Daenerys Entertainment’s long-prepared fashion TV station Fashion TV will launch on February 8.
When the media was agitated because the market value of Cisco and AOL exceeded 20 billion US dollars at the same time, Simon rushed to New York on February 6 to personally participate in the final preparations before the launch of Fashion TV.
The head of Fashion TV is named Anna Coleman.
This is a dark-haired woman who appears to be about 35 years old. That's right, Coleman is still a Jew.
Simon chose the other party, but not because of his ethnicity.
Of course, Simon also knew that Anna Coleman’s final success would definitely be driven by the promotion of Jewish executives such as Amy Pascal and Robert Egger.
Those who make it to the final list of candidates are basically Jews.
Simon has never been too sensitive to ethnic issues, nor does he have any objections. All he needs is a qualified professional manager.
Anna Coleman once held important positions in Condé Nast Group, which owns well-known fashion magazines such as "Vogue", "CQ", and "Vanity Fair", and MTV, a subsidiary of Viacom. During her tenure as Vice President of MTV's Programming Department, she launched On the very successful "house of style" show.
In Simon's memory, "House of Style" still exists twenty years later, and the first host of the show from 1990 to 1992 happened to be Cindy Crawford. Cindy was the host last year. She resigned from her position as host before the Victoria's Secret show was planned.
The positioning of Fashion TV is largely equivalent to a 'dynamic fashion magazine' hosted on a television platform.
Therefore, Anna Coleman's resume working at both Condé Nast Group and MTV TV station is perfect for this job.
On the other hand, after several months of operation, Fashion TV is expected to reach 23 million users at launch through major North American operators such as Comcast and Warner Cable, covering a population of 60 million.
At the same time, the share between Daenerys Entertainment and operators was determined to be 15 cents.
In other words, each operator will pay Daenerys Entertainment a content purchase fee of 15 cents per access user every month.
Based on the scale of access users of about 23 million, relying on operator sharing, Fashion TV can determine a basic income of US$40 million per year upon launch.
As a basic cable station, Fashion TV can also insert advertisements into its programs. Under normal circumstances, the advertising revenue of a basic cable station can be equal to the operator's revenue sharing. Considering that Fashion TV has just launched, Daenerys Entertainment is not in a hurry to place advertisements on the TV station. Therefore, it is expected that the advertising revenue will reach about 50% of the operator's share in the first two years of the broadcast, which is about another 20 million US dollars.
The annual guaranteed revenue of about US$60 million seems to be very generous. However, compared to the operating costs of a national cable TV station, this amount of money is still not worth mentioning.
Only the North American operations team of about 200 people that has been prepared is expected to spend no less than US$30 million per year on basic salary, office space, etc.
As a 24-hour fashion channel, even if the budget for fashion TV programs is not too high, the sum of many projects, including the TV station’s essential marketing and promotion expenses, is expected to be no less than 50 million. dollar expenses.
Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment has already prepared for a loss of at least US$20 million per year in the first two years of broadcast.
And, that’s just North America.
Simon's expectation for Fashion TV is a global fashion TV network.
In the original plan, Simon very much hoped that Fashion TV could be broadcast simultaneously in Europe and North America, but he still underestimated the instinctive protectionist resistance of European countries to the invasion of North American media companies. In fact, this is very normal. The United States now also does not allow foreign companies. Or personally owning American TV stations, this ban will probably not be finally touched in the next year or two.
Among European countries, the UK, which has the most open market, does not have a ban on overseas companies investing in TV stations. Therefore, Fashion TV's preparations in the UK are the smoothest. It is expected to be launched in the UK through Sky Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of News Corporation, in April.
Obviously, this has missed the four major fashion weeks this spring.
Although Sky Broadcasting Company's TV network covers most of Europe, relevant TV stations still need to pass the review of various governments if they want to go online in various countries.
Judging from the current approval situation, France, which has the most developed fashion industry, has the most difficult time. Local fashion giants are quite resistant to Fashion TV. Companies such as LVMH are already preparing for their own fashion TV networks. Others, such as Italy, Spain and Germany, are subject to review. Progress also varies.
