Easter has just passed, and Eric did not go back to New York to spend Easter with the children because he was too busy, but he promised the women that he would return to East Hampton before April 10th, and the two little guys will be four years old soon.
In a restaurant in Firefly Studios, on the new Monday, Eric and Katzenberg had breakfast together, discussing the topic of the three animated films in the summer.
""The Lion King 2" is a film launched at the same time as "Pocahontas" released by Paramount last year. Although it has been three years, the influence of "The Lion King" is still there. Roger Ailes used After three years of meticulously crafting this film, the quality of the animation must not be much inferior to that of the first film, the only thing we can do is to create obstacles for Paramount in terms of publicity."
Katzenberg introduced the recent situation, took a sip of juice, and continued: "I have already talked to Mr. Murdoch on the phone several times. On all TV platforms, there will not be any trailer ads for "The Lion King 2", and viewers will only see information about "Finding Nemo" and "Ice Age". News Corp., Fox Network and Fox Family Channel, etc. The same is true for the platform. We will also try our best to compete for the advertising spots of the two TV networks NBC and CBS. According to the estimates of the publicity department, when these deployments are fully implemented, Paramount’s publicity budget can only reach half of the usual amount at most. Effect."
Commercial competition has never been warm and affectionate. During the promotion of "Titanic" at the end of last year, Viacom's MTV, which focuses on young audiences, once refused to release a trailer for "Titanic" because of the shortage of advertising space. As the method of general distribution becomes more and more common, the importance of film promotion to the box office becomes more and more obvious, which can be seen from the increasing proportion of film promotion budget in the total investment cost.
This time, whether it is a counterattack to Viacom's actions a few months ago, or out of competition, it is very necessary to completely block "The Lion King 2" in the Firefly system.
Viacom Group's best TV asset at this time is only one MTV station. As for Nickelodeon, which has the same positioning as Disney Channel, the number of users is not at the same order of magnitude as Disney Channel. Since the Internet has just emerged in recent years, the current mainstream methods of movie promotion are still TV trailers, paper media advertisements and posting posters in a large number of public advertising spaces, among which the role of TV trailers is undoubtedly the most important. , This is especially true for animated films, after all, a considerable proportion of the audience of animated films among teenagers and children do not know how to read newspapers or magazines.
The joint blocking of ABC TV network and FOX TV network will mean that "The Lion King 2" will lose at least half of the TV advertising platforms in North America, and Viacom's own TV resources are quite limited, so it can obtain advertisements on external platforms such as CBS and NBC. There is also competition between Firefly and Fox, one ebb and flow, Paramount Pictures will definitely have to pay a higher price for the promotion of "The Lion King 2", but the final marketing results will be far from "Finding Nemo" " and "Finding Nemo".
Eric had already finished the breakfast in front of him, drank a cup of hot milk slowly, and after listening to Katzenberg, he asked, "Have you considered that Viacom may provoke "The Lion King 2" in the media? Was it blocked?"
"Of course, the way to deal with it is very simple. Unless necessary, we will ignore it as much as possible. This will also prevent Paramount from using this topic to hype. This matter has been discussed in the meeting last week. If Viacom made similar remarks in the media, no department of Firefly would respond publicly. Moreover, there is nothing illegal about us doing this. If someone questions it, we can produce enough evidence. It proves that all the advertising time slots of our TV station have been sold out," Katzenberg spread his hands out, showing a somewhat shabby Totoro grin, and made a very vivid analogy: "If there is no opponent to take the move, one of them will People who punch empty fists in the air will only make people feel ridiculous."
Eric also laughed and said: "I guess after this incident, Redstone will definitely make up his mind to attack CBS or NBC again."
"General Electric will not sell NBC at all in recent years. As for CBS, according to its current market value, Viacom may spend more than 30 billion US dollars to buy it now. In the case of public television networks constantly being eroded by cable television market share Let alone 30 billion US dollars, even if the price is reduced by half, I don’t think it’s worth it. When we bought Metropolis/ABC, if we didn’t have shares in ESPN and AE TV networks, it would definitely be worthless now. "
Eric said: "But Lei Shidong certainly doesn't think so. His concept is still stuck in the period when the public television network was at its peak twenty years ago."
In my memory, Viacom once spent a huge sum of US$46 billion in order to annex the CBS TV network. However, after the deal was concluded, CBS began to fall into long-term losses due to the impact of the cable TV industry. Many years later, in order to avoid the overall performance of the group being dragged down by the CBS television network, Viacom had to separate CBS from its profitable cable business such as MTV.
