Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1438 Copyright Business
Universal Pictures' split plan has been passed, and all parties are currently conducting asset audits and assessments, one of which is the distribution of copyrights.

In the past few years since the establishment of NBC Universal, NBC and Universal have cooperated to produce a lot of TV drama content.The main way of cooperation is that the Universal Television Production Company is responsible for the production, and after the production is completed, it will be broadcast on the NBC television network.

A lot of ideas, content, and ideas were conceived by NBC Television and Universal Pictures. It stands to reason that NBC should also enjoy part of the copyright.

But this operation is too complicated, and the cutting is too thin and the internal friction is too great. Anyway, it is the company of NBC Universal, and it is just left-handed and right-handed.

In the past few years, Universal Pictures has taken too much content to broadcast on the NBC TV network, and it has to get some benefits from NBC.

But now I encountered a very difficult problem.

The fifth season of "The Office", the hottest and most popular series in the United States, is produced by Universal's TV production department and then broadcast on NBC.

This is incredible.

The middle and lower classes in the United States have not received much systematic knowledge education. Their cognitive level is very limited. Apart from weaving one set of conspiracy theories to fool the world, they have difficulty understanding the complexity of normal society.

This has led them to be unable to appreciate many high-quality film and television dramas with depth and complex plots, such as "Rome", "Game of Thrones", "The Walking Dead", "Breaking Bad", "Western World" and other top American dramas, they simply can't stand it.

But sitcoms are different.

The plot of this thing is simple, there is no threshold for watching, and even the context of each episode has little to do with it, so it’s okay to skip and watch.Therefore, the most popular TV series in the United States must not be high-quality productions that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but "shoddy" sitcoms.

The three top ace TV series in the United States are all sitcoms, namely "Friends", "Seinfeld" and "The Office".

During the streaming media war in later generations, "Friends" was acquired by Warner with an annual copyright rent of US$1 million, "Seinfeld" was acquired by Netflix at an annual rent of US$1 million, and "The Office" was also acquired by US$1 million per year. The rent was won by Peacock, a streaming media platform owned by Comcast, at an annual rent of $1 million.

It can be seen that the weight of these three trump card American dramas.

Coincidentally, these three TV series premiered on NBC.

Now, "Friends" and "Seinfeld" are over, only "The Office" is still in serial, and it can be filmed for several years.

That's a lot of money!
Next, "The Office" will start shooting its sixth season, with a budget of up to 9000 million US dollars.No way, although the production cost of sitcoms is very low, but the actors' remuneration is too high.With the popularity of TV series, the net worth of several leading actors has also risen.

So the question is, once NBC and Universal Pictures split up, how much will NBC spend to buy the premiere rights of "The Office"? $1 million, $2 million, or $3 million?
If NBC's quotation is low, Universal Pictures will go directly to CBS or ABC, and can easily get a sky-high premiere fee.

In the matter of the split between NBC and Universal Pictures, everything else is easy to say, and the copyright of "The Office" is the one that has attracted the most attention.

On this day, Masayoshi Son came to Los Angeles again, and he wanted to sign an agreement with Sony to completely resolve the MGM equity issue.

Just as Zhou Buqi was about to rush over, he received a call from Mr. Collins, the copyright transaction consultant of the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, and told him about "The Office".

"Copyright?" Zhou Buqi immediately paid attention to it when he heard it. Although he had never watched "The Office", he also knew that it was the most popular TV series in the United States at the moment, and its momentum was not much worse than that of "Friends". He blurted out, "No, copyright is a red line, no matter what, we must take it down!"

Then, Sun Zhengyi was put aside for the first time, and he made an appointment with Collins at a coffee shop in the city to have a face-to-face interview.

Mr. Collins is the chairman and president of Empty City Entertainment Company, specializing in the copyright transaction of the TV business. This time, he was hired as a consultant at a price of 375 million US dollars.

After the meeting, Zhou Buqi immediately reiterated, "The issue of copyright cannot be discussed, and must be firmly in hand!"

"There's a lot of sincerity on the part of NBC," Collins said.

Zhou Buqi was very firm, "This has nothing to do with sincerity, it's a strategy!"

Collins coughed lightly, and said: "Even so, I should make their proposal clear. The asset value of Universal Pictures is about 44 billion U.S. dollars, and the expected transaction price may exceed 85 billion U.S. dollars. If in "The Office If we make concessions in the copyright of ", the transaction price of Universal Pictures will be greatly reduced."

"Concession? How? How much is the premiere rights of "The Office" worth?"

"The quotation for the fifth season is 1.8 million US dollars, and the sixth season may reach 2.2 million US dollars. But this is NBC Universal's internal quotation. If the market bids openly, I believe that ABC or Fox can offer 5 million US dollars to grab the premiere. right."

