While Eric was enjoying his time off in East Hampton, many people weren't quite as relaxed as he was.
September 17th is the last day of New York Fashion Week.
In Manhattan's Bryant Park, Linda Evangelista finished her last show of this fashion week, bid farewell to the organizer in a hurry, and got into the own car, urging the assistant to rush to the ABC headquarters on the Upper West Side.
"America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" will start broadcasting in the next two weeks. Anne Sweeney, president of AE Television Network, made an appointment today with her and Cindy Crawford to discuss the final promotion work.
Even if the reform plan of the AE TV network really fails, it will not have much impact on the Firefly Group, which has an annual revenue of 20 billion US dollars. But for Anne Sweeney, who was parachuted to the AE TV network and the staff of the AE TV network, as well as the two reality show production teams led by Cindy and Linda, "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" The success of the two TV shows and the prosperity of the AE TV network are directly related to their future careers. Therefore, everyone has worked very hard during this time.
More than ten minutes later, I came to the office of Anne Sweeney who is in charge of the AE TV network. Cindy Crawford was already sitting here. Anne Sweeney was chatting with Cindy in a low voice. Seeing her come in, Get up quickly.
"Good afternoon, Anne, I'm so sorry I'm late."
"It's okay, you're not late," Anne Sweeney said after hugging Linda.
Although Anne Sweeney was vigorous and resolute at work, she was even a little ruthless in many cases, but she was very enthusiastic in dealing with others, and coupled with the similar age difference, the several women had become good friends during this period of time.
After greeting each other, Anne Sweeney picked up a few documents and brought the two girls to the small conference room next to them to discuss matters.
Sitting around a small conference table, Anne Sweeney said: "Now the basic situation has been confirmed. Although the group headquarters try their best to fight for it, the number of subscribers of Lifetime TV in the new season is still only 34.5 million. Compared with last year, it only increased by 3 million households, which is also the total audience base we have.”
Cindy frowned slightly. This number is only equivalent to one-eighth of the current total population of the United States. Thinking of some things that Eric accidentally mentioned before, she asked, "Annie, why did it only increase so little? Could it be that those operators Not interested in Lifetime's reform plan?"
"Of course not. The situation here is very complicated. Just like Time Warner, not only did they not increase the number of Lifetime subscribers, but they also cut the number of subscribers of Lifetime TV station by 800,000 this quarter. This is the factor of the game of interests. Since media regulation After further liberalization, operators can have their own cable TV stations, and the market is so big, not every operator wants to see the rise of competitors' TV stations." Anne Sweeney shook her head and explained, and then said: "However, the main factor is that Lifetime TV's previous ratings performance was too dismal, and it did not bring much benefit to the operators. This is why they are indifferent to the reform of Lifetime TV. So, everything depends on the next two The ratings of the TV show showed."
After listening to Anne Sweeney's explanation, Linda looked at Cindy, and couldn't help asking a question that everyone had been reluctant to face: "Annie, what do you think... How many ratings can our show achieve? ?”
Anne Sweeney pressed the document in her hand, looked at the two women, hesitated, and said: "Actually, this is what I want to ask you, these two projects were conceived by Mr. Williams, you Haven't you talked to him about it?"
Linda shook her head and said, "We asked, but he didn't say anything."
Anne Sweeney nodded regretfully, flipped through the documents beside her, found a copy and handed it to the two women next to her, and said, "The company signed a floating contract with the advertiser for these two programs. According to the contract plan, the two The passing line for the number of viewers of a program is 1.5 million, and the ratings reach 0.8. Under this data, the average advertising fee for 30 seconds is 50,000 US dollars, and the advertising time of each episode is 16 minutes, and the income is 1.6 million US dollars. The total income of 13 episodes is just right. Reach 20 million of the production cost, and then, through the operator's share and subsequent program distribution, we can achieve balance of payments."
Linda and Cindy looked at the documents in front of them together. After a while, Cindy looked up and said, "So, Anne, what was the ratings of Lifetime last year?"
Anne Sweeney hesitated for a moment, and said: "In 1994, the highest number of viewers was a TV movie "The Seventh Floor", starring Brooke Shields. The number of viewers was 2.21 million. The average viewership of the show is 700,000."
"It's less than 1 million," Linda almost jumped up in disappointment.
Anne Sweeney nodded. She didn't tell the two women that this was just the average ratings during the prime time period. If they were spread over the whole day, the ratings would be even worse. Therefore, the advertising revenue of Lifetime TV station last year was only a mere 30 million US dollars, which is not as high as the operator's share.
It is conceivable that it is not an easy task to increase the ratings to 1.5 million, more than doubling at one time, while the subscriber base remains unchanged.
Noticing the disappointment on the faces of the two women, Anne Sweeney encouraged her, "I don't think we need to worry too much. During the ABC period, the company didn't pay much attention to Lifetime TV. There were no outstanding programs. Of course, the rate can’t go up. It’s different now, just the production cost of the two programs in your hands is more than the total investment of Lifetime TV programs in the past five years, not to mention the full efforts of the group headquarters and Hearst in terms of publicity. Support, I am still very confident in the ratings."
Linda's heart was bigger. Hearing Anne Sweeney's relief, she nodded quickly and said, "Anyway, he made this show. If it fails, I'll go back and continue to be a model at worst. Can't die of hunger."
Hearing Linda's frustrating words carelessly, Cindy really wanted to reach out and pinch her. With the black lines all over her forehead, she turned to Anne Sweeney and said, "Annie, you didn't call us to come over. Are you talking about propaganda?"
