Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3155: Three Networks Are Not Integrated
Robert Egger seemed hesitant, and Zhou Buqi did not force it.

ESPN has advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is its accumulated brand and the user viewing habits established over the past years. The disadvantage is that its TV assets are too large, which makes it very difficult to transform into streaming media.

Disney's concerns are well-founded.

Zhou Buqi wants to invest in ESPN on a small scale, mainly to participate in and see the various operational details of sports broadcasting. If it is difficult, he will stay away from it, and if it is easy, he will inevitably pull out to work alone in the future.

After dealing with this hacking incident, Zhou Buqi had overcome a major hurdle.

I went on vacation to Australia in the southern hemisphere with my wife and children.

Every day there is sunshine, beaches, blue sky, sea, yachts, beauties... China, Japan and South Korea have each sent a delegation of idols composed of several beautiful girls to express their condolences and to give boss Zhou a kill, and maybe even a double kill.

You finish your performance and I come on stage, one group after another.

Even Zhou Nan couldn't stand it anymore, and said to his sister-in-law Wang Langli: "My brother is good in every way, except that he is a bit romantic."

Wang Langli, who is two years younger than her, was quite generous and said with pursed lips: "I can accept it."

Zhou Nan got along well with her, so he said with a smile: "It's okay, I'll talk to my brother, and I guarantee he won't ignore you!"

Sure enough, at Zhou Nan’s suggestion, Zhou Buqi brought Wang Langli back to China to attend the Wuzhen Internet Conference half a month later.

When Lao Zhang saw him, the first thing he said was: "Where have you been? You're tanned!"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Wheat color, right?"

Zhang Chaoyang didn't respond and whispered, "Have you seen Lao Ma?"

"No, what's wrong?"

"He considers himself the host of this conference. He is really impressive."

"What's so strange about this? This is not far from Ali's headquarters. This is his territory."

Zhou Buqi had no intention of competing for the limelight.

Zhang Chaoyang knew what he was doing when he saw that he wanted to keep a low profile. He smiled and pulled him, "Then just follow me. We will attend two seminars and then retreat. Let them have the chance to be in the limelight."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Aren't you going to grab the spotlight?"

Zhang Chaoyang shook his head and sighed, "It's impossible to get it even if you try to rob it."

"Hmm?" Zhou Buqi was a little surprised. "What kind of blow has hit you?"

Zhang Chaoyang spoke frankly: "The competition for copyrights in China is getting more and more intense. iQiyi, Youku and Penguin Video are all going crazy. They would rather lose billions of dollars a year to get the copyrights."

Zhou Buqi was very surprised. "Didn't you say you had formed a purchasing alliance? It was to prevent vicious bidding."

"Yes, we have reached an alliance." Zhang Chaoyang nodded, "But we can't compete. For the same price, they would rather sell it to Youku, iQiyi or others."

The way the domestic streaming media industry works is somewhat different from that overseas.

The main system in China is a buyout system.

As the streaming media industry abroad is getting better and better, copyright holders are paying more and more attention to streaming media copyrights, and only rent rather than sell content copyrights.

Take, for example, the streaming rights for a new movie.

Domestic purchasing prices have secretly reached a price alliance. The price alliance actually violates the antitrust law, but Internet companies don't care. They are all sneaking around the edge, and industry practices have been formed. The buyout price of a new movie streaming copyright will not exceed one-tenth of the movie's box office.

That is to say, if the box office is 1 million, the price of the streaming rights is 1000 million; if the box office is 2 million, it can be bought out for 2000 million.

But some movies have very high box office, 5 million, 10 billion, 20 billion, and one-tenth of the copyright buyout price is too high.

Therefore, there is a capping mechanism, which is a maximum of 5000 million.

Regardless of the billions in box office revenue, the buyout price for streaming rights is capped at 5000 million yuan.

