Simon returned to New York on September 5 and immediately threw himself into the final preparations before the filming of "American Idol" began.
This blockbuster reality show of the ABC TV network in the fall of 1995 will be broadcast on Tuesday, September 26 at 8 pm. There will be one episode per week, with the winter break as an interval, and it will be divided into two parts: the audition stage and the competition stage. The autumn episode For the early auditions, the competition will begin in the spring of next year.
In the past, "American Idol" had a successful precedent of the British version, and its operation was very mature, and it got off to a good start when it first aired.
This new version of "American Idol" does not have the popularity base it once had, but it has the support of resources from the entire Westeros system.
From the moment Simon came up with the idea of producing this project, this version of "American Idol" has been positioned as a large-scale linkage for the entire Westeros system music industry, with Daenerys Records, ABC Television Network, Ygritte Portal, Ting Colbert and others will be involved.
Before the project started pre-heating, Tinker Bell won the exclusive naming rights of "American Idol" at a high price of 25 million US dollars. Not only that, during the first season of the program, Tinker Bell's company will also use voting draws, etc. Give away 100,000 units of iPlayer-10 digital music players.
Based on the manufacturing cost of 100,000 iPlayer-10 units, plus naming fees, Tinkerber will invest US$50 million in the first season alone.
Not to mention the naming fees, 100,000 iPlayers worth US$50 million in external publicity were given as prizes, plus cash prizes and record contracts for the winners. The news was just announced at the end of July, which directly aroused public opinion.
The television department initially expected that it might not receive many applications for the first season. As a result, in less than a month, the number of people who applied through the Internet and email channels across the United States exceeded 300,000, and the production team had to urgently transfer the overseas applications. The number of people in the selected department has tripled.
Due to music copyright reasons, applicants will not be able to choose the music for performance based on their personal preferences starting from the audition stage, but must use the Broadcast inventory music that has been incorporated into Tinker Bayer. The project team randomly designated 10 pieces of music as selections in the reply letter to the applicants, and indicated that the relevant music can be obtained on the Broadcast website.
Through the preliminary marketing of Tinco Bayer's 100,000 iPlayer giveaways and the detailed arrangement that contestants must use Broadcast's stock music, not only has music sales on the Broadcast website increased significantly in recent times, but also the iPlayer player whose production capacity has been climbing has once again became in short supply.
Just based on these early market feedbacks, the investment of 50 million US dollars by Tinker Bayer Company is worth it. Without the popularity base of the previous British version, the new version of "American Idol" will start no less than the FOX in Simon's memory. Network version.
What everyone needs to do now is to maintain this good start and avoid opening high and going low.
In order to ensure this to the greatest extent, Simon returned from Europe and re-incarnated as a micro-manager. He personally started to follow up on everything from the layout of the audition process to the development of the lottery system to the lighting and camera positions in the competition studio. He also spent a day specially arranging the arrangements. The live preview of the four judges further trained the four judges who were actually well prepared.
Having been bombarded by various reality shows in previous lives, no one knows better than Simon how the judges should perform to maximize the atmosphere at the scene.
Simon also personally set up a "tit-for-tat" meme for Cher's eldest sister, David Kruger, another leading actor.
Referring to a certain joke about '32 Concerts' in my memory.
Cher is definitely a model worker in the American music industry. This veteran singer who was born in 1946 will still hold dozens of concerts every year even more than ten years later. Of course, they are not on the scale of Madonna's concerts, but they are not. Ordinary third-rate little singers can compare.
The first season of "American Idol" will probably end at the end of May next year.
It happened that Cher planned to hold a series of concerts from June to September next year while the iron was still hot. Simon directly used the "32 concerts" joke, suggesting that whenever Cher and David Kruger had a dispute over whether a certain contestant was shortlisted, At that time, he used "I will hold 32 concerts next year" as a retort that he was more professional and authoritative than David.
After several live demonstrations, the results were very good.
Cher is also happy to accept this setting, after all, it will definitely greatly increase the attention of her concert next year.
As for whether it is 32 concerts or not, it actually doesn't matter.
