Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 518 The Butterfly Effect
"The Voice of China" was launched at the beginning of last year. The first episode was a huge hit, and the second episode started to go viral. After one month, it became a huge hit.

If the explosive popularity of If You Are the One on Jiangsu TV in 2009 broke the monopoly of Hunan TV on popular variety shows, then The Voice of China has opened up another gap.

Moreover, the significance of "The Voice of China" is greater than that of "If You Are the One". The latter is just a blind date show and has no conflict with the many variety shows of Hunan Satellite TV.

However, "The Voice of China" is a talent show, which is the strong point of Hunan Satellite TV.

Their "Super Girl" and "Happy Boy" got the first taste of talent shows and had a huge head start. When people talk about talent shows, they will think of these two programs.

What’s even more rare is that other TV stations have thought about imitating it, but apart from “My Style My Show” which caused some waves, the others didn’t make much of a splash.

Therefore, talent show variety shows have always been firmly controlled by Shonan TV.

Up to now, the ratings and influence of Super Boy and Super Girl have been on a downward trend. The real reason behind this is that the talent show wave has begun to decline.

The reason why the popularity of "The Voice of China" is of great significance is that this program has made a strong comeback when the audience has become tired of talent shows, and has opened up a new ace variety show. This is a real brilliant achievement.

If the initial popularity of "The Voice of China" made Shonan TV regret a bit, then its continued popularity to the point where it became a phenomenal variety show really made them regret it.

Judging from the trend of "The Voice of China", this program will definitely become the new ace talent show in the future, and Super Boy and Super Girl will have to take a back seat and be unable to compete with it.

This really gave Zhejiang Provincial Satellite TV a boost.

At this time, Zhejiang Satellite TV was indeed filled with laughter. The popularity of "The Voice of China" was beyond their imagination.

The leadership of the TV station was completely relieved. This time they had completely won the bet.

However, I couldn't help but feel a little sad when I thought about sharing the advertising revenue produced by Golden Harvest.

This time, due to the continued popularity of "The Voice of China", advertising fees have of course continued to rise.

After a whole season, Zhejiang Satellite TV received a lot of advertising fees, totaling up to 2.4 million yuan, half of which was given to Golden Harvest Production, leaving only 1.2 million yuan for itself.

Excluding the fixed cost of 50 million yuan for purchasing the variety show, Zhejiang Satellite TV's profit was only 70 million yuan, just a fraction of other people's earnings.

Although the TV station has some income from text messages and other miscellaneous sources, it is actually not much and can barely offset some of the other expenses of the TV station in broadcasting this program.

So if this is counted as profit, Zhejiang Provincial Satellite TV only has 70 million.

Golden Harvest Productions earned 1.7 million yuan from Zhejiang Satellite TV, plus the naming fee and sponsorship fees from three sponsors totaling million yuan.

In addition, the online copyright of "The Voice of China" was sold to Sina Video for 3 million per issue, for a total of 15 issues, which is another 45 million.

Golden Harvest Productions earned nearly 2.7 million yuan from this variety show, while the total production cost was only around million yuan.

So Golden Harvest earned a total profit of 2.2 million yuan, much higher than the TV station.

In addition, the success of "The Voice of China" has set a good start for Golden Harvest Productions, and Golden Harvest Group's first foray into the variety show market has been a complete success.

Moreover, it will have a trump card variety show and will be able to generate profits continuously in the future.

The reason why the stock price of Golden Harvest Group has risen so fast in this year, skyrocketing by more than 10 billion and now approaching a market value of 100 billion, is not just because of Golden Harvest Group’s brilliant achievements in the film market.

Last year, Golden Harvest Group achieved great success in movies, TV series and variety shows, which was the most direct factor for the rise in its stock price.

In addition, the scale of Golden Harvest Group's cinema chain continues to expand, and it has invested 600 million to 700 million yuan to ambitiously build the most advanced film and television base in the country. This has also made shareholders and some investment institutions very optimistic about Golden Harvest.

This caused the market value of Jiahe Group to surge by more than 10 billion in nearly a year, and also made Jiahe a listed company that appears frequently in annual financial reviews.

This is why Liu Zhou said that Zhang Zhao must have a place among the top ten CEOs of the year last year. Apart from those large state-owned enterprises, Golden Harvest Group can be said to be the most popular among domestic listed companies last year.

