1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Out of Xu Feng's selfish motives, he actually didn't want Zhou Yan to get involved in the affairs of the Mei factory.

Although she didn't know much about the specific situation of Shangmei Factory, she knew that it was in chaos.

Otherwise, Sheng Chongqing would not have been arranged to be the director of the Shangmei Factory, and Jin Guoping would not have been pushed to the position of deputy.

Jin Guoping has made great progress in Shangmei Factory in recent years, and his subordinates all obey him. When Sheng Chongqing suddenly appeared, Jin Guoping must be the first one to be unhappy.

If Jin Guoping takes action, Sheng Chongqing will be unable to do anything in Shangmei Factory.

Perhaps this time Sheng Chongqing wanted to win over Zhou Yan, and also hoped that Zhou Yan could help him.

After all, the difficulty that Shangmei Factory is facing now is poor efficiency. As long as the problem of not making money is solved, everything will be solved.

Zhou Yan is the most popular director in the country today. Maybe they can reach a cooperation and learn from Zhou Yan to find a way to make money for Shanghai Animation Studio.

However, Xu Feng believed that if Sheng Chongqing could not solve the internal problems of Shangmei Factory, it would be useless for Zhou Yan to cooperate with them. After all, he was not a god and could not solve all problems.

Of course Xu Feng didn't say these words directly to Sheng Chongqing. She just smiled and said, "I believe there will be opportunities in the future."

Then the two chatted for a few more words and hung up the phone.

Not long after, Zhang Youan called.

On the phone, Zhang Youan reported to Xu Feng about his contact with Sony.

As they expected, Sony was very interested when it learned that Thompson wanted to purchase the broadcasting rights for Celine Dion's concert in China. They had already made an appointment to discuss it in detail in person the next day.

"I got some feedback on the phone and Sony probably won't ask for too much."

Xu Feng smiled and said, "They must also know that we won't pay too much for the broadcasting rights of this concert. It's useless for them to ask for too much."

"Mr. Xu, have you contacted the TV station?"

"Well, I contacted Shanghai TV Station. They are quite interested in this matter. Now they are just waiting for us to get the copyright of the concert first."

"It's Shanghai TV Station. I thought it was Yanjing TV Station."

"I contacted Shanghai TV first. They were willing, so I didn't contact Yanjing again. What's the problem?"

"Of course, no problem. It will definitely be better to go on Shanghai TV."

Although they have cooperated a lot with Yanjing TV Station, objectively speaking, Shanghai TV Station is definitely more suitable.

Shanghai TV is the TV station with the best broadcasting technology in China besides CCTV. Moreover, Shanghai TV has always been very international and often broadcasts English products. It is normal for it to broadcast Celine Dion's concert now.

In addition, Shanghai TV Station has a wider coverage area and better box office potential at present.

"In that case, you should quickly finalize the deal with Sony."

"Ok, no problem."

……

Zhang Youan was very efficient and quickly finalized the concert copyright issue with Sony.

Sony readily sold the television broadcasting rights of Celine Dion's Radio City concert in China to Tang Chen for US$350,000.

Originally, Tang Chen wanted to transfer the copyright to Shanghai TV for US$400,000 and make a profit of US$50,000. However, due to the considerable amount of money involved, Shanghai TV could not do it for the time being. Finally, they came up with a compromise and Shanghai TV bought the first broadcast rights for RMB 500,000.

This means that Tang Chen can still transfer the broadcasting rights to other TV stations, provided that they are broadcast on Shanghai TV first.

Moreover, Shanghai TV bought the copyright for a limited time. After one month, the copyright was no longer available.

From this perspective, it seems that Tang Chen is going to lose money. After all, 400,000 US dollars turned into 500,000 RMB, and he only earned back about one-tenth of the cost.

But Xu Feng was not worried, because the television broadcasting rights could be sold repeatedly and for a long time anyway.

There are so many TV stations, big and small, across the country. Sooner or later, the investment will be recovered. It just takes a longer time. Xu Feng doesn't care about this.

Anyway, she didn't intend to make money from this.

If this publicity strategy is successful and the box office can exceed 80 million, Han Sanping will not think about inflating the box office, and the millions of dollars spent on inflating the box office will be saved.

