Hong Kong's new giants

Chapter 504 [Murdoch in Asia]

When Li Chaoren heard that his youngest son and Lin Zuhui had met to discuss the acquisition of Dragon TV, he was immediately surprised; Surprised son's 'independence' is strong.

But then again, he is also very happy that his youngest son's independence can be regarded as a preliminary cultivation.

"If you sell Dragon TV to him, it is equivalent to sending him to the 'Asian Media King'. He will be the real 'General D' in Xiangjiang in the future. You know, the rise of Lin Zuhui has greatly squeezed us. There is room for the growth of the big family." Li Chaoren said with doubts because of his long-term perspective.

In Li Chaoren's view, if this deal is concluded, it will be equivalent to the Li family's "conspiracy with tigers", and it will also provide a cover for Lin Zuhui - that is, the licensed company is Hutchison Communications, which is equivalent to Lin Zuhui's clever evasion The relevant regulations of the Hong Kong government, but the actual operation is Asia Satellite TV.

Li Zekai didn't understand it that way. He said, "Dad, if you talk about squeezing the growth of our family, others have already grown into the No. [-] family in Xiangjiang. It's too late for you to say this now. You should have united with all your uncles to suppress others. , maybe not today. Since others have already become the existence of several big families, it is too late for you to say these things. It's very high, very ideal, we can make a lot of money, why not do it! What's more, because of the broadcast of European and American programs, we have been under pressure from the outside."

Li Chaoren didn't want to teach his son badly. Although he did suppress Lin Zuhui, he would not say it out loud.

"I'm talking about competition, not suppression. We're all Chinese, so what are you talking about?" After thinking about it, my son is so assertive. If he refuted it, then his idea of ​​using the Dragon TV business to train his son would be in vain.

So Li Chaoren said: "In that case, I won't interfere with you, you can just think about it yourself!"

"Got it!" Li Zekai said decisively.

The relationship between him and his father is not good, and the reason for asking for instructions is that he is not yet qualified to make full decisions.

Looking at his son's back, Li Chaoren shook his head. The two sons have very different personalities, and the youngest son doesn't obey orders at all.

But he still wanted to keep his youngest son in the Changshi Department, so he planned to give him the post of vice chairman of Hutchison Whampoa.

As for Dragon TV, although Li Chaoren doesn't want to make a deal with Lin Zuhui, he doesn't want to have conflicts with his son. It will depreciate, so it is still very cost-effective to sell while it is high; and you can still retain 35% of Dragon TV's equity, which can be used for long-term dividends in the future.

Thursday, May 5.

ATV Group and Hutchison Whampoa held a press conference in Xiangjiang to announce the details of the transaction, causing a huge public opinion shock.

Everyone never expected that the Lin family and the Li family would cooperate, let alone that the ATV Group would annex Dragon TV.

Dragon TV started afresh and is affiliated with Asia Satellite TV, and operates independently; in fact, it cooperates closely with the group, and can obtain the convenience of purchasing program and drama copyright from ATV group (financial independent accounting).

Of course, with the estimated price of nearly HK$50 billion for ATV Group this time, many people think, "Is it worth the money to buy the controlling stake in Dragon TV at an expensive price?"

ATV president Selina Chow gave an answer: "The group is interested in the potential value of satellite TV, because satellite TV has experience and influence in Asian operations, covering a wide range, and after satellite TV leases the second satellite, the coverage will be expanded It will be even bigger. Dragon TV and Asia Satellite TV will form a satellite TV network to expand their influence in Asia and spread the 'Hong Kong culture' to all parts of Asia, driving the growth of Hong Kong's overall cultural industry."

The careful media immediately grasped the key point, that is, "Hong Kong Stream Culture" appeared in the mouth of the president of ATV. Everyone in Xiangjiang knew that Lin Zuhui was the godfather of "Hong Kong Stream Culture". An industry pillar, has always been very supportive of the development of this industry, and has not hesitated to participate in it personally and establish relationships with the Hong Kong government and society.

In the past two years, Hong Kong culture has developed very rapidly, almost catching up with the influence of "Hong Kong movies" in the 80s and [-]s in Asia.

Tseung Kwan O, Asia TV City.

As ATV City covers an area of ​​230 million square feet (Taikoo Shing occupies the same area), even the ATV Group will be able to meet the needs of office and recording after 2020.Therefore, Dragon TV will soon move to the 'ATV Building' for office and recording.

At this time, ATV Group has 8 channels, 6 satellite channels, and 2 radio channels. The important thing is that it has the largest influence in Asia.

AsiaSat-1 is the first communication satellite in Asia, Asia Satellite TV is the first satellite TV station in Asia, and Dragon TV is the second satellite TV station in Asia.Japan has only started to dabble in satellite TV this year, and South Korea has not yet had the conditions to establish a satellite TV station.

In fact, overseas viewers of satellite TV are generally divided into two channels:
First, people who install satellite receivers privately are very rare in terms of the number of TV viewers in their country, but they cannot support the wide coverage of satellite TV, so the number of viewers of Asia Satellite TV is more than the population of South Korea.

Second, hotels/hotels in each country will install satellite receivers. There are also many three-star hotels and hotels in mainland China that are hosting foreign guests, and there are also institutions in some countries.

In short, if satellite TV is launched, the advertising fee will still be much higher than that of wireless TV.

Arriving under the ATV building, Lin Zuhui couldn't help but look at the conspicuous sign of 'ATV' on the building, and couldn't help admiring in his heart.He doesn't make a lot of money, but he still has a sense of presence. This is how ATV Group feels to Lin Zuhui.

The ATV building has an area of ​​80 square feet, which can accommodate 3000 to 4000 people for office work at the same time, and it will not appear crowded at all; the ATV building is not high, only 28 floors, but each floor has an area of ​​nearly 3 square feet.