The potential shown by Golden Harvest Group is now increasingly favored by capital, and the entire entertainment industry is also attracting more and more attention from capital.

Penguin has already exited the market early, Ali has also turned his attention to the entertainment industry, and Jack Ma's pace of reducing his holdings in Huayi shares has begun to slow down.

Jack Ma has made a fortune from his investment in Huayi until the company went public. His investment was originally a financial one, so now that the company has gone public, of course he is ready to take the money and leave.

So after the protection period, Jack Ma began to gradually reduce his holdings in Huayi shares to cash out.

But now Jack Ma has stopped cashing out and seems to be examining the possibility of acquiring Huayi. However, according to Liu Zhou, the Wang brothers refused.

After all, Huayi is their only career. If the company is acquired, they will lose everything except money.

In addition, Huayi is no longer short of money now that it has gone public, and its financing channels are completely open. It no longer needs Jack Ma’s funds, so of course they do not want the company to be acquired.

Liu Zhou didn't know whether this was a butterfly effect caused by himself. In the original time and space, he had never heard that Jack Ma was going to acquire Huayi. He had been reducing his holdings to cash out and made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Or maybe my level was too low at that time and I had no access to such information at all.

Jack Ma usually doesn't do anything in a small way. In the original time and space, Ali's entry into the film and television industry was packaged and listed through a backdoor listing, which caused quite a stir at the time.

Now Ali is preparing to enter the entertainment industry ahead of schedule, and at this time few people are engaged in capital operations in the entertainment industry, so it is not surprising that they are now eyeing Huayi. After all, Jack Ma is still a shareholder of Huayi.

However, I don’t know if Ali will still join forces with Dong Ping and continue to carry out capital operations if Huayi really refuses.

For Liu Zhou, no matter how they do it, Jiahe has the confidence to deal with any challenge.

What Golden Harvest needs to do now is not to compete with others, but to improve its own ecological chain. By then, even if Liu Zhou’s golden finger expires, there is no need to worry that Golden Harvest will decline.

At present, the only things that Golden Harvest needs to improve are the variety show sector, cinema sector and theme park sector. The overseas distribution channels are actually enough. The reason why it is still expanding in Europe is that Golden Harvest International has reached a scale that naturally requires it to expand outward and cooperate with the development of Summit Entertainment.

Now the variety show sector has got off to a good start. The popularity of "The Voice of China" was unexpected not only by Zhejiang Satellite TV, but also by no one else in the Golden Harvest Group except Liu Zhou.

But this is a good thing for both parties. Needless to say, Golden Harvest Group made a lot of money.

Although Zhejiang Provincial Satellite TV does not earn as much as Golden Harvest Group, it has a flagship variety show that can fully boost the influence of the TV station.

The gains from this are much greater than the 1.2 million. So although they felt bad, they still happily paid the million advertising revenue share to Golden Harvest. They also hoped that Golden Harvest could start the production of the second season of "The Voice of China" as soon as possible.

……

In the conference room, after listening to the report from Li Wei, general manager of Golden Harvest Productions, Liu Zhou was also very satisfied.

Although he often paid attention to the variety show "The Voice of China" before, he did not care about every detail. Now it seems that the results are better than he expected.

The film made over 200 million yuan in the first season, two years in advance, which is a pretty good result.

"By the way, I'm a little curious, who is the champion of the first season of "The Voice of China"? " Liu Zhou asked.

Zeng Jia was the first to reply:

"The champion is Xue Zhiqian, a very talented singer-songwriter." (Please don't criticize me, I like Lao Xue very much, and I'll write about him when the time is right)
"Xue Zhiqian? I remember he debuted on My Style My Show. He should have signed with an agency, right?"

"Yes, he signed with Shangteng Entertainment after his debut on My Style My Show in 2005. He also released a song called "Serious Snow" which was very popular, but some songs are popular but not the singer.

Later, the boss of Shangteng Entertainment was changed. The new boss didn’t pay any attention to these artists who came out of talent shows, and never released any albums for them, almost shelving them.

He also secretly attended the auditions for "The Voice of China" and was not only shortlisted, but also had four mentors turn around.

