[Chapter 664: What's Wrong]
With such a hot topic, Survivor's ratings hit new highs the following week, averaging 25 million viewers with ease. The premiere of Friends' sixth season also exceeded 20 million viewers, showing a very stable performance.
In contrast, ER's performance fell a bit short. Though it aired two consecutive episodes, ER's debut averaged only 17 million viewers.
This outcome didn't surprise Eric, as the subject matter of ER was relatively niche, and it lacked the long-standing popularity of Friends or the fresh, eye-catching format of Survivor.
However, this 'shortcoming' was only in comparison to Survivor and Friends. As a brand new drama series, 17 million viewers placed it among the top new shows airing that fall. Plus, ER received excellent reviews from critics and audiences alike. With its good reputation, Eric believed that the show's ratings could still show a promising upward trend.
Thanks to the strong ratings across these shows, from Monday's Monday Night Football to Thursday's Friends, ABC's lineup of high-rated shows boosted the network's market share to an enviable level. Competing networks, which had expected ABC to fall into a ratings slump due to its merger with Firefly, saw no such decline. ABC's strong position was nearly unshakeable in the short term, forcing executives at rival networks to brainstorm ways to steal viewership from each other.
...
While the network was thriving, Eric had returned to New York from Long Island to begin the final stages of preparation for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. While most of the setup at the Lexington Avenue Armory was already complete, there were still countless details that required Eric's personal attention.
Putting aside testing lighting, staging, and sound effects, just the camera setups required constant adjustments. To gather enough footage and achieve satisfactory results, at least eight professional cameras needed to be simultaneously operated from various positions: the front stage, backstage, fixed points, track shots, handheld, crane shots, and aerial views. Although Eric had plenty of visuals in his mind to reference, just testing the camera positions took nearly half a week, and they only had four weeks left until the early November shoot.
As Eric worked tirelessly behind the scenes, the most talked-about figures in Manhattan were undoubtedly the forty Victoria's Secret Angels. Interestingly enough, New York had just hosted its Fall Fashion Week in mid-September. In other years, fashion media from around the world would typically leave soon after, but the forthcoming inaugural Victoria's Secret annual show kept them around. This was due not only to Eric, the 'cross-over' director's personal pull but also because the absence of the top forty models from Fashion Week had diminished its appeal. The media's curiosity regarding what kind of show an outsider like Eric would produce heightened significantly.
Due to strict confidentiality measures, the media stayed in New York with little insider information to work with. As they waited, they focused much of their energy on the Angel supermodels who made occasional public appearances in Manhattan. During this time, even the Angels' rare outings attracted a swarm of journalists, so much so that the throng could cause traffic congestion in the streets.
Despite spending months preparing for the fashion show and missing the crucial New York Fashion Week, the combined media resources of Firefly Group and Yahoo had propelled the Angels to a level of attention far above that of most models in the industry.
On Yahoo's fashion section, a special feature dedicated to the Victoria's Secret show listed detailed profiles of all forty Angels, racking up impressive click-through rates over several months. Noticing this trend, some savvy modeling agencies rushed to set up their own websites to promote their models similarly. However, this poor imitation fell flat; those hastily launched agency websites received negligible traffic compared to Yahoo's vast audience, failing to achieve similar promotional effects.
Though more intensive promotions would come after the broadcast of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, by that time, some Angels were already getting a bit carried away by their sudden surge in fame. When people float too high, they often lose their grounded perspective, leading them to make impulsive decisions.
The Armory on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan was an old, dark brown brick building. The name "Armory" hinted at its past use. However, since World War II, this venue, which could hold five thousand people, had mainly served as a site for various concerts, plays, and gatherings.
Inside the tightly secured Armory, Eric was personally adjusting the cameras on the track beside the runway with his longtime collaborator and camera director, Nicole Frank. Emily, dressed in a professional outfit, hurried inside with her assistant, a magazine in hand and her face slightly tense.
Hearing the click of high heels approaching from behind, Eric turned to glance before refocusing on the camera mount. "Who got to you? You're not worried Chris is staying too long in Finland and might dump you, are you?" he joked.
After the GSM standard became common, Nokia, which was one of the first to release mobile products using this communication standard, experienced rapid growth. The various issues arising during the company's swift expansion often led Chris to travel to Europe frequently, and he had recently gone to Nokia's headquarters in Finland.
Emily ignored Eric's joke, handing him the magazine. "You can look for yourself."
Eric raised his right hand. "I have grease on my fingers. Just tell me."
So, Emily had no choice but to take back the magazine, opening it whose cover she pointed at him. "Here."
Eric took a look. The magazine, titled Fashion New York, showcased a street photo of a model in a leather outfit and denim from the recent Victoria's Secret show. He recognized the model as Heidi Klum and smiled. "That street shot is stunning. What about it?"
*****
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