However, Fashion TV will be available in most European countries by the end of this year at the latest.
As for the reason, Simon remembers that in November 1993, the European Union will be officially established. By then, the markets of several major countries on the European continent will be open to each other. Fashion TV will be broadcast in the UK and can basically be transmitted to the entire EU.
Since Fashion TV cannot be launched in Europe in the short term, Daenerys Entertainment’s main focus is also on North America.
In terms of content, Fashion TV has successfully obtained the rights to broadcast show content from major luxury brands in the world in the past five years, even LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which has serious concerns about the relationship between Daenerys Entertainment and Melisandre Company. European luxury brands have not refused to provide content to Fashion TV.
These companies clearly understand that abandoning this important TV platform for expanding brand awareness will only allow other brands to gain more exposure. One goes down and the other goes up, and the results can be imagined.
Not only that, LVMH has also become Fashion TV’s first advertising customer, signing a one-time two-year advertising contract of US$6 million with Fashion TV.
Utilizing its dual roles as content provider and advertiser, LVMH Group has successfully added clauses related to corporate reputation protection in a series of cooperation agreements with Fashion TV, clarifying that Fashion TV shall not publish content that is harmful to the LVMH Group's affiliates. The content of brand reputation.
When Simon learned about this, he had to admire the shrewdness and courage of Bernard Arnault, the head of the LVMH Group.
The total expected advertising revenue of Fashion TV in North America in the next two years is only US$40 million, and LVMH alone has invested US$6 million in advertising. Next, after the launch of Fashion TV in Europe, the two parties will definitely launch similar cooperation.
Most importantly, through interest bundling and contract restrictions, Bernard Arnault also avoided Daenerys Entertainment's use of the Fashion TV platform to smear and suppress LVMH Group in advance.
At first, he did not agree to make Fashion TV a subsidiary of Melisandre. Simon's intention was to create a global fashion TV network.
If a media network wants to grow, it must maintain its neutrality as much as possible. Therefore, Simon never thought of using Fashion TV to discredit and suppress other luxury brands from the beginning. This would only lead to the TV station's own destruction.
However, not suppressing other luxury brands does not mean that Fashion TV cannot in turn strengthen the promotion of fashion brands in the Westeros system.
In the 24-hour program period every year, if Melisandre's brands occupy eight hours, LVMH's brands only have two hours of exposure, which will also be a very strong trade-off.
Of course, this is just an example.
If Fashion TV wants to develop and expand in the long term, it will not be less biased towards Melisandre, but the bias cannot be too obvious.
Manhattan, New York.
Fashion TV in North America will be officially launched on the East Coast at 6pm on February 8th.
Starting at four o'clock in the afternoon, celebrities from all walks of life began to gather outside the Gramercy Hotel in midtown Manhattan. The launch ceremony of Fashion TV was being held here. After the ceremony, there was a celebration reception.
At five o'clock, media and guests gathered in a conference hall in the Gramercy Hotel, and the opening ceremony began.
In order to promote this TV station as soon as possible, although it failed to get time slots on several major public television networks, Daenerys Entertainment contacted USA and some other important local TV stations on the east and west coasts to broadcast the one-hour conference live. , the Yigret portal will also conduct real-time network broadcasts.
Several core executives of Daenerys Entertainment, including Simon, Amy Pascal and Robert Egger, attended the opening ceremony. In addition, there were also a large number of celebrities and supermodels from the two major entertainment and fashion circles. There were about a dozen people sitting in the conference hall. There are more than a hundred people, and it looks like a star-studded crowd. The little celebrities and models who are slightly lower in status have no qualifications to squeeze into this conference.
The ceremony was hosted by Anna Coleman, President of Fashion TV.
In the first half hour, this female executive who had just joined Daenerys Entertainment Group clearly introduced basic information such as Fashion TV’s operating philosophy, content settings, and development goals. From 5:30 to 5:50, she continued Accepted 20 minutes of live Q&A from all media.
Simon sat in the audience, watching the female executive on the stage giving fluent explanations and questions and answers for 50 minutes, feeling increasingly satisfied.