After the show was broadcast, Shangteng Entertainment discovered that Xue Zhiqian had actually participated in the "China Voice" audition behind their backs, which caused some controversy at the time.

But I think Xue Zhiqian not only has good looks, but also has creative talent, so he should be popular, so I negotiated with Shangteng Entertainment and paid a penalty of 3 million to resolve the matter. "

"So he signed with Golden Harvest before the finals?"

Zeng Jia understood the meaning of Liu Zhou's question and explained:
"Boss Liu, don't worry. I definitely didn't interfere with the competition. Xue Zhiqian won the championship based on his own strength."

Liu Zhou believed that Zeng Jia did not interfere, but since Xue Zhiqian signed with Golden Harvest in advance, both Golden Harvest Entertainment and the four mentors would definitely take care of him.

But none of this matters. No talent show can guarantee fairness and justice. It can only be said that Xue Zhiqian is lucky, and luck is also part of strength.

If Golden Harvest had not launched "The Voice of China" two years in advance, Xue Zhiqian might still be working alone to produce albums as he did in the original time and space.

Last year, he was still in the cold, but he boldly came for the opportunity and happened to catch Zeng Jia's eye, who helped him solve his contract problem.

Regardless of whether Zeng Jia had influence or not, Xue Zhiqian was able to win the championship of the first season of "The Voice of China". I think he was recognized by the four mentors.

Among the four mentors, except Yu Chengqing, the other three are very picky and will turn a blind eye if you ask them to take care of someone.

But if you say that someone won the championship through behind-the-scenes manipulation, they will definitely get furious, especially Han Hong, who might even criticize the program crew in public.

Since such a thing did not happen, it means that Xue Zhiqian truly deserves the championship.

Liu Zhou could only say that the butterfly effect was indeed significant, as Xue Zhiqian actually became the champion of the first season of The Voice of China.

It seems that "My Style My Show" has produced many talented people. In addition to Xue Zhiqian, Zhang Jie also debuted there. Then he participated in "Happy Boy" in 2007 and won the fourth place and became famous.

At this time, after being hidden and suppressed for several years, Xue Zhiqian should be about to enter his golden period of creation, and Golden Harvest happened to have the ability to release an album for him.

After the contract between Yuan Shikong and Shangteng Entertainment expired in 2012, he worked on the album on his own and invested a lot of money in it. It was not until he signed with Ocean Butterflies Records in 2015 that he started to become popular.

He truly loves music to the core and has suffered a lot for it.

Now that he has won the championship of "The Voice of China", it goes without saying that he must be very famous now and he can suffer less.

"I understand. Since you think so highly of Xue Zhiqian, then you should support him. He is the first champion, so you should set a good example."

"Okay, Mr. Liu." Zeng Jia couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"By the way, besides Xue Zhiqian, who else signed the contract?"

After hearing Zeng Jia mention the other four names, Liu Zhou found that none of them were familiar, so he stopped paying attention.

They might also become famous singers who did not appear in the original time and space, but Liu Zhou would not care. If the champion was not Xue Zhiqian, he also liked Lao Xue very much in his previous life, so he would not even pay much attention to the championship.

At this time, Liu Zhou turned his gaze to Li Wei again and asked:

"What are Golden Harvest Productions' plans for next?"

"Mr. Liu, I plan to strike while the iron is hot and continue to prepare for the second season of The Voice of China. Go Fighting and Running Man can be produced a little later.

Firstly, we don’t have enough staff, and secondly, these two programs are outdoor reality shows, and we have no production experience yet, so we need to arrange for people to go to South Korea to learn first.”

"So are there any changes to the mentors in the second season?"

"No, the four mentors are all very happy to work with us. They are also willing to work with us for one season. The only difference is that the pay will be higher."

"It doesn't matter if the pay is high, since they are willing to stay, that's great."

For a popular TV series or program, it would be best if the sequel could retain the original cast.

The fact that they were able to stay shows that this cooperation between them must have been indeed pleasant, and in fact it also brought huge benefits to them.

Although they were already famous before, except for Chen Yixun, the commercial value of the other three was not very high.

Through this program, the popularity of the four mentors has greatly increased. Not only have they gained many new fans, but they have also awakened many old fans.

Even Chen Yixun, who was very popular at the time, was reluctant to give up this popularity.

(End of this chapter)