"Then it's even more impossible to let it go." Zhou Buqi had an attitude of resignation, "I have the final say on this matter! Even if Softbank agrees!"

Mergers and acquisitions cases are mainly led by the SoftBank team.

There are specialties in the technology industry, and Softbank is good at doing this kind of thing. They have successfully operated mergers and acquisitions of dozens of companies.However, in terms of business strategy design, Zhou Buqi must have the right to speak.

Collins frowned and suggested: "Zhou, this is a big event. "The Office" may have another 3-5 seasons to shoot, which means tens of billions of dollars in advertising revenue for NBC. This matter cannot be handled. Well, it may affect the overall situation, and the spin-off of Universal Pictures will be blocked."

Zhou Buqi smiled, "You may have misunderstood, as I said, copyright is a strategy, not a benefit. I want to get the copyright of "The Office", but I can give up the benefits."

"what?"

Collins didn't quite get it.

What?
Giving up the benefits, there is no use for copyright!

Zhou Buqi said: "The price of the premiere rights of "The Office" is very high, which guarantees the highest ratings in the United States at the same time period. For NBC, this cannot be lost. It doesn't matter, then give them the premiere rights, but "The Office" The complete copyright of " must be in the hands of Universal Pictures."

Collins asked, "How?"

Zhou Buqi said: "It can be implemented according to the current cooperation plan between NBC and Universal Pictures. What did you say about the premiere rights of the next season?"

"A billion dollars."

"Okay, after the sixth season of "The Office" is filmed, we will transfer the premiere broadcasting rights to NBC for $2.2 million. Is that okay?"

"Uh……"

Collins looked at the young man with complicated eyes.

Isn't this too bold?

"The Office" may have another 3-5 seasons to shoot. If there is a normal public bidding in the market, the first broadcast rights alone may be able to earn 15 billion to 20 billion US dollars.

If the first broadcast rights are transferred to NBC at an internal price according to the existing cooperation template, it may not even be able to recover $10 billion.If you come and go, you may lose 10 billion US dollars.

Such a big matter, just make a decision?
Don't even discuss with Softbank?
Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "That's it. The next few seasons of "The Office" will be transferred to NBC for the first broadcast at an internal price according to the model of the past few years. Hmm...the first broadcast fee for each season will increase by 25%?"

Collins shook his head and said, "That's not the calculation, it's based on the production cost. But it's about the same, with a quarterly increase of 25%-30%."

Zhou Buqi said proudly: "Okay, then it's settled, and I will do it according to my plan! For the specific situation, you should communicate with the Softbank people and try to gain benefits in the case of Universal Pictures. The quotation of 85 billion US dollars It’s too high, Universal Pictures’ assets are only over 40 billion US dollars, this is doubled, try to suppress it as much as possible.”

Collins took a deep breath, "Okay."

Zhou Buqi remembered something, "By the way, I remember that "Friends" and "Seinfeld" also premiered on NBC, right?"

"Correct."

"The production rights and distribution rights of Friends are in Warner's hands. I know that. What about "Seinfeld"? Who owns it?"

Zhou Buqi is looking forward to it.

NBC also has a TV production department. If the copyright of "Seinfeld" is in NBC...huh, then there must be a wave of show operations, trying to grab it from Universal Pictures.

Collins said: "The copyright of "Seinfeld" is relatively complicated. Back then...it was produced by a small company, Castle Rock Pictures, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Later, Castle Rock Pictures was acquired by Warner, and Columbia Pictures Acquired by Sony. That is to say, the content copyright of "Seinfeld" is now in the hands of Warner, and the distribution rights are in the hands of Sony Entertainment."

"Sony..."

Zhou Buqi nodded with deep eyes.

Warner doesn't need to think about it, the copyright is in their hands, so don't even think about taking it out.As for Sony... I don't think there is no chance. Sony is promoting Blu-ray high-definition DVD, which shows how short-sighted Sony's board of directors is.

Moreover, SoftBank is a Tokyo-listed company.

Although Masayoshi Son is not popular in the Japanese business world and is called a traitor, he has enough influence that he may be able to negotiate with Sony's board of directors.

The distribution rights of "Seinfeld" are just a small thing, the key is the film and television copyright of "Spiderman" and related characters held by Sony Entertainment!

This is the most important!
The word-of-mouth of "Spider-Man 07" in 3 was not satisfactory, and Sony could only temporarily seal this series.

Now is the best time to make a move.

If "Iron Man 2" is released next year and achieves unprecedented success, the whole world will know that the era of Marvel will come.As long as Sony successfully restarts the "Spider-Man" series, it will be impossible to take it back.

The positioning of Ziwei Star Global is not an entertainment company, but a content company.To put it bluntly, the main business is the copyright business, as long as it is a high-quality copyright, we must get it as much as possible!
(End of this chapter)