Top of the big era

The decline of the television industry has become an industry trend.

How to deal with it?

For some giants in the TV industry, transformation is really difficult. All their assets and employees are in the direction of TV. They can't change even if they want to, and they can only support it hard. Even if business leaders know that the future is uncertain, they can only tinker with things and rack their brains to find ways to persevere.

The method adopted is to further strengthen the monopoly to form a closed ecology.

The American television industry is already a highly concentrated industry.

Comcast, the largest TV giant, has a market share of nearly 30%.

The top four TV operators collectively account for more than 90% of the market.

But this is not enough.

Under the general trend, the fragmented monopoly in this industry is no longer enough. There must be further industrial integration to achieve a more comprehensive monopoly, so that this company can survive in the longer term.

This requires political lobbying.

The company needs to find relevant parliamentarians, lawyers and professionals to put forward opinions and explain the situation, so that the relevant regulatory authorities can understand the current development difficulties encountered by the television industry, so as to give the green light to relax restrictions.

The purpose is to realize the integration of TV operators, platforms and content parties into one!

It is equivalent to being a referee and an athlete at the same time. Only in this way can intermediate costs be reduced to the greatest extent, increase revenue and expenditure, improve efficiency, and allow both operators and content parties to survive well.

The so-called content parties are like Universal Pictures, MGM, and Sony Pictures.

Engaged in content production for film and television dramas.

After the content is produced, it must be broadcast on a TV station, and this TV station is the platform.

However, how can the TV station broadcast it to thousands of households?

This requires the operator, who has a team to lay cables, and then go door to door to install antennas, signal lines, set-top boxes, and even launch satellites to provide satellite TV services.

The current American television industry allows content parties and platform parties to merge into one.

For example, HBO produces its own TV series and then broadcasts them on its own TV stations. However, the operation service cannot be done by ourselves and must be handed over to other companies. This avoids a complete monopoly of upstream and downstream industries.

Among the Hollywood giants, in addition to Ziweixing Universal, they all have strong television business behind them, such as Disney's ESPN Sports Network, ABC Television Network, 20th Century Fox's Fox Television Network, Time Warner's CNN, Turner Television Network and HBO. Viacom and CBS behind Ramon.

This integration model was basically completed in the 1990s.

At that time, the television industry was too strong and the film industry was weak.

If Hollywood wants to develop internationally, it must have stronger strength and backing. The authorities have relaxed supervision and allowed a two-in-one monopoly of "content + platform". The six modern giants of Hollywood took shape during that period. The result was that Hollywood swept the world and was indiscriminately killing the overseas film industry. European films that were originally competing with Hollywood completely lost ground.

It has also brought negative backlash effects to itself. Hollywood’s independent film companies have found it difficult to survive due to market monopoly, and Hollywood’s diversity and innovation have dropped significantly.

Now, the television industry is weaker.

There must be new adjustments in anti-monopoly policies. Just two-in-one is not enough. Operators must also be involved to complete the three-in-one of "operator + platform + content" monopoly!

The policy restrictions that need to be overcome are too great.

This is equivalent to the Internet industry, the merger of China Mobile and Ziweixing. How terrifying is this? This business monopoly can simply be described as terrifying.

However, whether it can really be realized still requires a game between both parties.

Regulatory authorities may not approve it.

The three-in-one monopoly model is really scary.

Zhou Buqi came to Los Angeles this time mainly because of this incident.

Recently, a huge piece of big news has emerged in Hollywood - Comcast is acquiring Time Warner!

Affected by this big news, MSI Global's share price fell from US$38.7 to US$32.2 within a month, and its market value shrank from US$180 billion to US$150 billion. It is because the market believes that the loosening of regulatory policies and the birth of new industry giants will have a huge impact on the current entertainment industry giant Ziweixing Global.

Zhou Buqi asked: "Is it true that Comcast is going to acquire Time Warner?"

Jason Kilar nodded, "Well, really, several contacts have been completed. Now, two acquirers are bidding."

"Two families?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised, "Comcast still has competitors?"

Kilar said with a smile: "It has a good background. It is another TV operation service provider, Charter Communications. Both companies have already completed contact with Time Warner, and it is estimated that there will be a struggle. Many people within the company are very worried."

"Worry?"

Zhou Buqi shook his head, he was not worried at all.

Kilar smiled and said: "Yes, they are very worried. They are worried that once the operator giant merges with Time Warner, it will seriously impact our own business."

Comcast is the largest television operator in the United States and Charter Communications is the fourth largest television operator in the United States.

With the television industry in decline and the scale of the industry decreasing year by year, they had to find a new way out, and they all invariably focused on Time Warner, whose asset value was seriously undervalued.

