Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3148 Content Library Splitting

Ziweixing Global’s streaming platform Peacock is online, and Zhou Buqi receives data reports every day.

On the first day, there were 800 million new users and 500 million paying users;
On the second day, there were 1200 million new users and 750 million paying users;
On the third day, there were 630 million new users and 450 million paying users.

In three days, the cumulative number of users reached 2600 million, and the number of paying members reached 1600 million!
This data is truly shocking.

In just three days, it surpassed a number of film and television streaming platforms such as Amazon and became the third in the United States!

It is second only to Netflix, which has more than 7000 million members, and Hulu, which has more than 2800 million members.

Judging from the current momentum, there is a great possibility that it will surpass Hulu and rank second before the end of the year!
This product is so successful.

There is simply a momentum that sweeps the market.

Dennis Zhao is a Chinese American whose original name is Zhao Dan. He is in his early thirties and graduated from Tsinghua University. He came to the United States to study and develop ten years ago, then married an American wife and stayed there to develop his career.

It is worth mentioning that he is a classmate of Wang Xiaochuan, a senior executive of Ziweixing.

With this relationship, and his own mastery of the Internet industry, it was natural for him to join Ziweixing International.

Half a year ago, Zhou Buqi talked to him and arranged a new position for him, transferring him to join Ziweixing Global as the chief operating officer of the streaming platform Peacock, working in Silicon Valley. Peacock's CEO is a native American who works in Hollywood and is mainly responsible for film and television copyright work; Zhao Dan is actually in charge of the Internet business.

The fact that Peacock has achieved such surprising results now has a lot to do with Zhao Dan’s work.

Compared to those foreigners, Zhou Buqi still likes and trusts his own people more.

Peacock's operations center in Silicon Valley and Ziweixing Global's headquarters are not in the same city, but the distance is not far, only more than an hour's drive.

This morning, when Zhou Buqi was having breakfast, he saw yesterday's growth data and decided to meet Dennis Zhao to calm him down. The better the company's performance, the more respect the management will have in the hearts of employees. Peacock has achieved such excellent results, which is also a great honor.

Accompanying him was Netflix CEO Hastings.

"It's not surprising that Peacock has achieved such results." Hastings' mood is actually a bit complicated. "Copyright is the core of the streaming platform. Whoever has high-quality content will have the strongest market competitiveness."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Product operation is also very important. Peacock is different from Netflix. It is a 'free + paid' platform. According to the existing user structure, the income of free users can reach 30% of the total revenue of the platform."

The income from free users is advertising revenue.

These users do not need to pay for membership, but only need to watch some ads to watch many low-quality movies and TV shows on Peacock. According to model analysis, this part of advertising revenue can account for between 30% and 35% of the total revenue.

Hastings shook his head. "It's still a bit of a waste."

"waste?"

Zhou Buqi knew clearly that Hastings was not in a very high mood. After all, Netflix and Peacock are both video streaming companies and they are in a competitive relationship. If Boss Zhou showed favoritism, Netflix's copyright library would be greatly reduced, which would lead to user loss.

Hastings said: "Peacock's price is a bit low. The standard price is only $6.99 per month, and now Netflix has increased it to $9.99."

Zhou Buqi said: "After all, Peacock has advertising revenue, and the number of exclusive self-produced dramas will not be as many as Netflix."

Netflix's self-produced dramas are growing in scale. In a few years, the annual cost of making films may exceed $100 billion, which may even exceed the investment of any Hollywood giant in the content field. These self-produced dramas can only be seen on Netflix's platform, and there is no other platform!

Only high investment will bring high returns and make Netflix the most competitive.

In this regard, Ziweixing Global is definitely not able to completely abandon the Hollywood tradition.

The movies in Peacock are mainly from Ziweixing Universal Pictures, and the operation model cannot be the same as Netflix. These movies must go through traditional theaters, on-demand and TV broadcast distribution channels.

It’s just that the channels in the DVD market will be completely abandoned.

VOD and TV broadcasting can generate huge revenue for a movie, which is basically the same as the box office market of theaters. If a movie earns $2 million from the box office, then the movie can basically earn $2 million from TV broadcasts around the world. This is a lot of money.

You must not give up easily.

Moreover, new films are often only broadcast twice on television.

The first round is on cable TV stations (pay stations); the second round is on wireless TV stations (free stations).

The value of the film is not explored to such an extent.

The mechanism of TV stations is not very good at exploring TV dramas, because TV stations broadcast in real time, and once broadcast, it is over. The DVD channel is different, which is extremely harmful to TV products, just like draining the pond to catch all the fish. A DVD can be watched over and over again, dozens or hundreds of times.

When a user buys a DVD of a movie, he owns the movie completely. Whenever he wants to watch it, he just needs to take out the DVD and watch it. He can also invite his family to watch it together, or even lend the DVD to more relatives and friends, resulting in a large number of people around him watching the movie through a DVD.

That is to say, the sale of a movie DVD may benefit dozens of viewers.

The audience benefits because they can watch it without paying, but for the film and television companies, it is a huge loss.

Streaming is different.

At first glance, streaming media is very similar to DVDs. As long as users pay, they can watch movies as many times as they want, share them with friends and family, and invite a large number of people to watch together... However, there is an essential difference here.

Buying a DVD is a one-time thing.

Pay once, watch forever.

Subscribing to streaming media is a long-term and continuous behavior that requires monthly payments. This means that compared to traditional DVD channels, streaming media channels are not as "harmful" to film and television content, and can continue to make money from film and television content, which is more sustainable in the long run.

Therefore, Zhou Buqi has already made a strategic decision in Ziweixing Global.

That is, Ziweixing Global will withdraw from the DVD and videotape market and use the streaming media market to make up for the loss of this part of the revenue. As for the traditional cinema, on-demand and TV channels, they still need to go through them seriously, which means that there must be a time difference in the distribution channels.

This will result in Peacock being less privileged than Netflix.

Netflix's self-produced dramas can only be watched on Netflix; some of the film and television works produced by Ziweixing Global can be watched on TV stations.

Peacock's subscription price will naturally be lower.

"Peacock has such a large content library, so it's completely reasonable for it to be priced higher." Hastings sighed, somewhat worried. "If Ziweixing Global gradually takes back the copyrights in the future, Netflix's inventory will be much lower than Peacock, but Netflix's fees will be higher than Peacock, which will be very risky."

Zhou Buqi nodded. "Well, what you said makes sense, so I have already made the decision that MGM will become Netflix's long-term strategic partner, and the copyrights of MGM's film and television works will be exclusively licensed to Netflix. Ziweixing Global's film library is too large, and putting them all under Peacock would really be a huge waste."

Hastings smiled and said, "This is the best arrangement!"

Zhou Buqi said: "The subscription fee keeps rising, which will definitely make users dissatisfied. However, with more and more content, the fee remains the same, which is not fair to the platform."

“That’s right,” Hastings said. “The subscription price should be determined by the content library.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "It doesn't matter. Peacock was very successful this time. With this experience, there may be a third or fourth streaming platform in the future!"

"what?"

Hastings was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "Look at the TV market, how big is it? There are hundreds of TV stations in the US market, but only a dozen streaming platforms, which means that the streaming market still has huge room for development and charging. If there is enough content and the price increase is small, then the content library can only be split up. Just like I want to split Ziweixing Global's content library into two, one part is licensed to Netflix, and the other part is left to Peacock. By splitting the content library, a multi-platform system is implemented, and multiple charges are made."

(End of this chapter)