Since it was once a TV station jointly owned by several cable TV operators such as Warner Cable, Comcast, and Telecom, E! Entertainment's user base is close to 50 million, higher than that of the original Lifetime TV station.
However, several major shareholders only rely on channel advantages to bundle E! Entertainment into their own cable TV packages. Therefore, the management under the control of the original shareholders has never paid attention to TV program development. E! Original entertainment programs are very scarce, and the only thing that can be sold is the "Real Hollywood" documentary series, which tells the history of legendary Hollywood stars' fame and various gossip. In addition, the original E! Entertainment even had a poor budget to buy TV shows from outside to broadcast.
In this state, E! The presence of entertainment in the hearts of the audience can be imagined. Before being acquired by MGM, E! Entertainment earns a meager 7 cents per subscriber from operators, far below the 15 cents per subscriber that the industry's basic cable stations earn on average.
The disadvantages accumulated for a long time cannot be changed overnight. MGM took over E! After entertainment, neither Eric nor the management of MGM had the intention to encourage growth, and planned to adopt a steady and steady development strategy.
Therefore, the budget investment of "Beverly Girls" is only 5 million US dollars, which is far from being compared with the original "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway". The publicity and marketing mainly rely on the latest development of Internet media.
On February 17, after two months of non-stop small-scale publicity from the end of last year to the present, "Beverly Girls" officially landed on E! Entertainment TV.
In the end, the average number of viewers for the first episode of the first season of "Beverly Girls" was 1.12 million, the highest number of viewers was 1.37 million, and the ratings were 0.7.
This result is in line with everyone's expectations. As long as the average viewership of the first season can remain around 1 million, this reality show can continue to be produced.
However, afterward, the topic and word-of-mouth of "Beverly Girls" quickly fermented.
Similar to the trend of competitive reality shows created by programs such as "Who Will Be a Millionaire" and "Survivor" a few years ago, "Beverly Girls" is a life-like reality show that completely shows the privacy of several leading actors to the audience. The show is also considered a pioneering work.
After the show was broadcast, although many media commented on this kind of reality show that obviously showed off its richness, some media criticized the show for having too many performance traces, but with the cooperation of the newly emerging Internet media platform Under the circumstances, the fashionable and avant-garde "Beverly Girls" quickly became a hot topic of discussion among young people.
In the Yahoo forum discussion community dedicated to "Beverly Girls", some people like Deborah Hall's bold charm, some like Christen Heyman's coolness, and some think Samir Caron is too cool. Prudish, some people think that the scene of Carly Whitlock standing on the top of Beverly Hills and yelling "Good morning, Los Angeles" to Los Angeles in the early morning sun is very inspirational.
The picture of ponytail underpants comes from the Czech movie "A Man of Hope". The originally unknown Eastern European actress Vika Krix became a sexy goddess on the Internet just by virtue of this one shot. Now, in the United States, where the entertainment culture is extremely developed, the impact of this pre-imitated lens is far greater than that of the original.
In just a few days, a moving GIF of Deborah Hall in a ponytail in her panties at Kristen Heyman's Bar has become the most viral image on the Internet in recent memory. This picture even became the introduction of many people talking about the topic of "Beverly Girls": Have you seen the picture of the ponytail in the underwear in "Beverly Girls"
Under the influence of these factors, although only one episode was broadcast, every detail in the 45-minute content became a topic that many netizens talked about.
Due to the lack of program content of E! Entertainment TV, it is impossible for MGM to introduce suitable E! Entertainment TV, now that "Beverly Girls" is all the rage, so, the following week, E! Entertainment arranged three consecutive rebroadcasts of the first episode of "Beverly Girls" during the daytime and late at night, and the total number of viewers of the three rebroadcasts exceeded 2.7 million.
Later, when the second episode aired, the average number of viewers of "Beverly Girls" jumped to 2.63 million, and the highest number of viewers also reached 2.95 million, with a rating of 2.1. Compared with the first episode, all the data have increased by more than two times.
The second episode of "Beverly Girls" will be broadcast on February 24, followed by "Desperate Housewives" on the Brvao channel under Rainbow Media on February 26.
Although "Desperate Housewives" was placed on a basic cable station like Brvao, which is far less popular than the public TV network, Eric didn't feel it was a pity, but he still had great expectations for this TV series.
