On the second day of the Oscars ceremony, reports on the unsuspecting awards results only occupied a small amount of newspaper space. Most of the media's attention was attracted by the news that the Westeros system had blocked the Hearst Group.
Early on Tuesday morning, many heavyweight print media exposed the news from "inside sources" that Simon Westeros personally ordered all companies in the Westeros system to sever all cooperation with the Hearst Group. The media who paid attention to Melisandre's party last night gave the most direct evidence. All media reporters affiliated with the Hearst Group were blocked outside the Sunset Tower Hotel, which also caused some minor conflicts.
Faced with media inquiries, Hearst Group executives responded by declining to comment.
The Westeros system is not secretive.
With the continuous verification by many media, the news was completely confirmed.
Executives of Daenerys Entertainment Group, Ygritte Company, Melisandre Company and other companies within the Westeros system all gave affirmative answers when called or asked in person by reporters: The company has received Notice to immediately sever all cooperation with Hearst Group.
Not only that, the "Hollywood Reporter" also reported another news on the following Wednesday.
Warner Bros. Pictures has quietly canceled multiple commercials for "The Dark Knight Rises" that were planned for Hearst Corp.-owned media.
"The Dark Knight Rises", which is scheduled to be released on June 3, officially released its first trailer in early March, announcing that this DC movie universe super blockbuster with an announced scale of US$80 million has officially launched a major pre-release campaign. Large-scale media promotion.
Obviously, not only the Westeros system, but also companies that have cooperative relationships with the Westeros system have also been asked to "take sides."
When asked by reporters whether Warner Bros. Pictures' other film projects would also cancel advertising to Hearst Group's media, a Warner Bros. Pictures executive in charge of film distribution business gave an ambiguous but obviously biased answer. Sex, the other party said that Time Warner Group has its own traditional paper media platform, and paper media does not account for a high proportion in movie promotion, and it will not be affected even if it does not cooperate with Hearst Group.
It only took two days from the time the news spread to the time it was confirmed.
Both the Westeros system and the Hearst family are behemoth-level existences to the general public. One is accumulating wealth at an unstoppable speed, and the other is a well-established family with deep roots.
As a result, this matter quickly became a 'big melon' that everyone paid close attention to.
As the news spread, Hearst could no longer remain silent.
On Wednesday afternoon, William Hearst III, who was surrounded by a large group of reporters at the Hearst Corporation headquarters in Manhattan, faced media questioning and could not hide his anger, saying that the Westeros system was abusing its market position to engage in unfair business competition. Hearst Group will take all possible means to safeguard its rights and interests.
It was fully confirmed that Simon Westeros was going to go to war with the established Hearst family, and the focus of the melon-eating public quickly turned to the cause of the matter and the upcoming impact of this matter.
Come Thursday, two East Coast newspapers got straight to the point.
The New York Post, owned by News Corporation, devoted a lot of space to publishing an article revealing the inside story of this incident.
Only then did the public suddenly realize.
It turns out that the conflict between the Westeros system and the Hearst Group has been around for a long time.
Three years ago, in order to get rid of the heavy debt burden caused by the Reynolds Nabisco merger, the Reynolds Nabisco Group chose to sell a large number of the company's assets, including a 20% stake in ESPN, a well-known sports TV station owned by Metropolis/ABC Group.
Daenerys Entertainment is very optimistic about the development of cable television, so it chose to bid. Hearst Group, which is undergoing a diversification transformation, is also interested in bidding for these shares.
At that time, the company was in the early stages of development, and the Yigret portal was in great need of news and information content support from traditional paper media.
Hearst Group provided content support to the Ygritte portal as a bargaining chip in exchange for Daenerys Entertainment voluntarily giving up its bid for ESPN shares, and finally successfully acquired these shares.
However, after acquiring the equity in ESPN, the Hearst Group went back on its promise and refused to honor its original cooperation commitment out of concern that Internet media would affect the interests of the traditional print media industry.
The dispute between the two sides arose.
The article also specifically mentioned that Daenerys Entertainment's offer for ESPN's equity at the time was as high as US$200 million. After the company voluntarily gave up, the Hearst Group concluded the deal with only US$180 million, saving a full US$20 million. , which also involved another tax avoidance operation worth no less than US$20 million.
However, the Hearst Group was not satisfied with the big deal. Not only was it unwilling to fulfill its initial cooperation commitment, it also believed that Daenerys Entertainment Group's bid was a disguised way of making the Hearst Group pay more for ESPN shares. funds, so it has been using its media to launch attacks on the Westeros system.
For example, the "San Francisco Chronicle" owned by the Hearst Group has been completely in tit-for-tat opposition to the Westeros system in recent years.
