The Wind of China Entertainment 2005

Chapter 561 Drinking Tea
Dongguan, vivo headquarters, chairman’s office.

The chairman of vivo is Shen Wei, who is handsome and just turned 40 this year, which is the prime of his life.

There were two other people in the room, both men, who looked to be about ten years younger than him.

A young man was standing in front of the French window. He was about thirty years old, with short hair, thick eyebrows, and black-framed glasses. He was not good-looking.

He turned around and looked at Shen Wei, surprised: "Lu Yuan? Is this true? Isn't he a big star? He is also the spokesperson for vivo. The blueprint is actually his?"

Blueprint had been relatively quiet in the industry before this year.

But during this period, it became known to everyone that many companies such as Tencent and Alibaba wanted to spend billions of dollars to acquire its shares in iQiyi.

On the Internet, money is always the most eye-catching thing.

After some understanding, the layman discovered that Blueprint Company is actually a major copyright holder of domestic film and television dramas, and it plays a vital role in iQiyi's current scale.

Shen Wei sat in front of the tea table, holding the teapot, tilting his wrist slightly downwards, and smoothly handed the brewed tea to Duan Yongping. He turned his head and said with a smile: "Surprising, my expression was similar to yours at that time."

"I've seen a few TV shows starring him. His acting is pretty good. I didn't expect he has this identity." Huang Zheng was curious and asked, "How old is he? Born in the 1980s?"

"I don't know exactly, but it's definitely smaller than you." Shen Wei made himself a cup of tea and asked Duan Yongping, "How is this tea?"

Duan Yongping did not answer.

Huang Zheng pinched his chin, clapped his hands, and said with a snap, "Hey! The recent uproar over iQiyi's share buyback incident, doesn't it mean that he is going to make billions?"

"Don't be so startled." Duan Yongping was holding the Xiangzhuqing and was about to take a sip when he was startled by him.

Huang Zheng smiled and said, "Of course you don't find it strange, but it's different for me. Leqi's current annual profit is just over 10 million. I only knew that he was the highest paid young male actor in domestic TV dramas and that he made a lot of money from the movies he invested in. I didn't expect that with such a large fortune, he would actually want to invest in a video network. Tsk, tsk, tsk, it's so weird, it's really so weird."

"I was actually quite surprised when I heard what Mr. Shen said." Duan Yongping blew on the tea leaves floating on the water.

There were three people in the house, Shen Wei, Duan Yongping and Huang Zheng.

Duan Yongping has the highest wealth, is the oldest, and has the most seniority.

Known as the "Chinese Buffett", his assets are a mystery and he does not appear on the rich list, but no one in the industry will ignore this business legend.

In the 90s, the Little Overlord brand endorsed by Cheng Long was a product of the company where Duan Yongping served as factory director at the age of 27.

Later, due to internal conflicts in the factory, obstacles to his personal development, differences in opinions, etc., he chose to resign and went to Dongguan to establish BBK Electronics Co., Ltd.

When BBK became the number one in the industry, in 1999, Duan Yongping, who was only 40 years old, chose to retire and went to the United States with his wife, and then focused only on stock market investment.

Duan Yongping retired, but he trained several extremely powerful figures for BBK, who were known as the Three Great Disciples.

He is also the head of several companies incubated or spun off by BBK.

Shen Wei, the founder of vivo, Chen Minyong, the helmsman of OPPO, and Jin Zhijiang, the CEO of BBK.

Why is Huang Zheng here? Because he and Duan Yongping are schoolmates and also close friends regardless of age difference.

Duan Yongping invested in NetEase in 2001, spending about 1000 million to buy a large number of shares and making a profit of about 10 billion yuan.

Ding Lei met Huang Zheng by chance and thought that this young man had good abilities.

In 2002, Huang Zheng was admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison from Zhejiang University to pursue a master's degree.

Upon learning that Huang Zheng was going to study in the United States, Ding Lei introduced him to Duan Yongping.

Duan Yongping admired Huang Zheng very much and intended to cultivate him and accept him as his apprentice. When he bought the opportunity to have lunch with Buffett in 2006, he took Huang Zheng to the dinner.

During this period, he was also given a lot of advice on life and career planning.

Huang Zheng also listened to him and followed his guidance. After graduation, he joined Google, a startup company that had just been established a few years ago and was in its growth stage, as a programmer and product manager.

When Google went public, he held a lot of options and made millions of dollars when he left.

When Huang Zheng returned to China to develop his career, Duan Yongping handed over BBK's e-commerce business to him. He founded the e-commerce website Ouku, which specializes in electronic products and competes with JD.com, but he has never been able to defeat the latter.