Anne Sweeney also chose to ignore Linda's words just now, and said with a smile, "That's right, I've communicated with ABC, Cindy, get ready to record "David's Late Show" tomorrow, Linda , your schedule is next Wednesday."
In order to stagger the fermenting time of the topics of the two reality shows, "America's Next Top Model" is scheduled to be broadcast on next Tuesday, that is, September 19. "Project Runway" was ranked a week later, on September 28, the schedule is Thursday.
After properly disposing of ABC's late-night news program "Nightline", ABC poached David Letterman from CBS and successfully took over the ace talk show.
During this period, Firefly and Hearst have used their respective channels to preheat and promote "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" as much as possible, and a lot of corresponding news has also appeared on the Yahoo portal. However, because the two programs did not prove their viewing potential, and it is impossible to invest unlimitedly in all aspects, this kind of support is limited after all. Therefore, before the show starts broadcasting, it can be said that it is the most effective move to log on to the ace talk show to promote it. Of course, it is also the last move.
Both women have experience in participating in talk shows, especially last year, because of the popularity of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, they received a lot of program invitations during that time, so they are no strangers to this aspect. After briefly discussing some details, Anne Sweeney took the two girls to ABC's program production department to discuss with David Letterman's team.
In the intense busyness, two days almost passed by in a flash.
On September 19th, the fruits of several months of labor will also be verified today.
For countless ordinary people, Tuesday is still an ordinary day.
The summer vacation of most students is coming to an end, enjoying the last vacation time, young people entering the society have completed another day of work, because it is a working day, few people go out for entertainment, have dinner, or are alone, or have With a lover, or with a child in their arms, sit in front of the TV as usual.
They didn't know about the ABC headquarters in Manhattan. Many people anxiously waited for the results of the new day's ratings data. They just happened to think of the news about "America's Next Top Model" that they had seen inadvertently in newspapers, magazines or TV programs recently. So I picked up the remote control and remembered that Lifetime happened to be included in my cable TV package, so I took advantage of the opportunity to broadcast it, wanting to find out. And those users who are not connected to Lifetime TV station, even if they prefer fashion, although they feel slightly regretful, they don't mind too much. The people who have no sense of fashion don't feel much, after all, they have no shortage of TV programs to entertain.
Any TV program can only be successful if you can target the audience's taste and capture the audience's emotions.
In order to achieve this goal, Eric took a lot of thought.
For a model talent show, what those young women who love fashion and have some fantasies about the runway want to see most, of course, is of course an ordinary girl who was originally ordinary, suddenly appearing glamorous in everyone In front of me, if I use one word to describe it, that is, the sparrow turns into a phoenix.
Eric's carefully arranged script theme for the first episode of "America's Next Top Model" is that the sparrow turns into a phoenix.
When the time came to eight o'clock, after the last commercial, the Lifetime TV screen flickered, then lit up again, and the opening title of "America's Next Top Model" appeared.
A series of beautiful artistic photos flashed quickly, and at the same time, Cindy Crawford's voice came.
"People always ask me, Cindy, how to be a supermodel. Every time, I patiently guide them, you should do this, you should do that. Until one day, I suddenly felt that maybe I could tell you through TV If you want to tell all the girls who dream of becoming a supermodel all at once, then, today, welcome to America's Next Top Model."
"After selection, we have selected thirteen girls from all over the United States. Some of them come from small towns in the west, some come from the city of angels, there are southern girls with bold personalities, and gentle northern girls. Starting today, I will use the next two months to select the next future star in the modeling industry from among them through various standard trainings, and the girl who wins the championship will get a model contract from an elite model agency, a covergirl A $100,000 endorsement deal with the company and, in the future, more opportunities.”
"Well, let's start now."
As Cindy flashed up in professional women's fashion, audition shots of girls from all over the United States appeared on the TV.
In an apartment in midtown Manhattan, time flies. The two girls Alice and Charlotte who had a chance encounter with Eric at the beginning have separated. Alice moved to her boyfriend at this time.
Her boyfriend is a Morgan Stanley financial analyst named Scott, who is full of complaints when he is forced by his girlfriend to watch a fashion reality show that he is not very interested in. Just now, the picture of Cindy was quite eye-catching, hugging his girlfriend and flirting a little bit, but when the picture flashed out, and those ordinary people appeared in front of him, Scott couldn't help laughing out loud: " Haha, Alice, do you think these ugly ducklings can become supermodels? It’s a joke, if they can also become supermodels, then you can become a world famous model.”
Alice looked at the ordinary girls on the TV, and felt a little disappointed. She still liked Cindy Crawford. At the same time, she also vaguely heard that this show had something to do with Eric. Let's pay special attention to it today, so when Cindy declared that she would turn these ordinary girls into supermodels, she also expressed her disappointment.
Although most of these girls on the TV have great bodies and not ugly faces, no matter how they look at them, they definitely don't have the glamorous supermodel temperament similar to Cindy.
Seeing her boyfriend picking up the remote control and about to switch channels, Alice thought for a while and held down his hand: "Scott, wait a little longer."
Scott was quite considerate, seeing his girlfriend insisted, he followed her wishes, but he still did not forget to add: "Well, just treat it as a joke."
In front of thousands of households who chose "America's Next Top Model", most of them had the same thoughts as Alice, and some of them even switched channels in disappointment.
On the TV screen, the program continued.
The lucky girls began to gather in New York, the fashion capital. Different personalities, different backgrounds, and different life experiences were shown through ingenious shots, gradually making the audience temporarily forget these ordinary ugly ducklings, or find their own shadow, or Controlled by curiosity and voyeuristic desires in their hearts, slowly, many people forgot the initial disappointment and began to devote themselves to the plot with great interest. (To be continued.)