According to Cher's workaholic level, this number is likely to be much higher during the three months next summer. During her peak period, the singer performed hundreds of concerts a year. During the Golden Globe Awards bribery scandal that year, it was no accident that the finalists gave Golden Globe judge Cher tickets to her concert because they were so easy to buy.
If Cher has more than 32 concerts next year, it will be just right, and there will be jokes for the second season.
David Krueger could bitterly accuse Cher of holding 64 concerts when she said they had 32 concerts, and so on.
In addition, the selection of contest songs by contestants is also full of tricks.
In the past "The Voice of China", a "High Song" directly ignited the atmosphere on the scene, and the ratings also soared. If it were replaced by the lyrical and euphemistic "One Cut Plum", we would definitely not be able to achieve this effect.
These are actually the last chapters.
The key is the draft itself.
Simon positions "American Idol" as a reality show. The audience thinks that what they are seeing is 'reality', but the key is 'show', which is actually a performance. However, according to past experience, the first few seasons of music reality shows can usually create some well-known singers, and he also hopes to achieve this goal in order to promote the development of Daenerys' records.
Simon began to make this arrangement from the selection of judges.
The eldest sister, Cher, is an artist under Daenerys Records. Promoting the other party can once again increase Cher's popularity and stimulate the veteran singer's record sales.
David Krueger is the producer of the Backstreet Boys' first hit record. He is good at pop music record production. He can select the musical talents needed for Daenerys' record from a large number of players, and it is popular music. Talent.
The other two judges, Jay-Z and Jennifer Lopez, brought them into the ranks of judges to play supporting roles. Simon's original purpose was to cultivate the two as potential music seeds under Daenerys Records.
Jay-z’s past achievements need no introduction.
As for Jennifer Lopez, although Simon has never figured out how this Latin queen has maintained her popularity for so many years, since she has such potential, giving resources will definitely reap the rewards she wants.
Simon has always believed that successful people have certain qualities that lead them to success.
In this world, there are always a few successful people, and there is a lot of luck.
For others, it’s very difficult to pick out people who possess the traits of a successful person.
Simon's biggest advantage happens to be that he knows that certain people and things have 'been' successful, so if he bets like this, his chances of winning are very high.
While Simon is personally following up on the final stage of preparations for "American Idol", the most important news in the North American entertainment industry these days is probably that the local box office of "Jurassic Park 2" has officially exceeded the US$400 million mark, and will be released on September 1 On September 7, the 14th week of release, after continuing to earn 3.91 million U.S. dollars, the cumulative local box office of "Jurassic Park 2" reached 402.37 million U.S. dollars, becoming another one of the few in the North American film market that has a box office of 400 million U.S. dollars. member.
Not only that, after the major ticket offices around the world have basically opened, as of September 7, the global box office of "Jurassic Park 2" has also reached 632 million US dollars.
When North America exceeded the US$400 million mark, the global box office of "Jurassic Park 2" also officially entered the US$1 billion threshold.
One billion U.S. dollars has always been a very important threshold for Hollywood movie box office. Before this, many movies such as "Jurassic Park" and "Batman Begins" unfortunately stopped at less than 1 billion U.S. dollars. The only one that broke through This threshold is last year's conclusion to the Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises."
Now, "Jurassic Park 2" has not only become the second global $1 billion blockbuster in North American film history, but because important box offices such as France and Japan, which have delayed its opening, are still in the early stages of release, this super blockbuster is expected to be even more Further, it will impact the global box office to more than US$1.1 billion, which is likely to eventually exceed the US$1.135 billion global box office of last year's "The Dark Knight Rises."
On the other hand, news of GE’s contact with Time Warner is gradually spreading in circles.
It was not put on the table.
However, many people already know what should be known and what should not be known.
The most direct evidence is that after the box office failure of "Waterworld" at the end of July, Time Warner's stock price first plummeted, but then began to rise after mid-August. As of September 8, the last trading day of the first week of September, Time Warner's stock price Warner's total market value has reached $20.7 billion.
According to the news from Terry Semel, Time Warner executives and important shareholders hope to sell the company, but the price difference with General Electric is very large.
At this stage, Time Warner Group is just a fixed asset in the fields of film, television, publishing and other fields. In recent years, as the market has continued to increase in value, its total value has reached 32 billion U.S. dollars. The downturn in Time Warner's stock price is basically due to the Factors such as debt drag after the original merger, internal strife within the group, and failed investments such as "Future Water World" have affected the company.