The flashpoint of the conflict is the various recent turmoils.
Congressman David Meloth, who is supported by the Hearst family, continues to use his power to try to initiate improper investigations into new technology companies in the Westeros system. The reason is not to protect the interests of the general electorate, let alone these The fundamental reason for the company's so-called monopoly accusations is that the free Internet services such as news information, classified information, social networks, etc. provided by Eagle Reiter have harmed the interests of traditional paper media giants such as Hearst Group.
As evidence, the New York Post article also included a photo of William Hearst III and Congressman David Merloth holding hands at a cocktail party, looking like good buddies.
For public readers, compared to many serious staged photos, this photo that clearly exudes the aura of "complicity" has great lethality, and instantly made many people determine their potential tendency.
It turns out that the members of Congress elected by everyone one by one are still just the spokespersons of the rich and powerful.
A spokesperson for Hearst Group immediately refuted this report.
It’s a pity that the article has given too many people preconceived notions.
David Meros, who instantly became the focus of media and public attention, also quickly jumped out to refute, but the effect was obviously not significant.
Following the New York Post article, the Eaglet Portal published more articles about David Meloth's connection to the Hearst family's interests. The three-term congressman has accepted the election in the past three elections. A large number of political donations came from the Hearst Group, which is still the case this year in the fight for re-election for the fourth time. The many articles written by Hearst Group’s media about the other party are all unreservedly praising, completely ignoring that this congressman has made little contribution to his constituency in the past few years.
Not only that, as the political spokesperson of the Hearst family, David Meloth has recently been encouraging Congress to lift the 'cross-media ownership ban' that restricts the media from having too much say. Once this ban disappears, the American people will be exposed to daily News information may be controlled by a few media giants, which will have a strong impact on press freedom.
It can be said that this congressman's "double standards" between promoting traditional media monopoly and cracking down on emerging Internet industries are simply shameless.
While the Hearst Corporation and David Merloth were struggling to deal with the revelations of this article, another related article in the Wall Street Journal also attracted a lot of attention.
"Do you want to be a friend, or an enemy?"
This report does not comment on the internal rights and wrongs of the conflict between the Hearst Group and the Westeros system, but provides a detailed analysis of the possible impact of this matter.
Hearst Corporation is not a public company, but it also publishes results.
In 1993, Hearst Group's total revenue was US$2.11 billion, with a revenue growth rate of 9%. The annual net profit was US$169 million, with an annual growth rate of 12%, and a net profit margin of 8%.
Traditional paper media groups, like the U.S. auto industry, are restricted by many labor unions, but cannot move production bases overseas. Therefore, operating costs are quite high. Hearst Group can maintain a net profit margin of 8%, which is beyond the industry. Average.
Now, just in the Westeros system, the cumulative advertising budget of 65 million US dollars invested in the Hearst Group in the past year has accounted for 3% of the other party's annual revenue. If this part of revenue disappears, it will have a huge impact on the Hearst Group. The performance in 1994 had a significant impact.
Furthermore, if Simon Westeros uses the influence of the Westeros system to ask other partners to 'take sides', then the additional negative impact will be at least twice that of the Westeros system itself cutting off cooperation.
Based on the Hearst Group's revenue growth of 9% in 1993, once the conflict between the two parties continues, it is likely to cause the Hearst Group's revenue growth to completely stagnate in 1994.
For the traditional paper media industry, which has gradually begun to show decline, stagnant revenue growth actually means regression.
After all, whether calculated based on factors such as inflation or the natural increase in workers' wages, a company must ensure considerable performance growth every year in order to maintain normal operations.
Once corporate revenue growth stagnates, the continuously increasing inflation, employee wages and even debt burden will not stagnate. The first thing that will affect corporate profits is corporate profits.
When profits are gradually offset by the negative impact of stagnant revenue growth, a series of chain reactions will follow, such as layoffs, sales of businesses, reduction of expenses, etc.
If the situation does not improve, it will eventually go bankrupt.
Reynolds and Nabisco, once industry giants with outstanding revenue and profit performance, five years after their record-breaking $33 billion merger, triggered a crisis because of the huge debts brought about by the original merger. A series of chain reactions have brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy in the past two years.
A super giant like Reynolds Nabisco may decline quickly, not to mention the much smaller Hearst Corporation.
Therefore, the "Wall Street Journal" judged that if the Hearst Group cannot resolve this conflict as soon as possible, even if it only lasts for a year, it will have a serious negative impact on the Hearst Group's operations.
In comparison, apart from the possible public pressure and litigation risks, the Westeros system, whose overall scale is already more than a hundred times that of the Hearst Group, will hardly suffer any substantial damage.