When Lu Yuan came in, he noticed that the youngest one was staring at him.

He had learned about the company when he became the brand ambassador of vivo.

I knew about Duan Yongping and his early deeds, but I had no impression of his appearance, so I was very surprised to hear Shen Wei's introduction.

"Mr. Duan, I have long heard of your great name!"

Duan Yongping smiled and shook hands with him. "I came back to China to do some work. I just happened to hear Lao Shen mention that you wanted to get Vivo to invest. I was curious, so I thought of coming over to listen. Do you mind?"

"Of course not." Lu Yuan sat down on the sofa and laughed, but he knew that Duan Yongping was the key to whether the cooperation could be achieved this time.

He and Shen Wei are fellow villagers, both from Gan Province, and the same was true for Duan Yongping before he changed his nationality.

Gan Province is a magical place with many successful entrepreneurs, but once they leave, they basically never go back.

After a few brief greetings, we got down to business.

Duan Yongping asked: "I heard from Lao Shen that you plan to invest in PPS. As far as I know, video network is a money-burning project. The price of domestic film and television copyrights has been driven up by Baidu Penguin and other companies. It costs hundreds of millions to buy dramas every year.

Vicious competition will inevitably lead to out-of-control costs. They will not be able to control them even if they want to. Your billions of funds may seem like a lot now, but it will be hard to say in the future. Wouldn’t it be better to invest in other things? Food, clothing, housing, transportation, buy a house, and wait for the housing prices to rise.”

He believed that Lu Yuan must have a unique vision to be able to earn such a fortune in his twenties. Moreover, he had been in the entertainment industry for many years, so it was impossible for him not to understand this matter.

Huang Zheng also looked over. This was the question that had been in his mind since Shen Wei finished speaking, before Lu Yuan arrived.

An actor invests in a video network. Oh, this guy has some money and a copyright company, but it seems unreliable no matter how you think about it.

Lu Yuan's heart trembled. Duan Yongping was indeed amazing. He hit the nail on the head with just a few simple words.

out of control!

It has already become clear that vicious competition will inevitably lead to out-of-control costs.

Due to the influx of capital, actors' pay has been rising slowly in recent years.

It is correct to say that the increase in celebrity pay is a normal result of market supply and demand.

But since last year, this increase has become particularly obvious and even started to get out of control, turning into a vicious expansion.

The reason is easy to understand. Several video network companies on the market are scrambling for the copyrights of film and television dramas, which has acted as a catalyst.

If a good drama is sold to a TV station and a video network, the producer's first-round income can easily exceed 100 million yuan, which invisibly speeds up the soaring of actors' salaries.

A few years ago, the top actors in the domestic TV drama industry, such as Chen Daoming, Chen Baoguo, Li Youbin and others, only received 20 to 30 yuan per episode.

But nowadays, 30 per episode is common, which is the salary range of second-tier actors, and first-tier big names can earn over 2500 million for a single drama. Lu Yuan himself is even more exaggerated, with a package price of million+ for a TV series.

This change is based on the rise of artists across the industry and is not limited to the first-line actor group.

TV dramas are different from the big screen. Fans will contribute to the ratings and support the artists. Let’s not discuss whether some artists are receiving remuneration that is not commensurate with their professional abilities.

It is foreseeable that if this situation does not change, the actors' pay will reach an outrageous level in a few years.

And filming a TV series requires reasonable cost control.

Using 40% of the total investment to pay cast and crew is already the limit. If it reaches 50%, many production companies will have to find ways to increase the number of episodes and shorten the shooting cycle.

Screenwriters, directors, and production teams will also lose their balance and become perfunctory.

Such a vicious cycle directly affects the quality of TV dramas.

By then, more than 70% of the cost of a play will be used to pay the actors, or even more.

It is easy to increase film pay but difficult to reduce it. Unless the government issues documents, it will be futile for capital to try to control it.

And several video companies will suffer the consequences.

Either they use the influence of the platform to promote newcomers and make quick money, anyone can be an actor, the quality of the script doesn’t matter, they just harvest fans like leeks and empty their pockets.

Or change this pay model.

"Why buy so many houses? Just enough to live in is enough."

Lu Yuan smiled and said, "Why invest in a video network? Apart from filming and distinguishing good and bad scripts, other industries are unfamiliar to me. One person can't do too many things, so it's better to focus on the field that you are most familiar with."

Duan Yongping agreed with this, but he was still puzzled: "If that's the case, then you should also know that the prospects of this industry are not good, why do you still insist on it?"

Lu Yuan was silent.

In fact, he didn't really want to answer this question.

