133 Number One on the US Billboard Hot 100

In the United States, indeed throughout the entire world, no talent show had ever generated such an enormous response on the day after its finale.

CNN released several figures from the final episode of The Voice, leaving countless television-industry professionals utterly stunned.

“Average rating: 17.1. Peak rating: 18.9. Total viewers: 53 million. Total votes: 21 million.”

Those figures alone made TC Entertainment the darling of countless advertisers and every major television network in America the following day.

Before TC Entertainment had even announced its plans for the second season, advertisers were already waving checks, eager to purchase commercial slots on The Voice. One advertiser had even offered the astonishing sum of $150 million for naming rights.

If total advertising revenue was calculated at 3.5 times the naming-rights fee, then before the second season’s production plans had even been finalized, The Voice had already secured the potential for more than $500 million in advertising revenue.

Naturally, neither Li Daniu, the company’s owner, nor Quinn, TC Entertainment’s general manager, accepted the somewhat insane offer. In their view, they had already created a ratings miracle. Why not create an advertising-revenue miracle as well?

The five major American networks were equally eager to obtain a program with such extraordinary ratings. ABC, which had partnered with the first season, even asked for the money Li Daniu had previously paid to purchase airtime to be returned.

Note carefully: they asked.

No television network had ever willingly returned money that had already entered its pockets to a program producer. Their sole purpose was to secure the opportunity to work with Li Daniu on the second season.

As for the advertisers and television networks, Li Daniu gave Quinn only one instruction: award the rights to the highest bidder.

He made demands of foreign networks that wished to purchase the format and produce their own versions of the show as well.

In addition to paying a format fee, TC Entertainment would retain the right to sign the contestants.

It was not that Li Daniu did not want to produce the program himself in other countries. He simply did not have enough people to manage such an undertaking. Moreover, every country had different requirements for television production companies.

Very few countries, after all, allowed so many privately owned television networks and production agencies to operate as freely as the United States did.

If Li Daniu wanted to produce the show in every major country, he could not simply establish a company and hire a few employees in each one. He would also have to secure the necessary production qualifications and deal with the approval procedures.

There was no need to undertake such a thankless task. As long as he could collect the format fees and retain the right to sign contestants—even if he could sign only a few contestants from each season—his objective would be achieved.

Apart from its impact on the television industry and the advertising world, the finale of The Voice also triggered a tremendous response across America for another reason: the song Li Daniu had written.

The winner of the first season was Jule, the Black woman who had been the very first contestant to appear in the first episode—a middle-aged woman with an ordinary appearance who possessed a voice like something from heaven.

The result provoked no complaints from viewers online. Through the season, Jule had accumulated an enormous following. Her Facebook followers had even surpassed Li Daniu’s, reaching 61 million and placing her seventh on the list of music celebrities with the most followers.

In that respect, she was very much like Susan Boyle in Li Daniu’s former life. Almost everyone had been conquered by Jule’s heavenly voice. Because she looked completely ordinary, viewers also felt a powerful sense of identification with her.

An utterly ordinary Black woman had entered a talent show and gained the attention of 61 million fans. If that was not the American Dream, what was?

After Jule was crowned the champion, Li Daniu took the stage. Under the gaze of countless viewers, he brought out a song he had chosen for her.

Many viewers had been eagerly anticipating this moment. A great number of them were already Li Daniu’s fans.

Jule did not disappoint. She decided to perform the song live.

After the two coaches took turns singing it, Jule, who had become somewhat familiar with the melody, stood at the center of the stage and began to sing from the sheet music Li Daniu had brought her.

Since it was her first time performing the song, there were a few imperfections. Nevertheless, the audience in the studio and the viewers in front of their televisions were all stunned by it.

Why did they want to hum along after hearing it only once? Why did their bodies instinctively begin to move with the beat?

When the performance ended, nearly everyone who had heard the song was left with the same thought: What were they supposed to do if they wanted to hear it again?

Unlike other talent shows, where the online discussion at the end usually focused on the contestants, the overwhelming majority of the online discussion after this episode revolved around a single question:

Where could they listen to the song?

Neither the television network nor any website would rebroadcast the episode until at least the following day. As a result, countless people rushed to the Facebook pages of Li Daniu and Jule, leaving messages asking for the song.

In the brief two hours after the program ended, the number of messages requesting the song on their pages exceeded five million. Many people had left messages several times, but even so, the figure revealed just how popular the song had become.

Jule truly deserved her reputation as the celebrity who was least like a celebrity. After seeing so many requests, she contacted TC Entertainment at half past midnight, following an entire day of rehearsals and the tense competition. The company found a recording studio and a band for her, and within half an hour she had recorded the song.

She was already a contracted singer with TC Entertainment—and one of its leading artists—so she naturally enjoyed certain privileges.

As soon as the recording was complete, Jule uploaded the song to her Facebook page.

Li Daniu, who had not yet gone to bed, shared it immediately.

The reason Li Daniu had agreed to let Jule upload the song so easily and allow listeners to hear it online was directly connected to the nature of Facebook in this world.

Here, many singers released their songs on Facebook. The songs could be streamed for free, but anyone who wanted to download them had to pay.

Songs were different from books. Few people reread a book immediately after finishing it, whereas when people found a song they liked, they generally preferred to download it to their own devices rather than listen to it online every time.

The song was released at one in the morning, yet within a single hour it had been streamed 5.7 million times. Even more astonishingly, it had been downloaded 1.2 million times.

Each download cost very little—only fifty cents. One point two million downloads amounted to merely $600,000 in revenue, and that was before taxes and the platform’s share had been deducted.

That amount was nothing remarkable to Li Daniu in his current circumstances. What shocked him was the speed at which the money had been earned.

A song released at one in the morning had generated $600,000 in revenue in a mere hour. What about the future? How much money could the song ultimately make?

And online downloads were not the only source of income. There were also record sales. Although record revenue was no longer as glorious as it had been in the past, physical albums were expensive.

Add in concert tickets and endorsement fees, and Li Daniu finally understood why the three major record companies of his former world had been able to generate more than six billion dollars in annual revenue. He had seen that figure in 2015, no less.

After spending the night dreaming about competing with the music companies of this world for a share of the pie, Li Daniu received the latest sales figures for Jule’s new song at noon the next day.

“Eighty-three million streams. Thirteen million downloads.”

That meant that nearly a quarter of the more than fifty million people who had watched the finale the night before had chosen to pay for the download. The resulting revenue had reached $6.5 million.

When had making money become so easy?

Thinking of the many classic songs he possessed that were no weaker than this one, Li Daniu felt that construction planning for the residential district on New Tuvalu could finally begin.

Having created such a miracle, the song climbed the charts with irresistible momentum and reached the top position on America’s most authoritative music chart—the Billboard Hot 100.

The American Billboard charts were followed by far more than American listeners. They attracted tremendous attention throughout the world.

Thus, when people opened the Billboard Hot 100 the following day, they were astonished to discover that a song had suddenly appeared at number one out of nowhere.

What song was this? How had it reached the top without even going through the usual chart-climbing process?

It had not climbed the charts at all. It had simply parachuted straight into first place.

Unable to resist, countless people clicked on the song, Rolling in the Deep.

The number of paid downloads on Facebook began rising again, because there was nowhere else to download it. Naturally, pirate-download sites did not count.

To be continued.