At 5:50, there are still 10 minutes before the TV station goes online.
Representatives from several major operators such as Comcast and Warner Cable, as well as supermodels such as Jerry Hall and Cindy Crawford who will soon cooperate with Fashion TV, took the stage together. After the last party made a speech, everyone began to count down, and Together they pressed a symbolic button on the stage.
Immediately, the image of Fashion TV appeared on the projection screen in front of the conference hall.
The first is a two-hour special program, hosted by Cindy Crawford herself, which mainly introduces the content and program settings of Fashion TV to the audience in a more intuitive way.
In order to make this program not boring, the hour-long program was all shot in real scenes and even used some simple special effects. Cindy Crawford shuttled through different studios, fashion shows, design studios, etc. Iconic scenes in the fashion industry provide a relaxed and entertaining introduction to Fashion TV's "Fashion Figures", "Top Models", "Run Show" and other programs. During the promotion process, a large number of big names in the fashion industry made guest appearances, and Congratulations to the launch of Fashion TV.
The TV signal of Fashion TV began to be transmitted to the TV sets of thousands of households in the United States, and the press conference at Gramercy Hotel also officially ended.
The celebration cocktail party started at seven o'clock, and many guests left temporarily.
One side is resting and the other side is changing clothes.
Especially for supermodel actresses, two different outfits are needed for cocktail parties and press conferences.
Simon also returned to the apartment on Fifth Avenue. After a short rest, near seven o'clock, he took Janet, who had also been busy at Cersei Capital, to the Gramercy Hotel again.
After all, the reception is just for publicity.
After arriving, after taking some photos, Simon and his wife walked into the reception hall together.
After spending more than ten minutes socializing with tonight's guests, Simon came to the small circle where several Daenerys Entertainment executives gathered.
Anna Coleman has obtained preliminary launch data for Fashion TV.
According to East Coast ratings sampling statistics, the Fashion TV introductory program hosted by Cindy Crawford is expected to have about 6.5 million viewers. This is a very good start, exceeding 10% of Fashion TV’s 60 million people covered. . As a professional and niche fashion TV station, it seems very unbelievable that it can attract 6.5 million viewers at its launch.
You know, compared to the operation model of traditional TV stations that rely on hit programs to gain attention, it is impossible for Fashion TV to become an instant hit.
Like "Vogue", "CQ" and other old fashion magazines, if Fashion TV wants to build its reputation and influence and achieve a stable audience base, it must go through long-term and professional operations.
Moreover, the 6.5 million for the launch is more of a symbolic meaning.
After the TV station is stabilized, it can reach two to three million viewers every day during prime time, which is considered to have met the ratings expectations.
In my memory, the basic cable TV stations of many years later would often have only a few hundred thousand viewers for prime time TV programs. But that was actually decades later. The Internet and streaming media have had a serious impact on traditional cable TV. Many people even watched the TV shows for a week. You don’t have to watch TV even once.
Now, the Internet has just emerged, and due to current network speed limitations, it is not yet a threat to the cable TV industry.
The key to the commercial success of Fashion TV is to cultivate a core audience and at the same time create a scale effect on a global scale. After all, many of the contents of Fashion TV are universal around the world. Anyone who cares about fashion will be interested in Fashion TV's programs. Therefore, the wider the spread of Fashion TV and its popularity, the lower the average program production cost will be.
This is what I remember about Fashion TV.
As the world's largest fashion TV station, Fashion TV is as well-known as CNN and ESPN, the top cable TV stations. Even though it is far less than CNN in terms of revenue and profits, it relies on the global fashion media network. Fashion TV's 'little life' has always been very nourishing.
Of course, Simon also knows that just with the same name, the new Fashion TV may not necessarily develop as well as in memory.
Daenerys Entertainment is already an industry giant. Large companies are often not as active as small companies in exploring new areas.
However, even in an unsatisfactory situation, as long as Fashion TV can achieve independent balance of payments, it can continue to operate and provide an effective advertising and marketing channel for fashion brands in the Westeros system.