The Goddess Shines on America

The more the times develop, the greater the challenges faced by all walks of life.

Looking at the history of Hollywood's development, its first stage, of course, was the period in which several major founders were established. Chaplin, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Garbo and other movie stars made their debuts. At that time, there was no such thing as Audrey Hepburn. The world belonged to silent films and early sound films.

The second stage of development of Hollywood is from the post-World War II period to the Reagan period. Around 1948, Hollywood's vertically integrated system entered its heyday, and the theater box office reached its highest point in history. Two-thirds of the country's population, that is, 90 million people, frequently went to movie theaters. The studio produces nearly 500 films a year, has signed solid contracts with all the big stars, and employs more than 300,000 employees.

But this situation quickly went downhill. As the suburbanization process accelerated after World War II, film companies that had no time to build more theaters naturally felt embarrassed. Precisely at this time, the rise of the television industry made broadcasters earn a lot of money, further suppressing the industrial system of old Hollywood. There was a reason for the depression of the film industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking at the situation in the past two decades, there are really only a handful of classics that can be produced.

In the early stage, several giants in Hollywood looked down on the TV industry, but the audience voted with their feet, but gave them a slap in the face. The improvement of the manufacturing industry opened up a channel for the rapid growth of the TV industry. The number of TV sets owned by the American people increased rapidly from 17,000 in 1946 to more than 40 million in 1957, almost equivalent to the total number of all American families. By 1960, there were 85 million television sets in the hands of American residents—more than two per household on average.

With such a high penetration rate, it is no wonder that the number of movie viewings per capita in the United States dropped from 31 million in 1945 to 19 million in 1950, and even 8 million in 1960. And when the 1980s came, this data was reduced to a sad level of 4.5 million people.

Faced with this situation, the Hollywood giants will certainly not sit still. Fortunately, those broadcasting companies do need the rich strength accumulated by Hollywood over the years, so cooperative operations have become the general trend.

After the introduction of the Paramount Act, the disintegration of the film industry played a role in promoting the development of the TV industry, and after the film industry moved towards the split of theaters and poor box office, the production of TV programs naturally became a Hollywood production. It is a new direction for the factory to break through, and this happens to quickly open the bottleneck of program production that restricts the popularization of TV sets. The two sides hit it off immediately, and the acquisitions began overwhelmingly.

Currently, in the world of single-round broadcasting companies, the strongest is NBC, the National Broadcasting Corporation of the United States. This is a giant established in 1926 and headquartered in Rockefeller Center in New York. It was acquired by General Electric in 1986 and has the ability to provide programs to more than 200 American TV stations.

CBS, the CBS, established in 1927, is equally powerful and was also established in New York. Considering that the audience of it and ABC TV has always been dominated by the elderly, it is also affectionately called the "senior station" by everyone. If you look at it from Alice's point of view, it is roughly the same as "CCTV8" which is equal to soap opera station and housewives station!

As for the American Broadcasting Company ABC, although it is one of the three major commercial broadcasting and television companies in the United States, it is independent of the former two and divides its headquarters into two. One is undoubtedly in Times Square in New York, but the other happens to be in Burbank, Los Angeles, not far from DreamWorks!

"It costs a lot of money to swallow ABC. Even if I can barely buy its controlling stake, it will not be easy for DreamWorks to drive it." Alice said to Lawrence: "And this will also affect the changes in the entire Hollywood structure. After all, in the past few years, ABC has been in an unowned state, and no one else has spoken, but we have swallowed it... tsk tsk."

Lawrence silently considered Alice's proposal. In terms of development prospects, DreamWorks is of course not worried. Alice can always keep an average of one movie a year, and there is enough back-up funds to support him. Roger Lawrence's contacts in Hollywood are not bad. So as long as it develops steadily, it will only be a matter of time before the company wins the "Big Eight"—unless it dies rashly.

The cooperation between large film companies and radio and television is indeed the current mainstream trend, but as Alice mentioned, DreamWorks, the newcomer king, is taking food from companies such as Paramount, Universal and Disney, even if they can buy it in front of them. Losing the controlling stake in ABC will probably cause troubles in the future. For example, in the future, the theater distribution of movies, and even the joint shooting of individual movies, DreamWorks is likely to be stretched.

"So you took advantage of the stock market crash and bought a small broadcaster as a stepping stone for DreamWorks."