After all, even programs on paid cable channels may reach the ratings rankings, and it is impossible for basic cable channels with more potential audiences to have no room for development. In the past, "The Walking Dead" achieved a counterattack in ratings step by step on a basic cable station like AMC, which was not much better than Brvao TV, and even once reached the top of the ratings championship.
Therefore, under Eric's intervention, "Desperate Housewives" has a much higher production budget and publicity budget than "Beverly Girls". Although only 13 episodes were produced in the first season, the budget in all aspects increased Up, it has reached 26 million US dollars.
Two months before the broadcast of the TV series, MGM began to place frequent print advertisements in major women's newspapers and magazines. When the show was about to be broadcast, several housewives actors also landed in several popular shows such as "David's Late Night Show" The talk show for the pre-heating promotion of this TV series. It can be said that before the broadcast, "Desperate Housewives" already had a good reputation.
At the same time, "Desperate Housewives" has also adopted the mode of two-episode simulcast when many new dramas are released.
Under the conception provided by Eric and the work of the original screenwriter, the huge suspense created by Mary Alice Young's suicide at the beginning of the series and the distinctive character creation of a group of housewives in the wisteria community have firmly caught the audience's attention.
After the episode was aired, it almost aroused overwhelming praise from the critics. Many media said that it was a waste for MGM to put such an excellent TV series on a basic cable station like Brvao. Any one of the big TV networks. Such an argument also stimulated people's curiosity about "Desperate Housewives".
Different from the regular start of "Beverly Girls", after sparing no effort in the early stage of publicity, "Desperate Housewives" won an average of 4.16 million viewers when it first aired, the highest number of viewers was 4.73 million, and the ratings reached 3.4. This figure is already higher than the ratings of many public cable TV programs that are not too successful.
Although it is doomed to not be able to create the universal influence and huge profits of the four major TV networks, but only based on the current ratings, "Desperate Housewives" can recover all costs and achieve huge profits. Moreover, keep going, with the ever-expanding word-of-mouth and influence of "Desperate Housewives", Eric is still very confident that this TV series can create a cable TV ratings miracle.
At the same time, under the promotion of "Desperate Housewives", the Brvao channel will also be successfully shaped into a dedicated women's channel. The ultimate goal is to create a basic cable station for housewives.
Through the Clinton administration's information superhighway plan, the last few years have been a critical time for the widespread popularization of cable TV in the United States.
However, most operators of cable television stations have not yet realized that a new era is coming. Brvao channel will take the lead to gain the audience’s recognition and corresponding market share, and its position in the field of basic cable television stations will be unbreakable in the future.
It has been nearly half a year since MGM won the two TV stations. During this period, Amy Pascal and other MGM management have been adjusting and rectifying the problems of the two TV stations. The consecutive successful launches of Beverly Girls and Desperate Housewives are also inseparable from the management's efforts.
Now, with the success of "Beverly Girls" and "Desperate Housewives", the situation of the two TV stations has officially opened, and MGM has also successfully crossed the first step in the development of the TV industry. The related celebrations are naturally necessary.
The celebration party was arranged at Drew's home in Trousdale Manor. Although it was Saturday, filming of "Iron Man" was about to start, and Eric had a lot of work to do. Star Firefly Studios got off work, and it was already 7:40 when they arrived in Beverly Hills, and the party had already started.
In recent days, driven by the intentional or unintentional release of rumors from the Firefly Group, the news that Eric played the leading role in "Iron Man" Tony Stark has gradually spread.
"Iron Man" will be officially launched next Monday. At the launch conference held this Friday in advance, Eric did not appear, and Firefly Group did not announce the exact candidate for the leading actor. As a media group, Firefly Group's internal The media channels naturally know the exact news, but obviously they will not take the initiative to disclose the inside information.
Moreover, Larry Ellison, who likes to be in the limelight, also jumped out on purpose, claiming that he will play an important role in "Iron Man", with a very ambiguous tone, as if this guy is the leading actor, Larry Ellison By the way, Mori made an advertisement for his own Oracle Group.
Therefore, these ambiguous information have intensified the media's speculation. In line with the recent discussion about Eric's net worth, the topic of "Iron Man" has also become hot.