After all, Simon Westeros' current net worth has reached 200 billion U.S. dollars, while the total wealth of the Hearst family and the five grandchildren of William Hearst is less than 2.5 billion U.S. dollars, which is more than 80 times difference.
Moreover, the media empire owned by the Hearst family, which used to be feared by many politicians, celebrities, and rich people, has become obviously less lethal in the face of the Westeros system.
Not to mention the Igrit portal owned by the Westeros system, before blocking the Hearst Group, Simon Westeros had just made a 'friend' whose strength was comparable to that of the Hearst Group. New York Times Group.
Now that the Internet industry is booming, if traditional media wants to successfully complete its transformation into the digital era, it must inevitably avoid the Westeros system.
The New York Times Group undoubtedly made a very wise choice.
Although it is obvious that Simon Westeros is trying to control the tone of the traditional paper media to avoid the continued deterioration of media public opinion against the Westeros system in the near future, the rewards given to the New York Times Group by the other party are also very generous, and they simply give up Igor directly. The exclusivity of the news and information content of Ruite Portal has even made many accusations against the Westeros system's monopoly on Internet media lose their footing.
The most important point is that the achievement of this cooperation will also lead to more and more traditional media groups that may still be criticizing the Westeros system to gradually reverse their attitudes in exchange for opportunities to transform into the digital age.
So the next question is, do you want to be a friend or an enemy to Westeros
The "New York Post" revelation naturally came from the arrangements of the Westeros system, and the "Wall Street Journal" report surprised Simon.
However, it was just a little unexpected.
For Western capitalist societies, capital indeed means everything.
Westeros System VS Hearst Corporation.
Even if the conflict between the two parties caused Simon to lose US$10 billion, it would only account for 5% of his personal net worth. In the process, the Hearst family, whose total assets are less than US$2.5 billion, may have lost everything.
On the other hand, the Westeros system launched an attack on the Hearst Group, and it had some positive effects in just a few days.
Since the beginning of the month, due to dual pressure from the media and political circles, the stock prices of Cisco and AOL, the two listed core Internet companies in the Westeros system, have begun to fluctuate and fall. As of last Friday, the cumulative decline has exceeded 5%.
Based on the market value of the two companies, which is already close to US$60 billion, a stock price drop of more than 5% means that shareholders of both companies will bear a book loss of more than US$3 billion.
The sudden exposure of the cooperation plan between Igrit Company and the New York Times Group on Monday, coupled with the fact that the Westeros System changed its defensive stance in previous weeks and launched a strong attack on the Hearst Group, strongly stimulated the market's interest in the Westeros System. Confidence, and triggered a rebound in the stock prices of Cisco and AOL.
The previous declines in the stock prices of Cisco and AOL were originally due to the capital market's concerns about the government authorities' possible response to pressure from public opinion. The financial performance and high growth potential of the two companies doomed them to be unlikely to suffer a collapse. .
Now, as the New York Times Group turns to the side of the Westeros system, the Hearst Group has been slapped hard on the head by Simon Westeros, and the situation has quickly reversed.
In just three days from Monday to Wednesday, the stock prices of Cisco and AOL have already regained their highest point before the shock at the beginning of the month.
At the opening of trading on Thursday morning, Cisco's stock price achieved another breakthrough, with its total market value breaking through the US$60 billion mark in one fell swoop.
As of the closing of trading on the East Coast at 4:30 pm on Thursday, Cisco's market value has reached US$61.5 billion, followed by AOL's market value of US$57.3 billion. Driven by these two leading technology stocks, the Nasdaq technology stock sector It rose across the board, with the gain reaching 1.7% on the day.
A large number of hedge funds that began to believe that there was a serious bubble in the Internet industry at the beginning of this year had suffered heavy losses before March due to continued short selling.
Barely holding on until March, as a series of turmoil surrounding the Westeros system allowed various capitals to see the 'dawn' of the bursting of the technology stock bubble, the short sellers in the previous weeks once again made a large-scale comeback, but unexpectedly, from March Starting from the 21st, in just a few days, all the short book profits accumulated for three weeks disappeared and turned directly into losses.
Cersei Fund Management, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, has never held less than $5 billion in long positions in the technology stock sector since the beginning of the year.
Beginning in early March, as a large number of short sellers became active again, Cersei Fund Management Company took the opportunity to increase the total number of long positions to US$12 billion.
Because it has strong financial support and only uses low leverage of three to five times, the short-term decline of stocks such as Cisco and AOL did not cause a liquidation crisis for Cersei Fund Management.
Now, just because of the strong rebound of technology stocks in recent days, Cersei Fund Management Company's original book losses of more than 600 million US dollars have been quickly wiped out, and further generated considerable profits.