Lawrence smiled lightly, pointing out Alice's finger tap two years ago, buying a company in the stock market. This is not something that any businessman can do, especially during the stock market crash. One-third of the price to win the target in one fell swoop, this kind of courage is not even dared to play by ordinary venture capitalists. After all, who can guarantee how long it will take for the falling stock price to come back?

But now it is obvious that the aftermath of the "87" stock market crash has gradually subsided, and that small TV network company has regained its former glory. Calculate the time, since it has been raised for so long, it is indeed time for some action.

Sipping a big cup of black tea, Lawrence frowned and said, "By the way, I've forgotten for so long. What's the name of the TV station I plan to buy?"

"AMC, an American classic movie and cable TV station, was originally owned by Rainbow Media Holding Group." Alice said calmly. At that time, Sophie just passed by the living room to water the potted plants on the windowsill.

"The establishment date of this company is October 1, 1984. That's right, Uncle Roger. It's the National Day of China, so I'm very optimistic about it~" Her mouth bubbled again, and Alice immediately grinned: "The year before last, that is, before the '87' stock market crash, it just established a basic cable TV channel, that is to say, viewers only need to pay a certain fee to the cable TV system service provider, and they can watch AMC cable TV without paying additional fees. programme."

Lawrence knew quite a lot about the television industry, and nodded with a smile on his face, "When the big plans were about to hit the market, the stock market crashed suddenly. I can imagine how depressed Rainbow Media would be. Since it is a small company that has only been established for three years, The company, simply abandon it as soon as possible. No wonder you can pick up a big bargain, but I know that until now, Rainbow Media is still dragging the oil for several of its subsidiaries."

After a large sum of money was invested, it suddenly hit a low point, and it lost a lot of money without making a profit. You can imagine the grand occasion of the board of directors in the vegetable market.

Alice smiled silently: "AMC uses a cable TV system, so it can directly let people across the country watch its programs without setting up its own infrastructure. As of this year, it probably has nearly 40 million subscribers, but the source But it’s still a problem. So, as long as we go through the legal process and merge AMC into DreamWorks, we can immediately use the power of the film company to shoot TV series for it on a large scale.”

It was a hit-and-miss project, and with DreamWorks' current level of development, it is fully affordable to make movies and TV series at the same time. Of course, the root of everything lies in the amount of money. Not to mention that after five full years of continuous development, the company itself already has this strength. If necessary, Alice, who has made a fortune, can also directly serve as a producer. With her financial support, even if it burns as much as $10 million for a single episode of "Friends", what is it?

Well, of course, the remuneration is directly proportional to the income.

The merger is easy to deal with, and it can be left to Lawrence himself. The development of the TV station can also be directly handed over to the people of the TV station. Therefore, the key question is what TV series to launch, which needs to be considered by Alice.

Keep in mind that it is already April of 1989.

Therefore, in the selection of TV series, what Alice needs to consider is the excellent works that can be produced in the early 1990s. After all, a true classic is not only about having a script, nor even enough special effects to support it, but also requires the aesthetic cooperation of the audience in the entire market, and the affectionate cooperation of appropriate actors.

Without Keanu Reeves' "The Matrix" and Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible", would people still watch it? In the same way, if "24 Hours of Anti-Terrorism" and "Homeland Security" were filmed before 9/11, who would buy it?

At the same time, when filming TV series in advance, it is also necessary to consider that the characters cannot be "too young", just like Alice certainly could not film "Harry Potter" in 1997 and 1998. At this moment, Emma Walter Mori and the others are still in the primary school level of bungee jumping.

So, why are the protagonists of American dramas in the 1990s mainly middle-aged? At the same time, it is best to conform to Alice's inherent label?

I believe no one would believe that Alice Wang, a Silicon Valley girl, would write something like "Desperate Housewives", right?

"The X-Files."

After seeing off Lawrence and returning to her bedroom, Alice thought of this classic repertoire without any pressure.

Well, the possibility of the FBI searching for the existence of aliens, this kind of subject is quite loving~

There is no doubt that the whole Silicon Valley geeks will love her~

And the two leading actors are also real students born in the 1960s. There was no pressure at all to shoot three years earlier~

"Oh, why am I such a genius~"

Say action and act, someone turned on the computer, ready to start her code word career!

"Hey, why are you working again!?"

Then, the door was opened just right, and Oscar walked in with a bandage on his head, with a depressed expression on his face.

"I said old sister, your brother, I was injured! Don't tell me that you traveled half the world to go home, and you just visited me by the way!"

Alice blinked her eyes and looked back at her brother.

Hey, boy, are you lonely?