Zhou Buqi didn't take it seriously and said calmly: "Technology is the main theme of this era. What is TV? Even if they monopolize the TV industry 100%, they can't change the general trend of the world. The scale of the TV industry is only It will decrease year by year and become less and less.”

Kilar himself is a technology person, and of course he understands. He said with a smile: "I see it this way too. TVs can exist, but the TV industry will definitely disappear. Many families use their TVs to watch streaming media content. Many families have given up on renewing TV channels, but some people in Hollywood don’t seem to understand the magic of the Internet.”

Zhou Buqi said: "So, if it rises to the company's strategic level, filmmakers are not reliable. Those Hollywood filmmakers, no matter how outstanding their performance is, cannot be fully trusted. Just let them feel at ease and make movies and TV series well." The strategic decisions and most important business execution of Ziweixing Global are all handled by our technology people.”

"certainly."

Kilar had already had this realization, he had seen through it a long time ago.

When he left Amazon and came to Los Angeles to cooperate with several Hollywood giants to establish Hulu, he understood it all. These filmmakers have such poor vision and have no overall strategic thinking at all.

To put it bluntly, it means that the structure is low and the vision is poor.

In fact, this is not surprising.

It has to do with IQ.

Those with the highest IQs in the United States all went to the financial and technology industries when choosing careers, either on Wall Street or Silicon Valley, and Hollywood was not ranked at all. Practitioners in the film industry are often those who learn nothing, and in the end they have no choice...then study film!

Those who work in finance can suddenly become the big boss of a Silicon Valley technology company, such as Dan Schulman, the current CEO of Paypal; those who work in technology can suddenly become the CEO of a financial giant, such as Sam O, who I just met. Terman.

Because both parties have the same "kind" of each other.

The industries are different, but the people are the same, and they are all talented people with high IQs.

Those who work in finance, technology, or even cross-border at will, to produce beverages, engage in real estate, sell beef, build cars, engage in foreign trade, engage in design... Basically, they can be competent and understand by analogy. It is impossible for people in other industries to cross over into the financial and technology fields to become CEOs.

Enterprises are ultimately managed by people.

In Ziweixing Global, Zhou Buqi obviously prefers Kilar and his team of scientific and technological talents.

Zhou Buqi asked: "What's the attitude of Time Warner? Will there be a deal?"

"Yes!" Kilar has been paying attention to this. "As long as the price is right, they are willing to sell the company. The current board of directors is a bit exhausted. In the past year or two, Time Warner has been adjusting its strategy, but it has not been successful at all. This year’s performance has dropped significantly. Now their market value has dropped to 40 billion US dollars, and they can’t even maintain the second place in the industry, and they have been surpassed by Disney.”

Zhou Buqi pondered: "Comcast and Charter Communications, are the two companies competing?"

"Time Warner is an industry giant after all, and ordinary companies may not be able to afford it. The merger of TV operators with a TV platform and content side like Time Warner can form a more complete closed ecosystem in terms of business."

Kilar comes from the Internet and is very familiar with some concepts of the Internet.

Zhou Buqi couldn't help laughing, "Can this regulation be passed? Closing the ecology is a very dangerous monopoly!"

What the Internet is best at is playing a closed ecology.

But in fact, closed ecology is a very sensitive monopoly model. If a closed ecology with extremely high market share appears in a traditional industry, it will most likely be broken up. The eight richest families in the United States, such as Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, and DuPont, relied on a closed ecosystem to become the richest people in the world. Later, the US authorities took action and wiped them all out. All super monopoly companies with closed ecosystems were forced to break up.

The Internet is different.

This stuff is new.

The supervision cannot understand whether it is a closed ecosystem... Technological talents with extremely high IQs will also have many reasons to explain and explain in circles.

The domestic Internet industry is particularly vigorous. It even makes a lot of noise and talks without hesitation about building a complete closed ecological industry chain, without hesitation at all. Technology companies in the United States are much more restrained. No one dares to publicly say that they are operating a closed ecological model. This is simply giving the antitrust agencies a handle.

Kilar said: "Whether it can pass is not certain. It depends on their level of lobbying. Maybe they can convince the regulatory agencies and approve it. When the industry is booming, it is necessary to break up the monopoly giants and maintain the industry. vitality and competitiveness; when the industry declines, it is necessary to integrate businesses to form a monopoly giant to ensure the vitality of the industry. This is a process of mutual compromise. It depends on whether the regulatory authorities have recognized the crisis of the television industry."

"That's terrible!" Zhou Buqi was not too optimistic, "But if it really happens, we'd better get a share of the pie!"

"ah?"

Kilar was slightly startled.