In May, a video recording building in ATV City was also put into use. As for the remaining two video recording buildings, they will be put into use successively in the second half of the year.

The 'ATV Film and Television Base' will be completed in the first half of next year, and the overall quality of drama series and movies will be improved by then.

When Lin Zuhui came to the office, he first asked his assistants to shake people one by one.

The first person to come to the office was ATV's "God of Wealth" Li Baoan.

The merger and acquisition of Dragon TV only needs to spend nearly 15.6 billion Hong Kong dollars in cash and ATV stocks worth 15.6 billion.Cash is short-term debt borrowed through banks, and ATV doesn't want to be in huge debt for a long time.

Lin Zuhui said: "How is the directional issuance of new shares going?"

The so-called "targeting" is naturally to issue new shares to the Li family and Hutchison Whampoa, and pay 15.6 billion funds.

Li Baoan said: "Well, the progress is going well, and it is expected to be completed next week. The short-term loans below 15.6 have also been settled, and I plan to pay them immediately."

Lin Zuhui nodded, and immediately said: "Do you know why the short-term loan?"

Li Baoan replied: "I know, the stock market is hot now, and the boss plans to raise funds through a rights issue, and raise cash to repay the funds!"

"Let's do a share placement. We need to arrange a share placement in the past two months to raise 20 billion yuan."

"Okay, I know!"

Rights issues, allotments, convertible bonds, etc. are actually in the same form, but the details are somewhat different.

After a while, several core executives also came to Lin Zuhui's office, and everyone looked at Lin Zuhui with admiration.

Although these people are experts in TV, they are not experts in capital operation. Lin Zuhui easily expanded the ATV Group, which made everyone amazed.

Who would have thought that Li Chaoren's family would sell Dragon TV!
After all, Dragon TV is chasing Asia TV, and everyone thinks it will surpass Asia TV this year. After all, it has five channels, and it will be able to broadcast Cantonese programs soon.

Everyone never dreamed that it was Li Zekai who advocated the sale, because he wanted to establish his own business and needed a large sum of money.

This transaction made Li Zekai famous in Xiangjiang, because he sold Dragon TV at a high price, and in less than three years, he made three times the profit. He can be called a real "Little Superman".

These people didn't know that it was Lin Zuhui who bought the horse bone with a thousand dollars, and directly offered a price that Li Zekai could not refuse.After all, Lin Zuhui knows that if the Li family wants to sell, the only way is to pay a lot of money, and to be ahead of Murdoch in Australia.

Of course, everyone also knows that Lin Zuhui has devoted himself to the expansion of ATV Group at any cost for the sake of "Hong Kong culture".

"Dragon Satellite TV, Chen Qingxiang is still the chief executive for the time being. We need to boil frogs in warm water and slowly change the program format of Dragon TV. The first thing that needs to be changed is Dragon TV's self-made programs. You can come up with a plan later. .As for the four relay channels, we will talk about it later, and keep the status quo for now."

Selina Chow nodded and said, "Okay, we got it. Dragon TV's self-produced programs are not very good, and they need to be completely changed according to our model, adding more Hong Kong cultural elements."

Zhao Zhenqiang said: "In this way, our investment in drama series needs to increase again. It is estimated that it is more reasonable to shoot about 35 to 40 episodes per year."

在亚视没有起来前，无线每年大概拍摄20~25部；而如今亚视每年拍摄在30部~35部，再增加5部也是合理的。

Lin Zuhui said: "The two self-produced satellite TVs must be differentiated. Asia Satellite TV can focus on 'music' and 'idols', and Dragon TV can focus on 'dramas'. In the future, they will come up with two relay satellite channels, focusing on news and variety shows. That is to say Said that in the end there were only two channels that broadcast European and American programs.”

Emphasis is not exclusive. After all, Hong Kong culture has not yet fully developed and is still in the foundation stage. In the late 90s, it should be the time when Hong Kong culture fully developed.

Everyone nodded!
Zhao Zhenqiang raised a question: "Boss, should Hong Kong culture variety shows be put on the agenda?"

Although "Music Bank" is considered a Hong Kong stream program, it does belong to the music category.

Lin Zuhui said: "You can do more programs about Hong Kong stream idols, such as celebrity interviews, but they are still 'music' and 'idol' programs in essence. As for Hong Kong stream programs, you need to explore slowly, but don't rush. At present, our programs still focus on 'international programs' and 'old Hong Kong programs'."

Internationalized programs are to sell copyrights and increase world influence, while 'old Hong Kong-flavored programs' (prize doormen, comedians save the earth) are to take care of old-fashioned audiences.

In a few years, when there are more and more Hong Kong-style idols, Lin Zuhui will launch "Hong Kong-style variety shows" such as "X-man", "Infinite Challenge", "Family Birth", and "Runningman".These programs are very familiar to Lin Zuhui, and it takes no effort at all.

"Okay, we will develop steadily!" Zhao Zhenqiang said in admiration.

Lin Zuhui nodded in satisfaction, the entire ATV Group is ultimately serving the "Hong Kong culture", this is Lin Zuhui's original intention.With the ultimate goal of exporting "Hong Kong culture", more practitioners and jobs will earn a lot of foreign exchange. Form a pillar industry for Hong Kong.

What Lin Zuhui gets from this kind of career is not monetary happiness, but a kind of spiritual happiness and a powerful influence.

Because of this, he would happily participate in it.

Of course, every time I come to ATV Group, enjoying the admiration of handsome men and beautiful women, it is also a very comfortable feeling.Aside from the high-ranking celebrities in his eyes in the previous life, in this life he is a small person in front of him. If he has a crush on any female celebrity, the female celebrity will take the initiative to send it to his door.

(End of this chapter)