……

In fact, the payback for the concert broadcasting rights was much faster than Xu Feng expected.

From the time Xu Feng spoke on the phone with Sheng Chongqing to the time the concert was broadcast on Shanghai TV, less than a week passed.

If it hadn't taken some time to add Chinese subtitles, the time might have been shortened.

After the concert was broadcast, the ratings were very good and it was broadcast on Shanghai TV for two consecutive days.

A TV station saw that the concert was well broadcast and became interested.

This program is good. We don’t have to produce it ourselves, which saves time and effort. But I don’t know if it saves money.

Subsequently, a TV station contacted Tang Chen through Shanghai TV Station and asked how much it would cost to purchase the broadcasting rights.

Tang Chen didn't ask for a high price, just 100,000 RMB.

When the TV station heard that the price was reasonable, they decided to buy it.

Although the price of a family is not high, a little bit adds up to a lot, and it won’t take long to earn back the money.

By January 29, when Xu Feng arrived in Yanjing, three TV stations had already expressed their intention to purchase the product.

These three are all provincial TV stations, because generally only provincial TV stations are willing to pay so much money to purchase the broadcasting rights of a concert.

After the third or fourth round, when the price comes down, some city and county TV stations may purchase it.

After the concert was broadcast on Shanghai TV, Tang Chen began to promote it heavily, and the box office of "Time Traveler" also received a positive impact.

Originally, Tomson's internal assessment was that the single-day box office of "Time Traveler" would drop to around 300,000 within ten days.

But now nine days have passed, and there is only one day left until ten days, and the box office of "Time Traveler" is still stable at 600,000 or 700,000, and the rate of decline is much lower than previously predicted.

During these nine days, the box office of "Time Traveler" increased by several hundred thousand, and the total box office reached more than 75 million, leaving less than 5 million away from the target of 80 million.

If the current single-day box office can be maintained and no longer decline, the goal can be achieved in just over a week. The way they introduced the concert this time has indeed played a significant role.

After meeting Zhou Yan, Xu Feng told Zhou Yan what happened.

After hearing this, Zhou Yan was also very happy. Today is the studio's New Year's Eve party, and this news is quite timely. He can share this good news with everyone when the party starts.

Originally, Zhou Yan did not want to invite Xu Feng to attend their studio's annual meeting, mainly because the New Year was approaching and Xu Feng was in Shanghai, so it would be too troublesome for her to make a trip to Yanjing.

It was Xu Feng who knew that his studio was having an annual meeting and offered to come and take a look.

Since Xu Feng took the initiative to offer to come, Zhou Yan naturally had no reason to refuse.

Xu Feng arrived at Factory No. 7, looked around, and couldn't help but exclaim in amazement, "You know what, it really feels like a theater."

“It’s still too crude.”

With such a short time, it is impossible to make a great renovation. Besides, Zhou Yan didn't intend to renovate this place too well. It would be fine as long as it was barely adequate.

"It's already very good, at least it's very spacious. How can ordinary companies have such a place to hold a party?" Xu Feng smiled and sighed, "It's a pity that Shanghu is too far away from here, otherwise we Tang Chen can hold an annual meeting with your studio, and it will be more lively with more people."

The Tang Chen Group does have an annual meeting, but the format is the same as that of ordinary companies. Everyone just has a meal together and the boss gives red envelopes to employees. There is nothing special about it.

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It would be so interesting if I could go to a party with Zhou Yan Studio and take the employees to it.

Zhou Yan laughed, "My second brother also told me this."

"It's more lively when there are more people." Xu Feng looked around the factory again, "But you have quite a few people too."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Yes, there are quite a few. There are about 100 to 200 people in the piano youth orchestra alone, and there are about 100 other employees in the studio, so there are 300 people in total."

Xu Feng said with emotion, "I didn't expect that your studio has more than 300 people. It must be very costly to support so many people."

“It’s not low, so I’m working very hard to make money now.” Zhou Yan said with a smile.

You don't know until you calculate it. You will be shocked when you do. In December, the company was doing the accounts. Zhou Yan looked at the accounts and found out that their studio now spends nearly 20 million yuan a year, an average of more than 50,000 yuan a day.

