Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1985 Liberal Media
"This is not an easy task. The news media in the United States is different from that in our country. The public relations methods we use in China have no chance of success in the United States." Duan Yun shook his head lightly, Then he said: "And the cost of advertising in the United States is too high. Basically, it is several times to ten times that in China, and it can even reach hundreds of times. With the current foreign exchange flow of our group company, we can't support the products we want at all. The publicity effect..."

Duan Yun naturally understood Li Yun's thoughts. At the beginning, Duan Yun relied on investing a lot of advertising expenses, including advertising on CCTV and other important domestic media. It took only one or two years for Tianyin to become a household name in China. Brand, and a large amount of advertising investment has also brought extremely rich returns, allowing Tianyin Group to eventually develop into the largest private enterprise in China.

Moreover, Duan Yun can be said to have played advertising to the extreme. He has set up an advertising and public relations department. In addition to top domestic media including CCTV, Tianyin Group also maintains long-term business contacts with many local media. The public relations department of the group also maintains close contact with hundreds of well-known domestic writers in private, and the remuneration paid by Tianyin Group for their contributions is absolutely generous.

After several years of operation, Tianyin Group's advertisements have reached the point of pervasiveness in the country. Even in some remote mountain villages, there are advertisements for Tianyin products on the walls and outside the huts.

With its strong control over the domestic media, Tianyin Group also has very strong soft power, and even Duan Yun has a certain right to speak in the industry, whether it is product promotion, corporate image, or Duan Yun's personal influence In terms of power, with the blessing of this soft power, he has always maintained a very positive image in the hearts of Chinese people, which is of great help to Duan Yun's career.

But in the United States, Duan Yun’s method is basically impossible to succeed, because the advertising fees of American media are very high. For example, the most powerful advertising brand in China, CCTV advertising, has risen to nearly 600 million a year in prime advertising time, but This money can only buy less than ten full-page advertisements of the "New York Times" in the United States, and in the United States, there are several top media like the "New York Times".

Even a world-leading electronics manufacturer like Sony, with their financial resources, cannot replicate what Duan Yun did in China in the United States.

In addition, in name, it seems impossible to control the media in the United States, and even the national government does not have this ability.

The concept of "independent media" is one of the core concepts of the western journalism concept.

The so-called "independent media" refers to private media that are independent of the government and political parties in terms of finance, funding, and ownership.The Western view of news believes that only independent media can be free from government and party control, maintain "political neutrality" and become a "social public instrument".

For a long time, "independent media", like "press freedom", has been a signboard for the West to flaunt itself and a big stick for attacking other countries.

The market law of free competition has made the Western news industry inevitably move towards monopoly, and the so-called "independent media" are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people.

Take News Corporation, Viacom, and Bertelsmann, the world's largest media groups, as examples.Although their main business, media composition and operating characteristics are different, but the three have a common symbol: family business.News Corp. is controlled by the Rupert Murdoch family.Before the 80s, Murdoch held more than 70% of the controlling stake in the group.Today, although News Corporation has developed into an international listed company, nearly 2/5 of the voting shares are still in the hands of the Murdoch family.Viacom Corporation of the United States is an enterprise owned by Summer Redstone's family, and its business scope covers various fields of the media industry and entertainment industry.Redstone personally served as the chairman of the company's executive board of directors, holding 7% of the voting shares; he also appointed his daughter Sally Redstone as the company's non-executive vice chairman, which is a position tailored for him.Bertelsmann Publishing Group was founded as a small family-managed company at the beginning, and now it has developed into a world media giant.The shares of the group are held by the Moen family and its Bertelsmann Foundation. In fact, the Moen family is the only shareholder.

Under the media group controlled by these big families, a group of important media gathered.The Wall Street Journal, the financial newspaper with the largest paid circulation in the United States, Fox Broadcasting Corporation, one of the four major television networks in the United States, and The Times, the largest mainstream newspaper in the United Kingdom, belong to News Corporation.

CBS, one of the oldest TV networks in the United States, MTV, which covers hundreds of millions of households around the world, and United Paramount, which covers 86% of American households, are all under the leadership of Redstone.

RTL Group, Europe's largest television broadcasting company, Random House, the world's largest book publisher, and Gruner & Jarl, Europe's largest magazine publishing company, are owned by Bertelsmann Group.

In addition, a group of Western mainstream media has been acquired by big families in the wave of mergers and acquisitions.

The "New York Times" and the "International Herald Tribune", known as representatives of serious newspapers in the United States, are owned by the New York Times Company controlled by the Sulzberger family; the other two serious newspapers in the United States, "Washington Post" and "Los Angeles Times" , respectively controlled by the Graham family and the Chandler family; the American "Newsweek", known as the "National Treasure", was acquired by audio tycoon Sidney Harman in 2010.

These large American families and consortia not only control many top media groups, but also affect the politics and economy of the United States. Every year, these family consortiums spend huge sums of money to support the election of congressmen and presidents. In return, their interests are in The United States is protected and can also be expanded to a certain extent.

This is actually the rule of the game in capitalist countries. The gap between the rich and the poor is huge, and the winner takes all. The entire state apparatus is actually serving the interests of capitalists.

Therefore, if Duan Yun wants to maintain a good publicity image for his company and products in the United States, he must obtain the support of these top American families and financial groups, but it is impossible to obtain such support without paying a price.

The simplest and most economical way is to invite these consortiums to invest in their American branches. All in all, only by giving half of the cake to American capital can Duan Yun's branch succeed in the United States. .

It's just that the current U.S. branch of Tianyin Group is not enough to attract the attention of these U.S. consortiums. Duan Yun must first prove his strength before he can attract U.S. capital to intervene...

(End of this chapter)