"Hey, have you heard? Something's going on at Asahi TV..."
"I heard, I heard. It's just news that suddenly spread on the internet, everywhere. It's despicable, those guys have no bottom line..."
"It's not just Asahi, the other TV stations too..."
At this moment, the talk show is still ongoing, and Takayuki is still checking the broadcasting effect behind the camera in the studio.
Overall, he is very satisfied with the situation. That's already good enough.
But at this moment, several TV station employees who came in seem to be whispering about something.
Takayuki didn't pay much attention to it at first, but soon discussions about other TV stations became more and more frequent.
This made him start to feel suspicious too.
Kubo, the station chief, was also unaware of the reason, so he directly pulled over someone to ask what was going on.
After the person hesitantly finished explaining, Kubo was stunned on the spot.
"Just fifteen minutes ago, various scandals involving the top management of the TV stations spread all over the internet. There are TV stations evading taxes, top executives having 'private meetings' with several female celebrities at the same time, harassment of female subordinates, and so much more, all coming out at once."
After hearing this, Kubo felt something was wrong and hurriedly bid farewell to Takayuki. Then he rushed out of the studio, completely disregarding his own image as the station chief.
Takayuki also heard the explanation from the employee who had just come in and was equally surprised.
But he wasn't shocked by the news itself. Takayuki, who has been living after 2020, has heard plenty of absurd news, but the collective exposure of scandals involving top TV station executives on the internet is a bit unusual.
Usually, scandals emerge one by one, but the employee just now mentioned "so many."
How many is "so many"?
Takayuki seems to be unable to resist the urge to find a computer to take a look.
It's a pity that the mobile internet hasn't fully matured yet, but it's said that the development of mobile internet is already in progress, and it won't be long before it's commercially available.
But just as the live broadcast ended, this live event came to an end, and the public relations personnel on stage will continue to visit TV programs and newspaper columns with other public relations teams to continue promoting electronic games. However, Takayuki doesn't need to follow them anymore; they can handle it themselves.
"Thank you all for your hard work."
As the relaxation in the studio just ended, the host and others were still bowing slightly to express their gratitude to the employees, and then a group of anxious employees spread messages throughout the studio as if something big had happened.
"Takayuki, what's going on? Why do these people look so panicked?"
Takahashi approached Takayuki with a puzzled look.
Takayuki shrugged, "It seems like there's some scandal outbreak at the TV stations."
As soon as Takayuki's words were heard, Takahashi's eyes lit up, "Scandal outbreak at the TV stations? At Tokyo TV?"
"It sounds like... it's many, many."
"Many, many?"
"We'll find a computer later to take a look. It's said that they're everywhere on the internet."
Takahashi seemed excited. He said, "President Takayuki, this is a great opportunity."
"Opportunity?"
Takahashi nodded vigorously. "Yes, you may not understand these, but if these scandals are serious enough, they can divert people's attention very well. Originally, the fighting incidents involving our electronic games weren't serious, it's just that those TV stations deliberately fanned the flames, hoping to interfere with legislation through their influence and suppress electronic games. But as long as this topic is no longer the focus of public attention, and the discussion heat decreases, then our crisis can be directly resolved."
Makes sense.
Takayuki hadn't thought about it so much just now; he's not someone who deals with PR crises, so he didn't make the connection immediately.
But Takahashi is obviously an old hand in this industry and knows best what to do.
The best solution, in fact, is not to actively come forward to save the situation in the event of a crisis.
The best solution is to divert public attention and make them stop paying attention to this matter.
Then it's about saving reputation.
Takahashi has always wanted to divert people's attention. The various pieces of news announced during the live broadcast are already a way to divert the topic, not to dwell on the fighting incidents.
But this way of diverting attention is obviously not as effective as some sensational news from other industries.
"Let's go, let's find a computer."
Takayuki also wants to see what kind of news has caused such panic among these people; it must be something significant.
Takayuki and Takahashi found a public rest area in the TV station where there are public computers for visitors and company employees to use.
But by the time they got there, the computers were already occupied, with many TV station employees gathered around one computer discussing loudly.
"Oh my god, my favorite innocent actress turned out to be like this..."
