I’m in Hollywood Chapter 746: Circle
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In the early period, the popularity of a TV show was often only revealed from the long-term ratings curve. TV Station wanted to know the audience ’s views, and only through the newspaper questionnaire survey and random telephone interviews. This method of obtaining information is very inefficient and inaccurate.
With the rise of the Internet in recent years, this situation has rapidly changed. After the broadcast of "America's Next Top Model", although the popularity in the traditional media is not high, its popularity in the general audience group is very intuitively displayed on the Internet.
The "America's Next Top Model" section of the Yahoo forum added nearly 180,000 new members in just one week. "America's Next Top Model" quickly became a hot word in the Yahoo search engine business.
The number of Cindy Crawford's personal homepage fans has risen sharply. Before the program was broadcast, her personal homepage was only 10,000 more than fans, but within a week of the program broadcast, this number skyrocketed to 120,000, and still Rapidly increasing.
Because the personal homepage business has just been launched, although the total number of users is large, the relevant social networks are still in the cultivation period. The number of personal homepages fans of most popular characters are also at the 100,000 level, which is far from the fans. The scale of hundreds of millions. Therefore, with the popularity brought by "America's Next Top Model", the fans scale of Cindy Crawford far shunned everyone in the same industry, and even caused reports in traditional media.
With the enthusiasm of the topic spreading unconsciously, a week passed quickly.
Despite the feedback from the audience for the previous week, everyone is confident about the ratings of the second episode.
However, when the statistics for the second season of "America's Next Top Model" came out, it was still overwhelming.
The highest number of viewers is 3500,000, the average number of viewers is 2800,000, and the audience rating reaches 1.6, again breaking all the ratings records of lifetimeTV Station.
Although the number of viewers is far from comparable to the public relations TV Station, it is based on the ratings of the core audience of 18 to 49 years old most valued by advertisers, because the audience of "America's Next Top Model" is concentrated on young women, with a rating of 1.6 The rate is even comparable to the regular episodes of the public TV Station.
The production and promotion of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" have always been closely linked. Stimulated by the accumulated popularity of "America's Next Top Model", on the following Thursday, the first episode of "Project Runway" also achieved a dazzling score of an average of 2600,000 viewers, and the highest number of viewers easily broke through 3.1 million.
Although "Project Runway" is a fashion production program, under the control of the Eric and "Survivor" teams, this Reality TV Show has no professionalism and stereotypes that the audience imagined, and it was originally a specialization of "Project Runway". The skeptical audience of Reality TV Show also quickly accepted the show, and talked about the tears of the players and the delightful production of any materials into exquisite fashion.
As the ratings increased, traditional media keenly seized the news potential of these two Reality TV Shows and began to report one after another, which further promoted the popularity of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway".
In the following weeks, the ratings of the two Reality Show showed a parallel upward trend. Less than a month, the average number of viewers of the two Reality Show broke through the 4million mark at the same time, and the popularity of "America's Next Top Model" was finally higher. In the "Project Runway" section, the highest rating data of the fourth episode even reached 4600,000.
At the same time, in just one month, with the popularity of the two Reality Show, more and more people began to notice LifetimeTV Station.
Because "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" virus-like topic spread speed, or because of curiosity, or want to follow the direction of the topic of the group around, many people find that there is no LifetimeTV Station in their cable TV package They have chosen to change packages.
Lifetime TV Station subscribers also broke through 40 million from the original 34500,000 in the following month.
Operators equipped with LifetimeTV Station signals are better. After receiving user requests, it is very convenient to change the subscription package. However, the days of operators without LifetimeTV Station signals are not so good. Among them, the most unlucky one is undoubtedly Time Warner.
Things still need to start when the LifetimeTV Station reform plan is prepared. When the two Reality Show plans are finalized, Katzenberg personally contacts the top executives of several operators such as Comcast, remote communications, and Time Warner, hoping that the other party can carry LifetimeTV Station signals on a larger scale.
However, because LifetimeTV Station has been performing sullenly, several major operators have been very cold on Katzenberg's requirements, and Katzenberg has been lobbying everywhere, but the results have been minimal. Until the launch of "America's Next Top Model", the number of subscribers has only increased by 3 million.
Comcast and telecom operators are just fine. They do n’t have their own large-scale TV Station, increase or decrease the number of LifetimeTV Station users. Most of the time the reference is based on the ratings data of LifetimeTV Station.
But Time Warner is different. After learning about Firefly Group ’s plan to reform LifetimeTV Station, considering that once LifetimeTV Station rises, it will definitely compete with Time Warner ’s WBTV Station, which also faces young audiences. Therefore, Time Warner not only did not cooperate to increase the user scale of LifetimeTV Station, On the contrary, before the fall season, by changing the form of the package, the number of LifetimeTV Station users was reduced by 800,000. Moreover, the more damaging thing is that these users who were cut off by Time Warner are concentrated in New York and Los Angeles.
Los Angeles and New York, the fashionable women in metropolises, are the two Reality Show users with the most potential in "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway". After hearing this news, Katzenberg called directly and yelled the director of Time Warner cable TV Department. pause.
However, perhaps the phrase reckons after the autumn.
This fall has not passed yet, Time Warner has already been retaliated for the small tricks.
If "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" are not on fire, then for those users whose lifetime signal is cut off by 800,000, LifetimeTV Station is naturally optional, and no one will care about it.