If you really think about it, Time Warner's overall operating conditions have been developing in a good direction.
Therefore, the psychological price of Time Warner shareholders is that GE’s offer cannot be less than $30 billion. In comparison, Jack Welch’s offer did not exceed US$25 billion.
The difference between the two is a full US$5 billion.
Time Warner's market value exceeded US$100 billion at the peak of the Internet bubble around 2000. This was mainly due to the substantial increase in the value of the Time Warner Group's cable TV operating system after the promulgation of the Telecommunications Act in 1996.
Because the new "Telecommunications Act" at that time canceled the operational restrictions between cable TV, the Internet and traditional telephone, the market vigorously advocated the integration of three networks. Time Warner also followed the trend and used its own cable TV system to provide network access services. Therefore, it promoted As a result of the substantial increase in market value, AOL later merged with Time Warner. Steve Case was interested in not only Warner's media and entertainment assets, but also Warner's own cable TV operating network. These hardware packages can serve as AOL's Supplementary web services.
This time, the Clinton administration's "Telecommunications Act" is still brewing, and with the big butterfly of Daenerys Entertainment disrupting the situation, the situation after the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Bros. has not been very good. Although Warner Communications, Time Warner's cable TV operating network, is prospering, without the support of the Telecommunications Act, and America Online has taken the lead in the field of Internet service providers, Time Warner's stock price has not taken off. .
However, US$30 billion is indeed not expensive, at least in Simon's opinion.
If possible, the Westeros system would happily continue to swallow up Time Warner Corporation.
Of course, this possibility does not exist.
Taking down the Metropolitan ABC Group is already the limit of what the Washington authorities can tolerate.
Simon stayed in New York until September 10. The day after he returned to the West Coast, the long-prepared IGRIT IPO officially began its road show.
Based on the strong performance growth rate that has been maintained for more than half a year, Yigret's management and a group of underwriters have adjusted the issuance price twice in a row. As of the start of the road show, Yigret's IPO issue price was finally determined to be US$35, which was higher than the initial price. $30 increased by 16%.
Calculated based on the issue price of US$35, Yigret’s IPO valuation has officially exceeded US$150 billion. Excluding the green shoe mechanism that may be triggered, the total financing amount is US$18.6 billion.
The IPO valuation of US$150 billion and the total financing amount of US$18.6 billion all set a record for the scale of IPOs in the global stock market.
Although Yigret's monopolistic and strong growth has made most investors confident in the company's IPO, because the company's valuation and financing amount are too large, there are endless voices of bearishness.
Julian Robertson, the founder of Tiger Management, who has made a name for himself in the hedging market in recent years, said in an interview on NBC's "Today Show" that Igret's IPO was a completely irrational listing operation, and he also publicly promoted the new The technology bubble has reached its peak, and Tiger Fund will short the stocks of a series of Westeros system technology companies after Ygrit is listed.
In the past, Tiger Fund, which is as famous as Soros Quantum Fund, exceeded US$20 billion after the Southeast Asian economic crisis in 1997. However, it was precisely because of Robertson's wrong judgment on technology stocks that he made massive short bets before 2000, which ultimately led to Tiger Management, which has a scale of more than 20 billion US dollars, was directly liquidated.
After successively following Quantum Fund's attacks on the pound and the Mexican lira, Tiger Fund's current size has exceeded US$8 billion, and Julian Robertson, a hedge fund tycoon, also has considerable reputation on Wall Street.
Simon just didn't expect that before the Asian economic crisis broke out, Robertson had already begun to bet on the new technology industry in advance.
In response to Robertson's statement, the Westeros system did not make a public response, but the hedge fund under Cersei Capital began to prepare for the move.
Creating a large-scale economic crisis requires several years of planning. Now some hedge funds in North America have begun to operate in Asia, and Cersei Capital is no exception. Hedging is a zero-sum game, where someone loses and someone wins. Now that Julian Robertson has given up on his long-term plans for Asia and can’t wait to play, Simon doesn’t mind eating up all the $8 billion in the opponent’s hands.