There is no doubt that Lei Shidong is a very enterprising person. However, perhaps due to the limitations of the times, his vision has always been a bit poor. Although Viacom has grown larger and larger in the tide of integration of media groups, it has been proved afterwards that no matter whether it is Blockbuster video The acquisition of chain stores, or the acquisition of the CBS TV network, are all extremely failed businesses. After the new century, Viacom has gradually degraded from a first-tier media giant to a second-tier media group.
The two then chatted about the release of several other films in the summer. In the end, Katzenberg hesitated and said, "Eric, regarding the recent digital music distribution rights, Barry Weiss and I We talked about it once, and he felt very uneasy. I also think that your digital distribution strategy for Firefly Records is not too aggressive."
Barry Weiss was a senior official hired by Firefly from JIVE Music, a subsidiary of Sony Records, and is currently the president of Firefly Records.
In the past two years, the Backstreet Boys team created by Barry Weiss has also quickly become a top-line pop singer, and last year created the first album with global sales exceeding 20 million.
In addition to Backstreet Boys, the other singers under Firefly Records rely on the rich media resources of Firefly Group, and their development is quite stable. Former MMC members such as Christina, Britney, and Justin Timberlake, after several years of training, released test singles last year and received good market feedback. Firefly Records has started tailor-made for them album plans.
Eric is therefore very satisfied with the success of Barry Weiss's work in the past two years.
At this time, Eric was not surprised when he heard Katzenberg's report, but said: "Jeffrey, you should have read the digital distribution plan I gave to Firefly Records, right?"
Katzenberg nodded, and said: "It feels very similar to the staged release of movies. The three-month physical record release cycle will be released on the Yahoo Music Store three months later for digital album release. Although the three-month window period is short A little bit, but still acceptable. But then, six months after the album is released, it will be split into singles for separate sales, and Barry said that this is the biggest hit to record sales."
For many albums, unless you are a die-hard fan, most people will only like the best song or two on it.
In fact, this is also a deliberate effort by record companies to save resources and maximize profits. It is definitely easier to produce a mediocre song than to create a classic, and you can spend less money and effort. If the records were to be split, it would directly lead to a large number of mediocre songs that were not bought, which would certainly threaten the survival of record companies for many years.
"Jeffrey, don't mention the advantages and disadvantages of this solution for the time being," Eric said, taking out a Fireflyer that he often carried recently from his pocket, and said: "You must already know this player very well, so , let’s make an assumption, if this player is completely developed by your own company, and you have no interest in the record industry, then, in order to promote this machine as much as possible, what will you do?”
Katzenberg these days is also aware of the Fireflyer's potential as an alternative to the traditional portable music player market.
In the current portable music player market, Sony's Walkman still occupies the mainstream, with an annual sales volume of about 15 million units. The sales figures of other CD players, MD Walkmans and other equipment are also on this order of magnitude. That is to say, the annual market capacity of portable music players is about 30 million units. If it can fully occupy this market, according to the net profit margin of about 15% of electronic equipment, the net profit of Fireflyer, which is priced at $299, is about $45. The annual sales volume of 30 million units will bring a net profit of 1.35 billion US dollars, which is enough to squeeze into the top 100 global corporate profit list.
Katzenberg is also not a person with a particularly strong sense of morality. With empathy, considering the terrifying business opportunities contained in this player, he will naturally choose the most beneficial promotion and sales method at all costs. He even secretly condoned the spread of pirated music on the Internet. As for the life and death of the record company, it has nothing to do with him.
According to this line of thinking, if he is now in charge of Firefly Electronics Company, he will completely abandon the interests of Firefly Records without hesitation. Although Firefly Records has developed well in recent years, the profits it provides to the group every year are less Less than $100 million, even if it grows to the size of the five major record companies, it is still not enough to compare the profits that Fireflyer may create. After all, the output value of the music industry is far from comparable to that of movies, and none of the world's five largest record companies can make more than 1 billion in annual profit.
After working together for so long, Eric knows Katzenberg's character well. After seeing his short-term thinking expression, he just grinned and didn't speak. Eric could roughly guess what he was thinking, and said: "There are always smart people in this world. The MP3 audio format was initially introduced five years ago. During these five years, I can guess with certainty that traditional music equipment manufacturers must have produced players similar to Fireflyer. However, in order to protect the huge vested interests of their own player products and peripheral industries such as CDs and tapes, they will definitely instinctively block this kind of project. But this kind of result is not the worst, just like I just Hypothetically, if a similar player product is produced by an electronic manufacturer that has nothing to do with the record industry, in order to gain more benefits, they will definitely ignore the interests of the record company as much as possible, not to mention that like me now, fee Try your best to bring record companies in. They just need a high-sounding excuse, for example, our player can only copy music from genuine CDs, and then they can mass-produce and promote this product. As for where users get their music , do you think they would care?"