It is different in foreign countries. Price alliances are not allowed. It is pure bidding. It is not uncommon for the streaming rights of a popular blockbuster to cost $2000 million, $5000 million, $1 million, or $2 million. And it is not a permanent buyout price, but a five-year or ten-year licensing price.

Therefore, from the perspective of copyright, domestic video websites have great cost advantages.

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "There is a price alliance for copyrights, and it is a buyout system, which is already friendly enough for streaming platforms."

Zhang Chaoyang shook his head. "There are just too many people in China. There are both advantages and disadvantages to having too many people. The copyright price in China is indeed lower than that in foreign countries, but the broadband fee is much higher than that in China. The broadband fee expenses of domestic streaming platforms are not less than the copyright expenses at all. The live broadcast industry is also very hot now. Those live broadcast platforms spend huge sums of money to sign well-known anchors. Signing anchors only costs a few dollars, less than 25% of the total cost. The real expenses are server and broadband fees, especially broadband fees."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "I told you a long time ago, don't try it lightly before the broadband fee is significantly reduced."

Zhang Chaoyang said: "It's not just the high or low broadband fees, but also the network incompatibility of operators, which really adds huge extra expenses to the application service providers. Isn't Changyou's game a case of that? The three networks are not integrated, how much trouble has it caused?"

"Ah."

Zhou Buqi nodded. He didn’t have much video business in China, so he didn’t have a deep understanding of this aspect.

However, Changyou suffered a lot of trouble because of this.

For example, if a player activates a broadband from China Unicom, it will be difficult for him to play on China Telecom services; if a player activates a broadband from China Telecom, it will be difficult for him to play on China Mobile services.

In order to provide players with a better gaming experience, game manufacturers have to open three types of server groups in one region at the same time, one specifically serving China Unicom users, one specifically serving China Mobile users, and one specifically serving China Telecom users.

In fact, what could have been handled by one server group or one team, the game manufacturer has to operate three groups at the same time.

This is actually a technical issue.

The connection technology for operators' network connection and data transmission.

The country is extremely weak in this regard.

There are more network operators in the United States, with more than a dozen of them, large and small. However, when operating games, there is no need to divide the services at the operator level. There is no need to have special Verizon services, T-Mobile services, AT&T services, Sprint services, etc.

The Internet is connected to each other. Even if the player uses Sprint's network and the game manufacturer uses the broadband provided by the operator Verizon, the two sides can connect perfectly.

For game manufacturers, in one region, one team and one server group can handle everything.

In addition, domestic broadband fees are more expensive than those abroad, monopoly operators are unwilling to give in, and private wiring to the international Internet is not allowed... All in all, the total domestic broadband fee expenditure is basically five times that of developed countries in Europe and the United States. Even if the fees were later reduced and the three networks were nominally interconnected, the cost is still three times that of foreign countries.

This has created huge difficulties for the development of the domestic video streaming and live broadcast industries.

Lao Zhang fell into such a dilemma.

Although the price of film and television copyrights in China is much lower than that in foreign countries, and there is a forced buyout mechanism with overbearing clauses, it is still unlikely for video streaming platforms to make money. On the one hand, there are few legitimate users and the subscription fee is too low. On the other hand, the cost of infrastructure construction and broadband operation fees are too high.

Zhang Chaoyang said: "I originally wanted to do live broadcasting business, but when I checked, I was really shocked. The cost of this business is even higher than that of streaming media. A live broadcasting platform with a peak of one million people online has a bandwidth of 1.5T-2T, and the monthly broadband fee is 1000 million US dollars. Who can afford this? Isn't it just burning investors' money?"

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "So I don't do film and television streaming and live broadcasting. I warned you a long time ago."

"It looks great!" Zhang Chaoyang sighed, "The Peacock you launched in the United States is really successful. How many members do you have? About 1 million, right? The market value of Ziweixing Global is 2500 billion US dollars, which is almost the same as Ziweixing. It's really scary."