After discussing the general intentions of their cooperation, the next step was to officially sign the contract.
Liu Zhiwen quickly had a simple contract printed out, and both parties negotiated several specific details.
In the end, an agreement was reached.
Pacific Audio & Video would undertake the publication and distribution of Zhou Ziheng's cassette album *Wandering Song*, with an initial pressing of 50,000 copies to be distributed first in Guangdong Province. Subsequent production numbers would depend on the orders received at the upcoming order fair.
At the same time, Pacific Audio & Video and Zhou Ziheng reached a cooperation agreement.
Over the next five years, Zhou Ziheng was required to produce no fewer than four records to be handed over to Pacific Audio & Video for distribution, with subsequent royalty splits determined by the sales performance of the previous records.
However, because Zhou Ziheng was the disadvantaged party in this arrangement, the contract still heavily favored Pacific Audio & Video.
One particular clause starkly highlighted the dominance of a major corporation.
Specifically, Pacific Audio & Video held the sole right to decide whether or not to release Zhou Ziheng's subsequent records.
In other words, if Pacific Audio & Video deemed the quality of Zhou Ziheng's records subpar, or felt they had no commercial potential in the market, they could choose not to release them.
Additionally, the contract explicitly stipulated that unless Pacific Audio & Video declined to release Zhou Ziheng's records, he was strictly prohibited from handing them over to any other record company for distribution.
It bordered on being a one-sided, bullying clause.
Yet, this was the reality.
No matter how much talent you possessed, without background or strength, you had to bow your head when faced with such terms.
Of course, from Zhou Ziheng's perspective, Pacific Audio & Video was not offering nothing in return.
Aside from covering the initial production costs of the cassette tapes and records, they were also responsible for the promotional campaign.
Furthermore, the promotional budget could not fall below a specified amount.
Signing the contract did not mean Zhou Ziheng's cassette tape could go on sale immediately.
Before that could happen, Zhou Ziheng had to cooperate with Pacific Audio & Video in shooting the record cover and an MTV music video.
Although music videos for Mainland China records had started relatively late, they were already becoming immensely popular by this period.
As early as the year before last, Pacific Audio & Video had first utilized music videos at an order fair to attract audio and video wholesalers. By pioneering this advanced visual approach, they became the record company with the highest sales volume at that year's order fair.
Ever since then, if record companies in Guangdong Province wanted to make a splash at order fairs, shooting music videos for their songs had become an essential trend to attract distributors.
Zhou Ziheng's cassette tape was naturally no exception.
If Pacific Audio & Video wanted to reap greater profits from it, shooting music videos for the songs on the tape was indispensable.
Of course, shooting music videos in Mainland China at this time wasn't all that difficult.
It mostly involved imitating the Hong Kong and Taiwan style, with the singer simply standing in front of a camera and lip-syncing.
It took Zhou Ziheng only three days, accompanying the filming crew from Pacific Audio & Video as they shuttled through the streets and alleys of Yangcheng, to complete all the music videos.
With the music videos finished and a temporary lull in his schedule, Zhou Ziheng returned to the Friendship Hotel to resume his residency singing performances.
Meanwhile, Pacific Audio & Video continued busying themselves with the preparations for the *Wandering Song* cassette.
As everyone knew, the production and distribution of a record followed a strict process.
First came the creation of the record and the filming of the music videos.
Next, a manufacturing plant was contacted to use the master tape to duplicate copies onto cassette tapes. Once a certain quantity had been produced, the record company would contact bookstores, audio-video shops, newspaper kiosks, and other retail outlets to begin stocking the merchandise.
Only after the distribution to stores was complete would the record company launch a large-scale promotional campaign to draw listeners' attention to the record, and finally, sales would officially commence.
While these steps seemed straightforward on the surface, they were actually both time-consuming and labor-intensive.
Albums, needless to say, required a tremendous amount of time spent on songwriting, accompaniment arrangement, recording, and production.
Following that, duplicating the cassette tapes required machines to copy them one by one. If the manufacturing plant was on the smaller scale, churning out tens or even hundreds of thousands of tapes required a massive investment of time just for the recording process.
Then came the distribution, which meant delivering goods door-to-door to individual shops. China was so vast that transportation alone took eight to ten days.
Promotion, by contrast, was somewhat simpler. The promotional channels available in this era were scarce, boiling down to a continuous barrage across television, radio, and newspapers to let the audience know such a record existed.
If someone heard a song on the radio and found it appealing, they would naturally seek out an audio-video shop to purchase it.
Comparatively speaking, however, Zhou Ziheng's record was much simpler in scope.
For Zhou Ziheng's record, Pacific Audio & Video was currently focusing solely on the Guangdong Province market.
As long as it achieved a certain sales volume in Guangdong, when the upcoming order fair arrived, distributors from other regions would naturally and spontaneously order this cassette tape.
Therefore, for the time being, the primary mission for Zhou Ziheng's cassette was to break into the market in Guangdong.
Only by making an impact in Guangdong could distributors from other provinces witness the potential of this cassette, recognize the profit margins, and place large-scale orders with Pacific Audio & Video, thereby gradually propelling the influence of this record nationwide.
As for the strength of Pacific Audio & Video, even Zhou Ziheng had to admit that it truly deserved its reputation as one of the current major industry giants in Mainland China.
On the third day after Zhou Ziheng finished shooting his music videos, his name began appearing frequently across major local radio stations, television networks, and newspapers throughout Guangdong Province.
Even on some of the most prominent billboards in Yangcheng, workers hoisted his posters high one by one.
On renowned radio stations such as Yangcheng's Music Sound, Guangdong Southern Radio, and Pearl River Radio, songs from his album *Wandering Song* began playing on a loop.
*Wandering Song*
*New Migrant Worker Ballad*
*Child Far From Home*
*Outside the Window*
*Double Ninth Wine*
*Ninth Ninth Daughter's Red Wine*
These few songs received the heaviest rotation.
Major radio stations seemed to have received instructions from Pacific Audio & Video; regardless of whether listeners liked them or not, the tracks were played in a continuous, bombastic rotation designed entirely to drill the melodies into people's minds.
"Good morning, dear listeners! With non-stop music and enduring joy, welcome to Music Sound. I am A-Jie, and I am A-Mei."
A-Jie: "A-Mei, I heard you aren't from Guangdong Province, but rather from Hebei?"
A-Mei: "That's right, I'm not a local of Guangdong."
A-Jie: "Then coming alone from Hebei to Guangdong to hustle and make a living must have been quite a difficult journey, right?"
A-Mei: "It was very hard. More than once, I thought to myself that this place wasn't right for me, and that I should just go home! Every time the holidays rolled around, I would always think of my mom and dad."
A-Jie: "Then what was it that kept you going?"
A-Mei: "I don't know what it was. Perhaps it was just a shred of belief!"
A-Jie: "I'm a local, and in the past, I couldn't really understand the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, missing one's family all the more during every festive season. Not until I recently listened to a certain cassette tape."
"What cassette tape?" A-Mei asked in surprise.
"A cassette tape that captures the inner voices of migrant workers. The songs on it not only strike a deep chord in your heart, but they are also in no way inferior to Hong Kong and Taiwan records. Would you like to hear it?" A-Jie asked.
"Of course!"
"Then, let us present *Wandering Song*, a cassette by the new singer Zhou Ziheng, brought to you by Pacific Audio & Video."
On the radio, as the hosts' opening introduction concluded, a melody imbued with a hint of gentle sorrow began to play.
"The wandering soul afar misses you,"
"Dear Mother."
"My wandering footsteps have roamed the ends of the earth,"
"Without a home."
...