The opening of China Entertainment Group gave Jay Chou a head-on confrontation

Chapter 669 You are the boss, you have the final say

"He was a waste in the first place. His previous company was called Xiake Records, which was founded by the former founders of Golden Dot Records and their husband and wife. The only well-known artist under their company was Tao Zhe. It could be said that it was Tao Zhe's company alone."

While eating supper and talking about the album "Black Tangerine" which brought Tao Zhe's status in the music industry to a higher level, Zhou Yi's tone was somewhat ambiguous.

Everything has its pros and cons.

The advantage of a small record company is that Tao himself has a great deal of say. If he were to switch to a large record company, Tao would definitely not have such a great deal of autonomy over the album "Black Tangerine", not to mention the evening news in it.

If you dare to show up, I will delete it for you.

Even someone as strong as Jay Chou at his peak would still be suppressed by the company when making albums.

For some things, being on the scale and not being on the scale have completely different weights, even in the field of entertainment.

This is just like writing a novel on Qidian. Some things may seem fine at the beginning, but once they are reported, most of the time they will send you a marked table file and ask you to delete or modify the sentences that may be risky.

Tao Zhe has no shortage of invitations from big companies these days, but because of a restriction, he has been stuck in small companies from beginning to end - even his new agency, Yishidai Entertainment, is just a slightly larger small workshop.

By the time Tao became out of fashion, it was no use wanting to switch to big companies like EMI, Universal, or Warner.

An out-of-date singer is worse than a dog, even if you are Zhe Tao.

"Unless he's like you."

Qian Jiang wiped the corners of his mouth that were stained with chili oil, chewed the steak in his mouth, and said something with a smile - or rather, he told the truth.

After nearly 30 years in the industry, this is the first time he has seen a musician like Zhou Yi who has such a strong say in a big company.

I can only say that we have encountered good times.

If it were any of Warner’s peak years in the last century, Zhou Yi probably wouldn’t even accept the contract terms.

"That's only possible if President Hui is willing to take the gamble. It was indeed not just the Warner family that came to me back then."

Zhou Yi shrugged, put down his chopsticks gracefully and wiped his hands: "How is the venue preparation going?"

"According to what you said, we have already built the set, and with the help of people from the aerospace industry, some scenes are absolutely 100% restored."

When it came to business, Qian Jiang immediately stopped joking and reported everything one by one.

Compared to the A side which is full of Zhou Yi's personal romantic color, Qian Jiang spent 120% of his energy on the B side. Especially the song "drag me down", the MV involves the space scene and the space hero, and he is very clear about the meaning.

This was also the first time Zhou Yi accommodated others——

The space hero was very busy, and it was not easy for him to come out and meet Zhou Yi, the singer.

"Two days from now at 3pm, don't oversleep during your nap, time is precious."

"no problem."

A rare look of expectation appeared on Zhou Yi's face, and he made an OK gesture.

....................................

The next day, early in the morning.

While Zhou Yi was still sleeping soundly, the news that he was once again nominated for this year's Golden Melody Awards quickly spread through various print media, television stations and the Internet.

However, this time, unlike Zhou Yi’s dominating entry in the past, there were many more comments that were like the loss of one’s parents:

Remarks such as "Zhou Yi is not worthy of his position", "Zhou Yi relies entirely on marketing", "Zhou Yi's album does not deserve the award" and so on are rarely seen in many newspapers, radio stations and television interviews, especially in Taiwan.

Many experts, scholars and professors went all out and criticized the Zhouyi fiercely.

If Warner had not been prepared under Zhou Jianhui's instructions, thus directly forming a public opinion confrontation, I'm afraid that public opinion against Zhou Yi would have formed in an instant.

There are also public intellectuals in the mainland who sing a different tune from Warner, but the things they use to mock Zhou Yi are still the same old three things - pretending to know when you don't, leading young people astray, "blue and white porcelain is not written like this", etc.

As time goes by, the war even seems to be getting more intense.

Cheng Hao himself was curious about how Zhou Yi had offended these people so much that he was willing to write some specious arguments on his blog saying that "Zhou Yi is doomed" even if it meant getting himself into trouble.

In this era, most people who can use blogs and have a certain influence on blogs are elite intellectuals in the public's perception.

This is totally inconsistent with Zhou Yi's past leading public opinion advantage in the country.

What's even worse is that while both Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News congratulated Zhou Yi on his album's nomination, they also indirectly criticized Zhou Yi.

"Love is not a tool to make money, music should not be tainted by money";
"Why did Zhou Yi set a new record for the Golden Melody Awards for Chinese singers, but was boycotted by many people?"

The advanced expression method of pink cutting black really made many public intellectuals celebrate.

When it comes to traditional newspapers, Cheng Hao's power is useless.

Although she had been trying to figure out the reason, she finally discovered that the reporters who wrote these reports had nothing to do with Zhou Yi, especially Cheng Yizhong, who seemed neutral in the report.

A bona fide media tycoon and one of the founders of Southern Metropolis Daily and Beijing News.