As the latest issue of "Forbes" magazine in March is about to launch the new year's Forbes rich list list, more and more topics about Eric's net worth have become more and more, and major financial media have launched their own rich list in advance Data, like a bunch of outpost awards before the Oscars.
Although the data released by different media are not the same, they have one obvious thing in common. Eric Williams will become the first super-rich man in the United States and even the world with a net worth of more than 100 billion U.S. dollars.
What is the gap between the billionaires and the billionaires, no one knows, after all, Eric is only the first and only one.
However, this does not prevent many media from automatically finding similar references, that is, the two most influential families in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, Morgan and Rockefeller.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Morgan and Rockefeller families controlled almost the entire United States during their heyday.
Take Hollywood as an example. In the early twentieth century, several major film companies in Hollywood were fundamentally subsidiaries of the Morgan and Rockefeller consortiums.
At the same time, the current GM system in the United States, whether it is General Electric, General Motors, or other companies prefixed with GM, are basically companies under the Morgan Consortium, and JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are still Wall Street's financial giants.
Comparable to the Morgan family, the Rockefeller family controlled most of the energy and mineral industries in the United States, and it can be said that they controlled the lifeline of the US economy.
Exxon Mobil, founded by the Rockefeller family, is still the world's largest oil company, and there is no competitor in the United States that can match it. Many countries in the world with a relatively high degree of openness in the energy industry can see Exxon Mobil behind their oil industry.
Back to the present.
Few people deny that with the advent of the information age, the world is undergoing changes in the technology industry.
In this transformation, the rise of the information industry is undoubtedly the most eye-catching. Compared with high-end industries such as genetic technology and nuclear technology, the information industry is also a basic industry with the highest popularity among civilians.
Although Eric Williams has risen in Hollywood, he has invested in a large number of companies in the field of information technology without knowing it.
Moreover, under Firefly Investment, whether it is Internet companies such as Cisco, Yahoo, and America Online, or companies in the communication field such as Qualcomm and Sprint, they all have a pivotal position in the entire industry.
Although these industries have not yet developed to the point of becoming the lifeline of a country's economy, there is no doubt that according to the current speed of development, once mankind truly enters the information age, these companies under the name of Eric Williams will all It is enough to have a decisive impact on the development of the information industry in the United States and the entire world.
Even Eric Williams will become the 'John Rockefeller' of the information age. What's even more frightening is that this time, there is no 'J.P. Morgan' who can compete with him, even if he relies on Microsoft to become the global leader. Bill Gates, the second richest person, only controls an operating system platform, and Microsoft's influence is far from comparable to that of Firefly Investment, which involves the entire information industry.
At the end of the discussion, some media even called for the federal government to intervene to limit the further expansion of firefly investment and prevent the emergence of monopoly giants, but this obviously does not hurt the development of the firefly system.
Trousdale Manor, Drew's mansion.
As soon as Eric's car entered the courtyard, a group of people greeted him.
Eric and Yatou hugged each other, and then shook hands with Amy Pascal and his wife, among whom were several strangers, who were also introduced by Yatou one by one.
After the greetings, Drew, who held Eric's arm affectionately, walked into the courtyard surrounded by everyone, and said coquettishly without any scruples: "Eric, I thought you weren't coming."
Hearing everyone's echoing laughter, Eric also laughed and said, "It's not like you don't know, I've been very busy recently."
Kris Jenner, who eagerly approached Eric, asked, "Eric, we've all heard some rumors, are you really planning to play Tony Stark yourself?"
"This, keep it secret for the time being, you can boldly guess," Eric smiled and shook his head. If he publicly admitted it in front of so many people, the news would definitely be completely covered.
"I don't think it's possible. Isn't Eric going to direct his own new movie in the second half of the year?" MGM President John Carley also said: "However, Eric, why did Firefly make a big comment on "Steel?" He kept silent about the male lead in "Heroes", it could not be that Mr. Larry Ellison from Oracle is coming to play, right?"
Eric didn't speak, and some other people immediately retorted with a smile: "That's even more unreliable."
Everyone chatted casually, and soon came to the party scene on the lawn in the backyard. Girls always like to hold parties with great fanfare. One or two hundred people have gathered here. When Eric appeared, it was natural to be noisy. (To be continued.)