Because most people would find it ridiculous, unrealistic and beyond their capabilities.

There are many labels that the outside world has given him, including the best acting talent among those born in the 1980s, a powerful actor, the youngest Grand Slam winner, a new director, a gold medal film and television investor, and so on.

But he always kept in mind his identity as an actor.

The first play he filmed in the true sense after entering the industry was called "King Gou Jian of Yue", and his co-stars were Bao Guoan and other older generations in the entertainment industry.

The pragmatic style of this older generation left a deep impression on him and is also something he has been learning from.

Since becoming famous, he has not had many material needs except for several villas bought for himself and his family, and necessary expenses for work.

Liu Shishi often said that compared with the lives of other colleagues in the industry after becoming famous, he lived like an ascetic monk.

When he first entered the film and television industry, he was indeed looking for the money.

But people grow and their ideas change, and gradually, he really enjoys the performing process now.

If he is asked to quit the circle, no matter how much money he is offered, he will not be willing to do so.

The entertainment industry made him successful, allowing him to live in a mansion, drive a luxury car, and dress beautifully every day. One movie can earn him wealth that an ordinary person could never have in his entire life.

Therefore, as an actor, he hopes that this circle can be more normal and produce more good works, instead of making things so bad that the audience can no longer tolerate it and simply abandon it.

In 05 in Hengdian, he had a dream.

He didn't know how the dream came about. Every dream was a good story. He could just keep investing like a wealthy landlord and film these dreams.

As long as he is in the entertainment industry, as long as he continues to make movies, and as long as there are audiences willing to watch him, these dreams will not end.

He can be the number one in TV dramas, and in the future he can also be the number one on the big screen. He is the king of ratings and the number one at the box office.

If the company produces several dramas every year, Yuanfang Media may be able to successfully go public with its handsome profits.

After that, he bought planes, islands, and all kinds of things.

In their spare time or when they are tired of filming, they take Liu Shishi or their parents and families to travel around the world.

He had planned this before, taking advantage of the good market and overheated copyrights to fleece the capital.

But Lu Jing's proposal made him think a lot.

Seeing that this circle began to change under the impact of capital, business ability was no longer the consideration standard, and everyone began to buy ratings, hire water armies, and make data.
He didn't know the origin of the dream, nor did he know why he was chosen.

But now that he has the opportunity, he hopes he can do something for the industry, no matter what the outcome.

The other three people in the room did not disturb him.

After a while, Lu Yuan simply said: "I hope the environment of the industry I work in can be better."

There is no need to talk too much about topics like market prospects. They can only deceive laymen. No one here is a fool.

Duan Yongping is well aware of the virtues of capital and is well aware of the dire consequences that capital invasion will bring.

So she stared at him with increasingly strange eyes: "So why did you choose vivo?"

“Because vivo and PPS complement each other, I heard from Mr. Shen that they will sponsor variety shows and other programs on major TV stations to increase vivo’s popularity.

Vivo's target users are young people, more specifically young women. PPS currently has 3.2 million registered users, and is one of the top five domestic video websites. Its average daily reach reaches 3400 million people. Whether it is the age group or the scale of users, it is very suitable for Vivo."

PPS can also attract female users of vivo. When the vivo brand goes overseas, it may be able to occupy part of the overseas market. There is little hope in Europe and the United States, but it is possible in Southeast Asia and other Chinese radiation circles. Duan Yongping added in his mind, picking up the cup and drinking a sip of tea: "In terms of publicity, vivo can definitely cooperate with iQiyi and Tencent Video."

"Xiaomi thinks so too. It's just that the highest bidder wins. Instead of letting others choose, it's better to own it. Vivo needs its own publicity platform." Lu Yuan replied.

He also revealed another piece of news: "Mr. Lei of Xiaomi has contacted iQiyi."

"Everything you said is based on the platform having high-quality content." Duan Yongping listened to him carefully and put down the teacup.

"Although Blueprint can fill the film library, there is no new content. The website's content types are not rich enough. How much better can it be than PPS, which has only traffic but is eager to sell itself? In addition, are there enough paying users? How to achieve a balance between income and expenditure?"

Lu Yuan smiled but did not answer, turning his gaze to look at Shen Wei on the other side.

Shen Wei was busy making tea. Huang Zheng pushed him and looked up. "We talked about this on the phone before. The industry needs to develop and the audience needs to be cultivated. I think his plan can be tried. As for film and television content, he is a professional in this area."

Duan Yongping said no more. After all, he was just an amateur, and Shen Wei was not someone who could be easily fooled.

"Come, have some tea." Shen Wei handed over the brewed tea.

(End of this chapter)