Lustre Media : A Korean Entertainment Agency

Survival Show Meeting

      Seo Heejun sat at the head of the table, staring at the powerpoint one of the interns had made for Song Taemin, his head of marketing. Heejun sighs and tries to pay attention.

         "......so I think that is why we try to make this show happen without the help of MNET....."
    That grabbed Heejun's attention. A survival show without the help of MNET's popularity? No rigged voting? No evil editing? Maybe this intern is onto something.

         "So what your saying is to put together some funds to make our own survival show to show people that not all shows are rigged?" Heejun doesn't care that he cut the intern off. Everyones eyes are on him now. The intern takes a second, but nods his head. Heejun is awake and listening now. He nods the intern on, and starts to form a plan in his head. Maybe this could work. He'd have to talk to HIS bosses, the executives at KQ. Heejun smirks as he once again lets his train of thought go wild. This may just work.

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Heejun sighs as he once again has to sit in silence while the executives talk without him. He just needed a little money and some connections to other companies! It shouldn't be that hard, right? The door swings open and Heejun stands abruptly, bowing an appropriate 90 degrees. The executives walk to the other side of the table and sit, then motion for Heejun to do the same.

"Mr. Seo.." Mr. Park starts. The man seems to hesitate telling Heejun this, "we have been talking and we just don't think that we would have the funds to put this on." Heejun visibly deflates after that. The man beside Mr. Park clears his throat.

"We came up with a rough estimate of what it would cost, and without the help of a big broadcasting station, we just wouldn't be able to do it."

    "I've done numbers too!" Heejun exclaims. He instantly backs down and bows his head in an apology. The executives give him a look, but Mr. Park lets him speak.

                     "Look, I know two billion won seems like a lot, but Produce 101 spent four billion. There will be differences. One, we won't have 101 girls. We'll have 50 girls. Two, we will let fans do a majority of the voting. We can make polls on our SNS'. And three, we will be looking for talent, not the drama most shows are focused on. I think that if we change it up a bit, more people would be wanting to watch. We'd judge them off of pure talent and not who's company pays the most. I think if we plan everything out now, we could save enough money. Especially if we take a little money from all of our sources. Fellaz 2 and DIA Girls' YouTubes are very popular, and ATEEZ and POISE are making names for themselves. I think if we really worked hard we could accomplish this." Heejun finally lets himself breathe and looks the executives in the eyes. They are all staring at him, until Mr. Oh speaks up.

        "Mr. Seo, let us review your papers and the numbers, and we will get back to you." At that, all seven of them stood up and walked back out the door.

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     "So, after careful considerations and some money moving, it turns out that we have enough money to put on your survival show and make our own broadcasting station if we wanted too." Heejun's jaws dropped at that. These were the same men telling him that his survival show wouldn't even be possible seven hours earlier.

                    "Great! So when can we start? I already have some trainees who have been waiting for a chance to debut and..."

          "Mr. Seo! This will take us at least 6 months to just save up for. We can't do it instantly." Mr. Oh looked at Heejun like he was crazy, leaning forward slightly.

     "Not to mention the time it's going to take us to make a broadcasting station and convince other companies that it's a good idea to let their trainee's join our show." Mr. Oh sat back and looked at the other executives. Heejun looked at the table and started to shift through his notes, desperately trying to find a way to put the show on sooner. He stopped in his flick through of DIA Girls as his mind started working.

                  "What if, we take everything from DIA Girls? Like, put all of our female trainees into the competition. The only advantage they'd have is knowing each other. I mean it's not a big advantage, but their covers get a lot of profit. It would cut down our wait till too, so all you would need to focus on is making a broadcasting station to broadcast the show from. Unless you waited for that and used a different broadcasting service."

            "What do you suggest?" Mr. Park asks Heejun. Heejun smiled to himself and straightened in his chair.

   "What if we partnered with Viki? We could use the money for the broadcasting station to buy a spot on the Viki channel, and we could make it free for everyone. Then we don't have to worry about people not seeing it." The executives look at each other and turn their chairs around. Heejun is almost shaking with excitement at this point. They turn around a second later and Mr. Jang speaks up.

                 "Mr. Seo, it looks like you may be getting your wish."

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8/23/23