an average.
1.785% average = the sustained figure advertisers buy.
14 days at #1 in play share = consistently high SHR.
30 episodes × high reach = high GRP → premium ad prices.

Every number answers a different question.

SOURCE Course slides: 5. Audience Rating, pp. 4–6, 8–9; CVB and Dengta data, 2024.

THE MONEY

Advertisers buy access to audiences

286PRODUCT PLACEMENTS IN THE SERIES

40BRANDS ATTACHED TO ONE DRAMA

9–11ADS PER EPISODE VS 1–2 FOR RIVALS

BREAK PLACEMENT THEORY

Ads within or between high-rated programmes.
Breaks at narrative peaks — cliffhangers.
Early and mid-prime breaks cost the most.
Prime time = 19:00–22:00.

WHY THIS SHOW WAS PREMIUM

A high-attention audience that stays a full episode.
Cinematic craft makes brand integration durable.
Subscription pull adds a second revenue line.

→ This is what GRP monetises.

The programme is the wrapper. The audience is the product.

SOURCE The Paper / Times Finance, Jan 2024 (ad count); course slide 9; QuestMobile comparison, 2023.

THE COMPARISON

Same success, two different rulers

Dimension	Blossoms Shanghai · China	Squid Game · Korea / Netflix
Where measured	National meter panel · CCTV-8	Netflix servers · 28-day window
Headline figure	1.785% avg · 2.6% peak	1.65 bn hours · 142 m households
Audience logic	Domestic · scheduled · simultaneous	Global · on demand · algorithmic
What “reach” means	% of one country, one evening	Cumulative accounts worldwide
Money model	Ads · subscriptions · city tourism	Retention · brand value (~$900 m)
Cultural impact	Shanghai landmarks · dialect revival	Korean Wave · awards · spin-off

Neither figure converts into the other — "success" is defined differently.

SOURCE Netflix newsroom (1.65 bn hours, 2022); LA Times / IMDb ($900 m est.); CVB, Tencent Video, Magnolia Awards, 2024.

EVIDENCE ON SCREEN

The impact a rating cannot count

WATCH CLIP · 0:45

CGTN ENGLISH REPORT

A drama sends viewers into the streets of Shanghai.
Tourism and landmarks become the show's afterlife.
No ratings meter records this.
Pure English, no Chinese subtitles; a 45-second cut.

FILE blossoms-45s.mp4 · play locally if offline

Content, scheduling, loyalty and cultural value sit outside the rating.

SOURCE CGTN English video report, 2024 (self-hosted 45s clip); course slide 10.

CRITICAL REFLECTION

Can a show succeed with low ratings?

YES · PUBLIC SERVICE

Mission, diversity and cultural value — not advertising income.

YES · A NICHE

Low reach + high share = a small, loyal audience the channel serves.

YES · STREAMING

Completion, retention and the global long tail replace AMR.

"Good content" ≠ "quality content" — a reality show can be commercially successful and culturally thin.

Ratings guide decisions — but cannot replace cultural or creative evaluation.

SOURCE Course slides: 5. Audience Rating, pp. 3, 6, 10, 11; discussion questions p. 11.

THE END

What we learned — and your questions

01Success is relative to goals, audience and platform — no single ruler.
02AMR, SHR, Reach and GRP answer different questions; a headline is not a verdict.
03Streaming has not killed ratings — it has multiplied the definitions of success.

TEAM · 4 PRESENTERS [CONFIRM FINAL 3–4 WITH THE TEACHER]

A · HOST & THEORY

Cover, framework, close · [NAME TBC]

B · CASE & DRIVERS

Case, five drivers · [NAME TBC]

C · RATINGS & ADS

Ratings, advertising · [NAME TBC]

D · COMPARISON

Comparison, clip, reflection · [NAME TBC]

Q&A · 2 MINUTES · QUESTIONS WE ARE READY FOR

Low ratings? · Public service success? · Has streaming changed measurement? · Young audiences?

SOURCES CVB · Tencent Video · Dengta · Magnolia Awards · The Paper / CNR · Netflix newsroom · LA Times · course slides 5.