"And you," Katzenberg asked suddenly, "Eric, do you care?"
Eric smiled, leaned back in his chair relaxedly, and said honestly, "No, I don't care either."
Katzenberg said, "Then why are you still doing this?"
Eric thought for a while and said: "Because I want to gain the initiative, or, to be more blunt, I just want to be the maker of the rules. Instead of standing still, waiting to be ruled by others, or even eliminated. So, Jeffrey, if you pay more attention to Yahoo Internet Corporation, you should find that on the basis of the MP3 audio format, Yahoo has been further developing the MP4 video format. The IT industry will develop according to Moore's law, and it will take less than ten years. Hollywood will face a situation similar to that of the recording industry at this time. At that time, the easiest way to survive is to become a rule-maker, rather than vainly blaming others or blindly resisting emerging technologies.”
Katzenberg has always admired his young boss's outstanding vision in the film and television industry and investment, but he always felt that Eric's personality lacked the desire to control that a superior person should have, and even in many things Too mild and not aggressive.
But now, in the small restaurant of Firefly Studios, Katzenberg suddenly discovered that the pattern in Eric's heart was many times wider than his. Not only did he already own the present, but he even planned to control the future.
Katzenberg even realized that maybe he was just a pawn in Eric's ambitious layout for the future. After all, the pawn cannot see the entire chessboard layout clearly. It can only observe everything within its own established route area. And self-righteously pointing at a certain move of the chess player.
Are you willing to be a pawn
Katzenberg couldn't help asking himself, but he quickly gave an answer in his heart, why not
How many people in this world dare to say that they are not pawns? But there are too many people, perhaps for a lifetime, who have no chance to connect with chess players. But now, not only does he have such an opportunity, he can even consciously create the future with a chess player, which is much luckier than those who spend their entire lives without knowing what to do.
"Eric, I have a good relationship with Geffen. Maybe I can make a phone call and invite him to the Fireflyer conference in San Francisco on April 2. What do you think?"
David Geffen's record company used to be a very important branch of Warner Music Group, and its music copyright was almost equivalent to that of Firefly Records. Katzenberg and David Geffen have always been very good friends. When David Geffen just left Time Warner, Katzenberg also suggested that Eric buy David Geffen's record company, but Eric didn't agree.
Eric didn't know what changes had taken place in Katzenberg's state of mind in such a short period of time, but he was willing to take the initiative to make a bridge, and Eric would naturally not refuse.
"Of course, if he wants, um, when the time comes, everyone can get together."
After breakfast, they chatted casually. Katzenberg was going to the Burbank headquarters to attend the weekly meeting, and the two separated.
Eric also has a very busy work schedule today.
In the morning, I will check out the rough-cut samples of "Jurassic Park 3", and discuss the next post-production special effects work with director Joe Johnston and the post-production team in the digital field. At noon, I asked Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay to have dinner together to discuss the "The Day After Tomorrow" project in the disaster film series. After all, this project can't be dragged on like this. Eric doesn't plan to direct it personally, and the company can't wait forever. It just so happens that after Michael Bay finished producing "Bad Boys 2", he didn't want to shoot "Bad Boys 3" again, but wanted to Trying out the special effects theme, Jerry Bruckheimer proposed to hand over "The Day After Tomorrow" to Michael Bay for guidance. In the afternoon, I will go to the Fox studio to participate in the last round of auditions for the heroine of "The End of the World". Eric has no interest in appreciating or even hunting beautiful women through auditions. What kind of woman does he want now? There is no need for such a complicated routine. But since he took the initiative to take the job, he had to show it symbolically.
Since the box office performance of "Jurassic Park 2" is almost the same as that of the first one, although the option contract was signed in advance, Joe Johnston still proposed to get more pay in "Jurassic Park 3" , the two parties spent three months in negotiations to reach an agreement, and the script writing and team building of the third part were not as smooth as the second part. Therefore, the planned two-year production cycle was extended to two and a half years. Jurassic Park 3 can only miss the summer schedule, and is scheduled for the Christmas schedule at the end of the year.
"Jurassic Park 3" just wrapped up on the eve of the Oscars, and Jerry Bruckheimer is still the producer. The original appointment was at noon, but in order to learn about the special effects production process, Michael Bay followed Jerry in the morning. Bruckheimer came to Firefly Studios together to listen to the discussion on the post-production plan of "Jurassic Park 3". Everyone's success will not be a fluke. Eric is also very satisfied with Michael Bay's attitude. After finishing the work in the morning, he has let go of hesitation in his heart and decided to hand over "The Day After Tomorrow" to him for production. At noon, everyone is in the restaurant , directly discussed the production plan of "The Day After Tomorrow". (To be continued.)