"Damn it! These guys evaded taxes and embezzled several billion yen, they're so audacious!"
"These top executives should go to hell!"
The TV station employees were cursing angrily, and Takayuki and Takahashi curiously approached.
One TV station employee was sitting in front of the computer, quickly browsing through various pieces of information posted on the internet.
Nowadays, whenever you open a normal webpage, a dialogue box pops up.
This dialogue box contains news about scandals involving the top management of certain TV stations.
Just like the employee whom Kubo, the station chief, stopped earlier said, there are many, many scandals, all bursting out at the same time.
Scandals about tax evasion, secret political donations to certain party members, harassment of female subordinates, top executives having private meetings with female celebrities, and so on.
Every time you open a normal webpage, a new piece of scandal pops up, completely different from the previous one.
Takayuki was astonished by the intensity of the news, while Takahashi was excited because of the intensity.
"Takayuki, it seems we don't need to worry about our issues anymore. I briefly checked just now, and many of the news are about scandals involving the top management of those four TV stations. Someone with expertise in the internet is secretly helping us!"
An expert on the internet...
Takayuki couldn't help but think of Ayano Tsukino.
But... it shouldn't be, right? She's not that big, she usually just seems to be good at computer knowledge, she shouldn't be able to dig up so much dirt on her own, this must be the result of many teams collectively investigating. One person definitely couldn't do it.
But Ayano Tsukino probably knows something.
Takayuki turned to Takahashi. "So now our crisis is resolved?"
Takahashi nodded. "Basically resolved. Compared to these suddenly bursting scandals, our fighting incidents can only be considered trivial. Unless these TV stations are willing to disregard their own image and try their best to discredit us."
Obviously, this situation is almost impossible.
At this moment, except for Tokyo TV and NHK, the middle and upper levels of the other four TV stations, even the lower levels, are in a panic.
"Damn it! What's going on? Why did so many negative news about us suddenly appear on the internet? Who took these photos? Who left the evidence?!"
Roars came from several high-level offices at the same time.
Actually, these scandals are not that big, nor are they small.
The key is that there are too many at once.
If only one or two of their scandals suddenly appeared, they could find a way to resolve them and let the public gradually forget.
But now a bunch of them are popping up on the internet.
You can't stop it.
Now, anywhere in Japan where you can access the internet, you can see these news, and they're all different.
Of course, the TV stations won't be seriously damaged because of this.
But for the current top management of the TV stations, it's fatal.
Some of them involve moral and ethical issues, but some directly violate the law.
Ring ring ring.
The phones of many top TV station executives are ringing one after another.
Some received invitations for tea from the Japanese government directly, and some received 'kind condolences' from their higher-ups.
For a while, chaos ensued in many TV stations.
Various talk shows that were originally planned to discredit electronic games were immediately canceled.
The top management was sweating profusely, and they hurriedly asked their subordinates to find ways to mitigate the impact.
However, the internet is not their territory but belongs to a group of new forces: the internet nouveau riche.
These are a group of people who suddenly became rich during the rise of the internet and have the trend of becoming new tycoons through the internet.
This is a group completely separated from the traditional power camps of Japan in the past, and they cannot find a place to speak to eliminate the internet's influence.
In fact, the internet nouveau riche are also confused at the moment.
Their websites were operating fine, but suddenly they became news websites reporting behind-the-scenes scandals, which is ridiculous.
In the early days of the internet, there was no systematic network defense. Even people who knew a little about computers could invade a certain network platform.
If they could understand more advanced network knowledge, they would be like fish entering water in today's internet, freely swimming everywhere.
However, the main targets of the attacks were those two or three websites, which were also the most frequently visited.
But that's enough, just like people in future China almost always choose to log in to Baidu to search for things when using a computer.
Once these websites are invaded, anything on them becomes known to everyone.
However, when the internet nouveau riche found out that the intruder was just spreading news and didn't cause any disruption to their network, they relaxed. This intruder should be relatively normal, but it also alerted them to start considering network security issues, otherwise this problem might not be big this time, but it might be next time.
In just one day, the fighting incidents involving electronic games were completely ignored, and now people are everywhere gossiping.
The big gossips of the TV stations are much more delicious than mere fighting incidents!