In the early days, the popularity of a TV program can only be shown from the long-term ratings curve. If the TV station wants to know the views of the audience, it can only obtain information through newspaper questionnaires and random telephone interviews. The efficiency of the method is very low, and the accuracy is not high.
This situation has been rapidly changing with the rise of the Internet in recent years. After "America's Next Top Model" aired, although it was not very popular in traditional media, its popularity among ordinary audiences was very intuitively displayed on the Internet.
In just one week, the "America's Next Top Model" section of Yahoo Forums has added nearly 180,000 new members. In Yahoo's search engine business, "America's Next Top Model" has quickly become a hot word.
The number of fans on Cindy Crawford's personal homepage has skyrocketed. Before the broadcast of the show, her personal homepage only had more than 10,000 fans, but within a week of the broadcast of the show, the number skyrocketed to 120,000. And still increasing rapidly.
Because the personal homepage business has just been opened, although the overall number of users is large, the relevant social network is still in the cultivation period, and the number of fans on the personal homepage of most popular people is also in the 100,000 level, which is far from the hundreds of fans later on. scale of tens of millions. Therefore, relying on the popularity brought by "America's Next Top Model", Cindy Crawford's fan scale far surpasses everyone in the same industry, and even caused traditional media reports.
Catalyzed by the heat of the topic that spread unknowingly, a week passed quickly.
Although because of the feedback from the audience in the previous week, everyone is full of confidence in the ratings of the second episode.
However, when the ratings statistics for the second season of "America's Next Top Model" were released, people were still overjoyed.
The highest number of viewers was 3.5 million, the average number of viewers was 2.8 million, and the ratings reached 1.6, which once again broke all the ratings records of Lifetime TV.
Although the number of viewers is far from comparable to that of PR TV, in terms of the viewership data of the 18- to 49-year-old core audience that is most valued by advertisers, because the audience of "America's Next Top Model" is concentrated on young women, the ratings are 1.6 The rate is even comparable to that of ordinary dramas on public television.
The production and promotion of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" have always been closely linked. Stimulated by the accumulative popularity of "America's Next Top Model", on the following Thursday, the first episode of "Project Runway" also achieved a brilliant result with an average audience of 2.6 million viewers, and the highest number of viewers easily exceeded 3.1 million.
Although "Project Runway" is a fashion production program, under the supervision of Eric and the "Survivor" team, this reality show is not as professional and rigid as the audience imagined. Viewers who were skeptical about the professional reality show also quickly accepted the show, and talked about the pleasing to the eye with the contestants and making any material into exquisite fashion.
As the ratings rose, traditional media keenly grasped the news potential of these two reality shows and began to report them one after another, which further promoted the rapid spread of the fame of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway".
In the following weeks, the ratings of the two reality shows showed a neck-to-neck upward trend. In less than a month, the average viewership of the two reality shows broke through the 4 million mark at the same time. The popularity of "America's Next Top Model" In the end, it surpassed "Project Runway", and the highest ratings of the fourth episode even reached 4.6 million.
At the same time, in just one month, with the popularity brought by the two reality shows, more and more people began to notice Lifetime TV.
Because of the viral topics of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway", or because of curiosity, or wanting to follow the topic direction of the people around them, many people find out that there is no Lifetime TV station in their cable TV package. , They all chose to change the package.
As a result, the subscribers of Lifetime TV station easily broke through 40 million from the initial 34.5 million in the following month.
Those operators who carry the Lifetime TV station signal are better. After receiving the user's request, they can easily change the subscription package. But life is not so easy for operators without Lifetime TV signals. Among them, Time Warner is undoubtedly the most unlucky.
Things had to start from the preparations for the Lifetime TV reform plan. When the plans for the two reality shows were finalized, Katzenberg personally contacted the executives of several operators, including Comcast, Telecom, and Time Warner, and hoped that the other party would be able to continue in the future. It carries the signal of Lifetime TV station in a wide range.
However, because Lifetime TV station has been showing no fire, several major operators have been very indifferent to Katzenberg's request. Katzenberg lobbied everywhere, but with little effect. Until the broadcast of "America's Next Top Model", the number of subscribers It also only increased by a mere 3 million.
Operators such as Comcast and Telecom are fine. They do not have large-scale self-owned TV stations. They increase or decrease the number of Lifetime TV users, and most of the time they refer to the ratings data of Lifetime TV.
But Time Warner is different. After learning about Firefly Group's reform plan for Lifetime TV, considering that once Lifetime TV rises, it will definitely compete with Time Warner's WB TV station that also faces young audiences. Therefore, Time Warner not only did not cooperate to increase Lifetime TV. The user scale of the TV station, on the contrary, cut the user scale of Lifetime TV station by 800,000 by changing the form of the package before the autumn file. Moreover, what is even more insidious is that some of the users cut off by Time Warner are concentrated in New York and Los Angeles. Among these metropolises.
Fashionable women in metropolises such as Los Angeles and New York are the most potential user groups for the two reality shows "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway". After hearing the news, Katzenberg directly called the Times The head of Warner Cable's cable division cursed.
However, perhaps it is in response to the phrase "Settle accounts after autumn".
This autumn has not yet passed, and Time Warner has already suffered retribution for the original trick.
If "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" hadn't become popular, then, for the 800,000 subscribers who have been cut off from Lifetime's signal, Lifetime TV is naturally dispensable, and no one will care about it.
