Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3156 I only made a slight move
"Forget it!" Zhou Buqi was shocked by the data given by Lao Zhang. "Peacock currently has only 2200 million paying members, which has not yet surpassed Hulu. But Disney is in a hurry now. I heard that it wants to spend a huge amount of money to acquire Hulu."

“Oh.” Zhang Chaoyang said lightly, “Streaming media is an Internet business. No matter how hard Disney tries, it will never be your opponent.”

"That's true." Zhou Buqi was confident. Seeing him frowning, he found it a little funny. "So I said you made the wrong decision. I told you a long time ago that it would be too difficult to run Sohu Video. You see, NetEase is very smart. They don't do live broadcasting or video streaming. They do music streaming. I think NetEase Cloud Music is quite popular. It has found a living space between Weidian Music and QQ Music."

Zhang Chaoyang nodded. "Well, music is a good entry point. At least we don't need to consider the restrictions of the integration of three networks, which can greatly reduce operating costs."

The amount of music data is small, far less than the video data of movies and live broadcasts, so it consumes less bandwidth.

Also, listening to music does not need to be instant.

You can buffer for a while longer.

In this way, there is no need to set up three sets of servers.

If the platform uses China Telecom's broadband, the listener's broadband, whether it is China Unicom or China Mobile, will not affect the small amount of data received for music, and will not affect the listening experience.

This greatly reduces the operating costs of music streaming.

Generally speaking, for the same user time, the operating cost of music streaming is only 3%-5% of that of video streaming.

However, the reason why foreign music streaming services such as Spotify have been in a loss-making state for many years is not because of high operating costs, but because of high copyright expenses. Spotify's monthly subscription fee is $9.99, more than half of which is used to pay for copyrights and then distributed as dividends to musicians.

Zhou Buqi said: "Music streaming is easy to do. The low operating cost is one aspect, but the bigger advantage is copyright. The popularity of old songs is much higher than that of old movies. There is data in Weidian Music, and old songs are much more popular than new songs. If you run Sohu Video, you have to constantly spend a lot of money to buy the copyright of new movies, but NetEase Cloud Music does not need to do that. Even if you buy new songs, the price is not high, because this market is mainly dominated by old songs."

Zhang Chaoyang said, "Hmm," and said, "I've also learned a little bit. The domestic music copyrights have basically been bought out, and the market for old songs has been fixed, which makes it easier to form a monopoly market."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "Yes, almost. The position of Weidian Music is unbreakable because it bought the copyrights of many songs in the past few years. With a one-time buyout, Weidian Music does not have to share all the profits with the musicians in the future, which makes this business much more comfortable. You will see that in the next ten years or so, video streaming will always be struggling on the survival line in China, while music streaming will be able to make big money, and billions of profits a year will not be a problem."

Zhang Chaoyang's eyes lit up, "Damn! Why didn't you say so earlier?"

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Why did you say that earlier?"

Zhang Chaoyang pondered and said, "Hearing your analysis, music streaming really has great potential. Music streaming does not need to constantly spend high prices to purchase new films like film and television, and it has almost monopolized the market for old songs... Even if many works are in the hands of music companies, as long as they do not share the profits with the musicians, the price of renting copyrights from music companies will be very low."

Zhou Buqi said, "That's true. It's best to buy it outright. If you can't buy it outright, you can only rent it. The rent is also within your budget, not as high as in foreign countries."

Domestic songs are almost all sold out.

The record companies have bought out the copyrights of the songs. After the buyout, the songs have nothing to do with the composers, lyrics and singers of the songs, and they don’t have to share any profits with them in the future. In this way, the record companies’ profits are guaranteed.

The interests of record companies are guaranteed. When they rent streaming copyrights to Weidian Music, NetEase Cloud Music or QQ Music, the price can be lower, and the streaming platforms can thrive.

This is not possible abroad.

Musicians are the dominant party in song copyrights. Every time a song is played, the composer, lyricist, producer, and singer of the song will get a share of the profits. Even if the record company buys out the song, it still has to share the profits.

This is the essential difference between China and foreign countries. There are trade unions abroad.

The union can help those filmmakers and musicians to fight against the employers’ domineering and unfair terms. If the employers dare to disagree and exploit them with a one-time buyout, then they will go on strike collectively and no one will be able to live a good life!

Therefore, it is very difficult for foreign record companies to make money, and they have to share a large portion of their income with musicians.

It’s hard for record labels to make money, and it’s even harder for music streaming.

It’s different in China.

There are no unions.

Strikes are not allowed, and anyone who dares to cause trouble will be arrested.

Therefore, the investors can exploit the musicians without any worries. Even the original singers of a song have to pay copyright fees according to the number of times they want to sing their own songs. This gives the copyright buyers the opportunity to enjoy the long-term benefits and make a lot of money.

The music streaming platforms are backed by technology giants who are super rich, much richer than record companies, and they have enough capital to play buyout.

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "You don't have to regret it too much. NetEase Cloud Music looks pretty good now, and users just want to try it out for fun. But it still depends on the copyright. I basically own the copyrights for mainland music, and I've bought them all. I've also bought out half of the music from Hong Kong Island. The remaining Hong Kong and Taiwan music that hasn't been bought out can be shared with Weidian Music and QQ Music. What room do you think NetEase Cloud Music can develop?"

"Uh……"

Zhang Chaoyang's mentality suddenly became much calmer.

The market size of music is much smaller than that of film and television. We don’t need too many platforms. Two are enough. Weidian Music is the industry leader, taking up about 75% of the market share, and the rest is taken by QQ Music... There is really no other opportunity.

Zhou Buqi boasted: "According to my estimation, in five years, Weidian Music can generate at least 60 billion in profits for Ziweixing every year. To be honest, if I only make a small contribution, Weidian Music alone will be enough to match three or five Sohus."

After hearing this, Zhang Chaoyang was almost angry to death.

Zhou Buqi said: "It's too late for you to regret now. If you ask me, you should contact iQiyi, Penguin, Youku, LeTV or something like that and sell Sohu Video. Well... forget about LeTV. If you exchange Sohu Video stocks for LeTV stocks, you might lose even more."

"It's impossible to sell it." Lao Zhang started to be stubborn again, "I'm following Netflix. Netflix is ​​planning to enter the Korean market!"

"Yes, I arranged it. Korean TV dramas are pretty good. That kind of stereotyped performance is easier to popularize globally. My Love from the Star is so popular. Is it the most popular TV drama in China this year?"

“Is Netflix investing in dramas in Korea?”

"Yes, we invested $6000 million this year and plan to make three movies and five TV series."

Zhou Buqi remembered it very clearly because this was the plan he proposed to Netflix.

Netflix already has 7000 million members, and it must focus on its global business next, which requires it to produce its own dramas on a global scale.

The Korean market is a great opportunity.