He is currently embroiled in a legal vortex and has already been put in jail, yet some of his disciples have published some of his previous internal comments on the Book of Changes in newspapers.

"It's hard to imagine what kind of monsters these are."

Ever since I got involved in this industry, I found the bizarre and wonderful Cheng Hao to be frowning.

Zhou Yi was amused after glancing at the names and positions.

Isn’t this the progressive Democrat who supported the Sleeping King in 24 years, which made the Understanding King have a brainwave, and then pardoned himself?
It was a waste of the name his parents gave him. "You'll get used to it. I'm sure you'll hear this kind of talk a lot in the future."

Compared to Cheng Hao's annoyance, Zhou Yi, the person involved, seemed more comfortable. He even looked at the new potted plants that Cheng Hao had planted in her office: "At least it will be like this until I quit the music industry."

"Quit the music industry?"

Cheng Hao, whose sense of smell was gradually becoming sharper, caught the key words in the man's mouth, and his eyebrows were suddenly stunned: "What are you talking about?"

For a moment, she even suspected that she had heard it wrong.

Today, Zhou Yi's personal reputation is still constantly breaking historical records in the Chinese and even Asian music scene. Why is he starting to think about quitting the music scene?
"Don't worry, I will definitely not retire in the next few years. This new contract with Warner has not yet ended."

Zhou Yi raised his hands nonchalantly, crossed his fingers and placed them behind his head, looking into the woman's astonished eyes: "Although I am one of the shareholders, I still have to abide by the contract. But don't tell anyone about this, you are the only one who knows about this."

"So, what do you want to do after you quit the music industry?"

"I don't know. I guess I just enjoy life. Pop up on the Internet from time to time, have a private gathering or something."

"..."

Cheng Hao calculated in his heart that Zhou Yi's new contract with Warner would only last until May 08...

At Zhou Yi's current level, the most likely scenario is that his contract ends, and he will participate in the 08 Olympics held in his home country before retiring...

"This is really... surprising."

For some reason, Cheng Hao suddenly laughed, and it was the kind of smile that he couldn't stop.

"Won't you give me some advice?"

"You are the boss, you have the final say."

"Oh, now you recognize me as your boss?"

"That's right, there will be days when you are not the boss."

"Come and give the boss a shoulder massage."

"Do you want a beautiful secretary to do this job?"

Zhou Yi became excited: "Alright."

"Go find it yourself."

Cheng Hao smiled and rolled his eyes at him: "Don't be so dishonest, otherwise people from Tencent will think you've come to the wrong place."

After a series of negotiations, Guiyi and Tencent finally reached the final step.

Xiao Ma will arrive at Guiyi at 10 am today to have the final exchange with Zhou Yi, the actual controller. Basically, at this point, it can be said that it is a done deal if nothing unexpected happens.

Just as Cheng Hao said, he is the boss and he has the final say.

With Foxmail's current valuation, it is unlikely to be able to exchange it for a large number of fast-growing Tencent shares, but that may not be possible if money is added.

Foxmail + money can account for a fluctuation of 8-13%.

Coincidentally, Zhou Yi is very optimistic about Tencent.

An hour later, Zhou Yi, dressed in a suit and tie, saw the bespectacled Xiao Ma leading the team - he didn't seem to have the aura of a big boss at the moment, and his temperament was still in line with Zhou Yi's impression of the loser in the photo with Sohu's Lao Zhang.

"Mr. Zhou, Mr. Cheng, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. There's a traffic jam in the capital..."

After a down-to-earth opening remark to bring the two closer, Xiao Ma took the lead in extending his hand and bowed slightly to show respect: "Just call me by my name, or the English name Pony is also fine."

"Mr. Ma, you're welcome."

When Zhou Yi was present, Cheng Hao habitually retreated behind him.

4000 million US dollars and 13% of Foxmail's shares are the entry tickets offered by Guiyi for those who want to enter the market at this time.

Tencent has no problem with the price, but for the shares...

They can't give 13%.

This is where the two sides disagree.

Tencent is not short of money at the moment, so their condition is US$4000 million + email acquisition in exchange for 8% of the shares.

This condition was only offered when Tencent was facing an impact from Microsoft and Zhou Yi also had many connections behind him.

Of course, when it comes to business, Zhou Yi will definitely try to suppress the pressure.

After Tencent went public in 04, its total market value was only HK$62 billion. Even if Zhouyi had come in and bought a seat before the listing at a premium, US$4000-5000 million should have been enough.

After all, he still has a mailbox to be acquired, which is his valuable company.

As far as he remembers, in 05, when Foxmail's parent company encountered an economic crisis, Tencent took the opportunity to buy the company and spent around 500 million US dollars.

Gui Yi is not short of money now, and with his buff bonus, there is no problem in estimating his worth between eight and ten million US dollars.

Therefore, at this stage Zhou Yi directly moved out of Microsoft.

Apart from anything else, Microsoft, this old rogue, is an old acquaintance of his.

I, Zhou Yi, and Microsoft are close friends who have fought together!
(End of this chapter)