But the current situation is far beyond everyone's expectations. With the broadcast going on, "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" have become a topic that many young women groups are talking about. When everyone is discussing "America's Next Top Model 》 When a certain player was regretfully eliminated, when girlfriends were chatting about a set of amazing clothes in “Project Runway”, because all the packages of the cable TV operator at home did not have the signal of LifetimeTV Station, you ca n’t plug in at all. In a word, that embarrassing situation can be imagined.
The operators of United States also have a regional monopoly. In order to avoid unnecessary competition, operators such as Comcast, telecom, and Time Warner have divided their sites very well. In some remote areas, residents often only choose one operation Provider access to cable TV signals.
If you are unfortunately faced with this situation, you will naturally feel bad luck. But in the metropolises of New York and Los Angeles, it is basically a battleground for major operators, and this potential monopoly situation does not exist.
So, those users who could not find the LifetimeTV Station signal in the Time Warner cable TV package, in order to see "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway", have turned to Comcast, remote communication operators.
In October, when Time Warner ’s wired TV Department again counted the number of users, it was shocked to find that within a month, the number of Time Warner users quickly lost 460,000.
What is the concept of this number!
The total number of Time Warner cable TV users is only 15 million. After the reduction of 800,000LifetimeTV Station users, the remaining access to LifetimeTV Station users is only 3 million, which is the lowest among several major operators. The root of all this is of course because The competitive relationship between Time Warner and Firefly.
But at this time, the loss of 460,000 users a month is equivalent to 3% of the total number of Time Warner cable TV users. This can only be a month. You must know that the number of Time Warner users increased throughout 1994. After 1600,000, and if this situation is allowed to continue, Time Warner's cable TV business will not only grow this year, but will retreat to the point where it was two or even three years ago.
The battered Terry · Semel, who was once again defeated by the summer Film Industry business, heard this news and shouted at the person in charge of Time Warner cable TV Department. Time Warner originally wanted to deal with this silently. Things, but somehow the news was suddenly spread out.
For a time, the news of "Time Warner cable TV business has fallen sharply" is flooded with media. Although everyone knows what is going on, Time Warner is completely trying to suppress the development of LifetimeTV Station, but because of the strength of "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" Rise, and eventually steal the chicken instead of killing rice.
With 3% of users lost in a month, how much will that year be lost?
Many people couldn't help asking, and there are undoubtedly many people in Time Warner shareholders who have this kind of thinking, so the management receives pressure from all sides again.
In order to quell this, someone must be responsible.
The internal forces of Time Warner are intertwined. A wired TV Department is entrenched in several forces. Everyone knows the ins and outs of this matter. In fact, which one to switch to, if you encounter this situation, you will basically do so. Therefore, this time is not a business error. Terry · Semel cannot provoke internal disputes under external pressure. In the end, he can only swallow his teeth and swallow his own stomach, and pull out his own spokesperson for wired TV Department. As a scapegoat.
A few days later, Time Warner announced the news that a Vice Chairman of the original line TV Department was about to leave because of a mistake in decision-making.
But of course it is impossible to end this way.
The popularity of LifetimeTV Station is still rising rapidly. Time Warner has lost 460,000 users. If you do not reconnect the signals of LifetimeTV Station for users as soon as possible, let the situation continue to develop, and the situation will definitely be worse.
The cable operator ’s platform is not a TV Station, but also, it is impossible for an operator to access any cable TV signal without authorization. Anything has two sides, everything It depends on who is stronger.
Hurry to deal with the pressure of the outside world and shareholders, Terry · Semel personally dialed the phone of Katzenberg.
The call was transferred to the secretary ’s office of Katzenberg, and the response I received seemed unsurprising: “Mr. Katzenberg is not ... when I can be reached ... not sure.”
Several attempts failed, and Terry · Semel had to dial Robert · Eger, who had just taken the helm of the Firefly TV business.
Robert · Eiger's attitude is very eager, but only said that because AETV Network is a joint venture with Hearst Communications and belongs to a separately operated wired TV Department, he is not good to intervene in the internal affairs of LifetimeTV Station.
Converted again and directly dialed AETV Network Chairman Annie · Sweeney.
Annie · Sweeney is more direct: "Sorry, Mr. Semel, the decision-making power of this matter is no longer in my hands."
Manhattan Time Warner Headquarters's office was rejected three times in a row, and Terry · Semel almost dropped the phone in his hand.
Looking at the gray sky outside the office glass window, I took a few deep breaths in a row, and Terry · Semel calmed down.
Terry · Semel certainly understands that this is a counterattack made by Firefly to Time Warner ’s original decision, and he wants to deliberately air Time Warner for a few months.
However, in the current situation, Time Warner can't wait.
If next month, Time Warner ’s cable TV subscribers slipped by hundreds of thousands more, his CEO may have to be involved in this matter.
Throwing his eyebrows for a long time, when Terry · Semel considered whether to fly to Los Angeles and interview with Katzenberg in person, he suddenly remembered, it seems that the young man behind Firefly should be in Eath Hampton now.
Although I have n’t visited, Eric ’s residence is not difficult to inquire. After a few calls, I quickly got the address of Eric ’s manor located at Eath Hampton.
For a moment, Terry · Semel instructed the secretary to prepare car, and he planned to rush to Eath Hampton in person.
After all, as the absolute controller of Firefly Group, if you can directly get the promise of Eric Williams, it will definitely far exceed the repeated entanglement with high-level leaders such as Katzenberg.
Also, although I admire this young man's creation of a huge industry in just a few years, deep in my heart, Terry · Semel still feels that Eric Williams is younger after all and must be better than the smart Katzenberg. After all, one's talent is better than others, but the experience of business management still depends on the accumulation of long-term experience. (To be continued.)