This means that every time Zhou Yan opens his eyes, he has to spend more than 50,000 yuan.

However, such expenses were not unbearable for Zhou Yan.

He can earn more than this amount of money every day from those albums.

Moreover, Zhou Yan no longer needs to use his own personal savings to supplement the studio's expenses.

Although the studio costs a lot of money, it also makes a lot of money.

The most profitable thing is of course movies. For example, in the filming of "Time Traveler", although the movie was directed by Zhou Yan and he also received the director's fee, in addition to the director's fee, Tang Chen also paid the same amount of money to the studio.

The people and equipment provided by the studio all have to be paid by the producer.

Including the cost of post-production, Tang Chen also has to pay the studio.

This money is separate from Zhou Yan's own remuneration as director, music director, screenwriter, actor, etc., and is directly transferred to the studio account to be used for studio operations.

The production cost of "Time Traveler" was 30 million, of which more than 10 million went to Zhou Yan Studio. This means that this movie alone brought the studio more than 10 million in revenue this year, covering more than 50% of the studio's operating costs.

Their studio shoots more than one movie every year, including helping Huo Jianqi and several other directors make movies. The producers have to pay them, so it's not like they're working in vain.

In addition to movies, the music engineering department also made a lot of money this year, with total revenue reaching more than 6 million.

The orchestra also has a lot of revenue, but most of it is extra.

If the orchestra is included, the annual expenses of their studio will be more than 20 million. After all, when the orchestra members go abroad, the travel expenses and accommodation expenses alone will cost a lot.

However, the orchestra's expenses can be covered by performance fees.

Xu Feng knew Zhou Yan's situation. The studio's expenses were not a big deal for him. "Don't complain about being poor to me. You should know that I know most of your studio's accounts, as well as your own personal accounts."

Zhou Yan's studio cooperates closely with Tang Chen, and most of Zhou Yan's personal business goes through Tang Chen, so Xu Feng knows Zhou Yan's financial situation in detail.

What Xu Feng couldn't understand was the business cooperation between Zhou Yan and Zhou Hong.

"I'm not complaining about being poor, I'm just under a lot of pressure. The TV drama department of the studio has been established, but the staff is not yet complete. When we recruit people for the TV drama department next year, the expenses will be even greater."

"You can earn more. For your TV drama department, you can cover the expenses by taking on one TV drama a year. If you can take on two, you can make money."

What Xu Feng said was indeed correct. The TV drama department was the same as the music engineering department. They just took on TV dramas for production. The risk was not great. As long as there was business, these people would definitely be able to be supported.

"Just covering the expenses is not enough. I plan to transform it into a proper music center, which will cost tens of millions at least."

"Tsk tsk, does the renovation alone cost tens of millions?"

"Well, after all, the area is not small, and the structure inside may need to be renovated."

"Would it be better if you built a new one?"

Zhou Yan shook his head. "It would take a long time and be expensive to rebuild a new one. The structures of these two factories are relatively intact now. As long as we renovate them carefully, they will be fine."

Rebuilding a house of similar size would cost not just a little bit more, but several times more, and Zhou Yan was reluctant to spend that money.

"It's better to change it, otherwise this house will be wasted." Xu Feng nodded, and suddenly said, "Do you usually pay attention to cartoons?"

Zhou Yan was a little surprised, "Sister Feng, why do you suddenly ask this?"

"I had a chat with Director Sheng of Shanghai TV Station about the concert broadcast. He is now in charge of Shanghai Mei Factory, so we talked about this."

Although Xu Feng did not say it explicitly, Zhou Yan already understood the implication of his words.

Director Sheng must have talked not only about cartoons, but also about him, otherwise Xu Feng would not have suddenly asked him this at this time.

Zhou Yan pondered and said, "Isn't it hard for Shangmei Factory now?"

"Indeed." Xu Feng nodded.

Starting from the "Little Tadpole Looking for His Mother" in the 1960s, Chinese animation has had a glorious period and produced many excellent works, such as "Havoc in Heaven", "Nezha Conquers the Dragon King", "Three Monks", etc.

However, after entering the 1990s, television became widely popular. In order to cater to the market, China introduced a lot of foreign cartoons, which had a strong impact on domestic animation. (End of this chapter)