But the current situation is far beyond everyone's expectations. As the broadcast progresses, "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" have become popular topics among many young women. When a contestant from "America's Next Top Model" was unfortunately eliminated, when my girlfriends were chatting about a certain amazing outfit in "Project Runway", because all the packages of the cable TV operator at home did not have the signal of Lifetime TV station, You can't get in a word at all, the embarrassing situation can be imagined.
Operators in the United States also have a regional monopoly. In order to avoid unnecessary competition, operators such as Comcast, Telecom, and Time Warner have divided their respective territories very tacitly. In some relatively remote areas, residents often can only choose one The operator accesses the cable TV signal.
If you encounter this situation unfortunately, you will naturally consider yourself unlucky. However, in metropolises such as New York and Los Angeles, the major operators are basically fighting for every inch of land, so this potential monopoly situation does not exist.
As a result, subscribers who couldn't find a Lifetime TV signal on any Time Warner cable package turned to operators such as Comcast and Telecom in order to watch "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway."
In October, when Time Warner's cable TV department counted the number of subscribers again, it was shockingly discovered that in just one month, Time Warner lost 460,000 subscribers rapidly.
What is the concept of this number!
The total number of Time Warner's cable TV subscribers is only 15 million. After cutting 800,000 Lifetime TV subscribers, the remaining Lifetime TV subscribers are only 3 million, which is the lowest level among the major operators. The root of all this is , of course because of Time Warner's rivalry with Firefly.
But at this time, the loss of 460,000 subscribers a month is already equivalent to 3% of the total subscribers of Time Warner Cable TV. 1.6 million. Moreover, if this situation continues, Time Warner's cable TV business will not grow this year, but will return to the point where it was two or even three years ago at one time.
Terry Semel, who was suffering from another failure in the summer film business, heard the news and called the head of Time Warner's cable TV department to scold him. Time Warner originally wanted to keep silent. He dealt with this matter carefully, but for some reason, the news was suddenly spread.
For a while, the news of 'Time Warner's cable TV business has declined sharply' flooded the media. Although everyone knew what was going on, Time Warner wanted to suppress the development of Lifetime TV, but because of "America's Next Top Model" and "Flyover The strong rise of "The Proud Son" ended up stealing nothing.
If you lose 3% of your users in one month, how much will you lose in that year
Many people couldn't help asking, and no doubt many Time Warner shareholders also had this idea, so the management was once again under pressure from all sides.
In order to calm this matter, someone must come out and take responsibility.
Time Warner's internal forces are deeply intertwined. Several forces are entrenched in a cable TV department. Everyone knows the ins and outs of this matter. In fact, whichever company you switch to, if you encounter this situation, you will basically do the same. Therefore, this turmoil cannot be regarded as a business error at all. It is impossible for Terry Semel to provoke internal disputes under external pressure. The spokesmen of the party were singled out as scapegoats.
A few days later, Time Warner announced that a vice president of the former cable TV department was about to leave due to a decision-making error, which was regarded as an explanation for all parties.
But of course it couldn't end that way.
The popularity of Lifetime TV station is still rising rapidly. Time Warner has lost 460,000 subscribers. If the subscribers are not reconnected to the Lifetime TV station signal as soon as possible, the situation will definitely get worse if the situation continues to develop.
The platform of a cable TV operator is not something that a TV station can access at will, but similarly, it is impossible for an operator to access a cable TV signal without authorization. Everything has two sides, and everything depends on the two parties. Just more powerful.
Hastily dealt with external public opinion and shareholder pressure, Terry Semel called Katzenberg himself.
The call was transferred to Katzenberg's secretary's office, and the reply seemed not surprising at all: "Mr. Katzenberg is not here... When will I be able to contact... I don't know."
After several attempts to no avail, Terry Semel had to call Robert Iger, who had just assumed the helm of Firefly's TV business.
Robert Iger's attitude is very eager, but he just said that because the AE TV network is a joint venture with the Hearst Group, and it belongs to a separate cable TV department, he is not easy to intervene in the internal affairs of Lifetime TV.
Condescending again, he directly dialed the phone number of Anne Sweeney, President of AE Television Network.
Anne Sweeney was more direct: "Sorry, Mr. Semel, the decision-making power in this matter is no longer in my hands."
In the office of Time Warner headquarters in Manhattan, after being rejected three times in a row, Terry Semel almost dropped the phone in his hand.
Looking at the gray sky outside the glass window of the office, Terry Semel calmed down after taking several deep breaths.
Of course, Terry Semel understood that this was Firefly's counterattack to Time Warner's original decision, and wanted to deliberately hang up Time Warner for a few months.
However, in the current situation, Time Warner absolutely cannot afford to wait.
If Time Warner's cable subscribers drop by hundreds of thousands next month, he, the CEO, may be involved in this matter.
He frowned and considered for a long time. Just as Terry Semel was considering whether to fly to Los Angeles to interview Katzenberg in person, he suddenly remembered that the young man behind the firefly should be in East Hampton now.
Although I haven't visited, it is not difficult to find out Eric's residence. After a few phone calls, I quickly got the address of Eric's estate in East Hampton.
After thinking about it for a moment, Terry Semel ordered the secretary to prepare the car, and he planned to rush to East Hampton himself.
After all, as the absolute controller of the Firefly Group, if you can directly get the promise of Eric Williams, it will definitely far exceed the repeated entanglement with Katzenberg and other high-level officials.
Moreover, although he admired this young man for creating a huge industry in just a few years, deep down in his heart, Terry Semel still felt that Eric Williams was young after all, and he must be smarter than the shrewd Carson. Berger was much easier to deal with. After all, no matter how talented a person is, in terms of business management experience, he still has to rely on long-term accumulation of experience. (To be continued.)