February is approaching, the Spring Festival is approaching, and summer is preparing to return to Hong Kong.

It has been nearly three months since he came to the United States. It is time to go back to Hong Kong to take a look. That is his foundation and his base camp, and it cannot be missed.

After nearly two months of preparation, Columbia Pictures finally found a suitable candidate for "Faith Express", "Death is Coming", "Hangover", "Die Hard", "Rainman", "Beach Ranger", "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and variety show "Millionaire".

Subsequently, these five movies, two dramas and a variety show were filmed one after another. Such a big move not only shocked Hollywood, but also the American media were uproared.

You should know that Hollywood is the world of production now, and 80% of the movies are produced by small companies. Giants like Colombia and Paramount produce no more than ten movies a year, and the rest rely on distribution and production to make a living.

The reason for this is mainly because the film market is in a downturn, and these giants dare not take risks in investing in new films, so they are only willing to take advantage of their monopoly to engage in distribution work, so they can make a stable profit.

Compared to this, production companies are more adventurous, and they are small and easy to turn around, and are more flexible than large companies in many ways. The movies they produce are generally less expensive and quite creative, so they are very popular with audiences.

For example, the famous Star Wars was produced by Lucas Pictures. It is very creative in terms of subject matter, story, picture, special effects, etc., so it became a hit. Lucas Pictures also became the most successful Hollywood production company with the help of this series of movies.

But now, Columbia Pictures is abnormal. Such a large-scale production of movies really shocked the industry. I don’t know where they got their confidence, but they dared to take such risks. If all these movies were lost, Columbia Pictures would have suffered heavy losses.

But when Columbia Pictures has put the rudder in the summer, the ideas of these film companies are destined to be shattered.

In the next three or four months, Columbia Pictures will continue to surprise them.

...

In terms of Rainbow Media, Xiatian has also hired a professional manager, David Chambers, to manage the operation of the TV station.

David Chambers previously worked as deputy manager of the NBC TV Network Marketing Department. He is very familiar with the TV industry and has made a lot of contributions.

In the summer, he was poached to Rainbow Media through the headhunting company and offered him a high salary of three million US dollars. If David performed well and made the company's operating condition good, he would also receive no less than one million US dollars a year within three years. Of course, if he performed poorly, not only would he not only have no bonus, but he could also be fired by celery at any time.

Before returning to Hong Kong, Xia Tian had already explained his plan to David. He asked David to actively expand the territory of Rainbow Media, use cable TV service providers, satellites, and all available means to spread the signal to North America, Europe, South America, Australia, Asia, Africa... The wider the radiation range, the better, and the more users the better.

Now is the golden period of cable TV development. The number of cable TV users in the United States has increased from 9 million in 1980 to 35 million in the current (888 years), which has increased by nearly three times, and in the future

The situation in the United States is not unique. In fact, the number of cable and satellite TV users around the world is also increasing rapidly.

Xia Tian knew that before the Internet highway (i.e. broadband) became popular, the whole world would be the world of cable TV. When people want to watch movies, TV series, news, variety shows, sports competitions, etc., they can only rely on TV.

Because broadband is not popular, video sharing websites such as YOUTUBE, NETFLIX, HULU, etc. are rootless trees and water without source, and they cannot survive at all.

As far as Xia Tian knows, YOUTUBE was founded in 2005, so the golden period of cable TV is still at least seventeen years. Seventeen years is enough to make a fight.

David Chambers faithfully implemented the summer order to vigorously expand the territory of Rainbow Media, making it cover an increasing number of regions and audiences.

...

In terms of investment, Xia Tian has also ordered Michelle to quietly acquire shares of Turner Broadcasting Company and strive to acquire the cable TV company.

In addition, he was also very interested in videotape rental Blockbuster, and asked Michelle to buy it.

Before the rise of NETFLIX, Blockbuster was the largest video rental company in the United States. At its peak, it had 60,000 clerks and 9,000 stores, distributed in many places such as North America, South America, Europe, Australia, etc. On weekends, it drove to Blockbuster to rent a movie and watched it home. It was once the most fashionable lifestyle for Americans.

Blockbuster has just been in operation for more than two years, with only more than 100 stores. Among the many video rental companies in the United States, it is not the largest, nor even the most well-known.

But Xia Tian knows its potential because Blockbuster has the most advanced video rental system. It uses computers to admit movie rental data to find out which movies are the most popular and which ones are unpopular.

Through these data analysis, companies can make procurement and scheduling more convenient. This has already caused the shadow of "big data" claimed by many Internet companies in their previous lives.

Moreover, using computers to manage film libraries also saves labor costs. A general video rental store requires at least seven or eight people to manage it. However, after adopting a computer system, it can be done with only three or two people. Therefore, although Blockbuster is still very small now, it has stronger development potential.

The acquisition of it in the summer is mainly to better release videos. Now Columbia Pictures releases videos mainly through sales. But the price of a video tape is as high as thirty dollars, which is not something that ordinary people can afford.

If you rent a video, it only costs five dollars for three days. Compared with a movie ticket worth four dollars per ticket, the price is already quite affordable and ordinary people can afford it.

In 1986, Americans spent as much as $4.4 billion on purchasing and renting video tapes, while the total box office of American movies in the same year was only $3.8 billion. Therefore, video tape distribution has exceeded theater revenue and has become one of the main sources of revenue for film companies.

If you win Blockbuster, you can open up the entire chain of video production and distribution in summer to get the greatest profit.

Blockbuster's current market value is only about $200 million, but Xia Tian knew that when Viacom's president Redstone bought it in 1993, it cost $8.4 billion.
Chapter completed!