Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 309 Fortune Ranking

In order to demonstrate the company's importance to the Mainichi Shimbun, Masato Takeshita visited the Mainichi Shimbun the day after the acquisition and convened a meeting of all employees.

"Although I am a liberal arts student, I know little about the news media industry, so the company structure remains unchanged and everyone continues to do their respective jobs."

"The most we can do is provide financial support so that everyone can compete more calmly. This will help restore the glory of Japan's three major newspapers, and even the No. 1 newspaper."

The young man's voice was so powerful that he immediately won applause from all the employees at the headquarters. Even those who were not at the headquarters applauded at the TV.

The Daily News has only been in decline for a dozen years, and most of its employees still have ambition and are eager to restore its former glory.

If it were the 21st century, decline would have been inevitable and people would probably just respond perfunctorily.

However, after applauding, important media leaders such as the president and chief editor of the Mainichi Shimbun relaxed a little and complained silently in their hearts about the company's new boss.

"Without media talent, how could they help Asahi Shimbun and Waseda University create a world university ranking that is influential worldwide?"

Because Xinghai Group did not decide to acquire the Mainichi Shimbun at the beginning, but instead focused its main efforts on the Asahi Shimbun.

Therefore, when Masato Takeshita discussed the benefits of creating university rankings with the president of Waseda University, they finally decided to hand the matter over to Asahi Shimbun.

The effect is very obvious, especially at this time when Japanese college students' enthusiasm for postgraduate entrance examinations is unprecedentedly high, it can be said that it has attracted the attention of the whole nation.

Asahi Shimbun also took the opportunity to sell millions more copies of newspapers, gaining both fame and fortune.

In addition, China and South Korea across the sea are also paying close attention. European and American countries are a little worse, as they have always been biased against their Asian media counterparts.

Give it to peach and give it to Li.

In response to everyone's applause, Masato Takeshita stood up and bowed.

"Thank you, thank you for the applause. It seems that everyone is here to take first place."

"Of course, to get first place, the company must be united. So I brought a gift to the company to enhance internal unity. I hope everyone likes it."

Afterwards, employees at the headquarters received the newly issued paper documents, while employees in front of the TV saw the electronic version.

"Hey, it's actually the document for Mitsui Bank to transfer TBS TV's shares?"

"Wow, that's great. Finally, I don't have to worry about disputes with the TV station anymore."

"Great, now it's stable."

The knowledgeable people at the Mainichi Shimbun were all worried about Mitsui Bank's control of TBS TV shares.

After all, Mitsui Bank has a conservative stance and prefers Fuji Sankei Group and Yomiuri Shimbun Group.

If something unexpected happens, TBS will definitely repeat the internal strife of the 1960s and 1970s.

Masato Takeshita was very satisfied with the reactions of the employees who attended the meeting. He said cheerfully: "It seems that everyone likes this gift very much."

Several senior leaders looked at each other and responded at the same time.

“Hey, we love it.”

Then more employees followed suit and said: "We love this gift, it's really great."

"Yeah, as long as everyone likes it."

The first three things a new official does upon taking office is to repurchase shares from Mitsui Bank. Although this is an important matter, it does not seem that important before the Mitsui Group takes action.

At the same time, stock buybacks do not enhance the strength of daily news, which always lacks a little flavor.

Masato Takeshita also knew this, so he was well prepared.

However, this piece of news is not suitable to be released at the general staff meeting. The young man plans to take out the information at the upcoming high-level meeting and give the Daily News a small Xinghai shock.

Soon, the conference ended.

Masato Takeshita and Rogers held a high-level meeting with the heads of the two major families, as well as the president and chief editor of the Mainichi Shimbun.

"Just now there were so many people around that we only talked about some general things. This information is our real gift to the Daily News."

After that, at the signal of Masato Takeshita, Rogers distributed the information he had just received in the morning to everyone.

"The Fortune 500 list of companies?"

Hearing someone's surprised sound, the young man immediately nodded in response.

"Yes, our gift is this list of the world's top 500 companies. I believe that with this list, the Daily News will attract a large number of users."

“Who doesn’t want wealth?”

The list of the world's top 500 companies was first created by Fortune magazine in the United States.

As soon as it was released in 1995, it caused a sensation around the world.

The young man had already asked Xinghai Capital to collect relevant information about such a powerful weapon.

The advantage of doing this is that it is concealed and will not arouse suspicion from the outside world. After all, it is normal for financial companies to spend money to purchase various types of corporate information.

However, his original plan was to create an economics journal and become a hit.

Later, I thought it would be easier to spread if it was put in a newspaper, so I gave it to the Daily News as a gift.

Several leaders of the Daily News have excellent journalistic vision, and they were more and more surprised as they read more.

The list of the world's top 500 companies has an amazing news effect.

Perhaps the Mainichi Shimbun can use this list to break out of Japan and move towards Asia.

As for going global, the Daily News doesn't dare to dream of that yet.

Rogers was filled with emotion as he watched the Daily News leaders’ reactions.

"Sure enough, this list is of great significance to the newspapers. This is the first time I've seen everyone collectively lose their composure."

The Fortune 500 list is very important. It will establish the authority of Daily News in the field and spread its reputation around the world.

But his influence in Japan is probably not that great.

After all, most people have neither the opportunity to go abroad nor the opportunity to join such giants. So Masato Takeshita took out a second set of information, a list of Japan's top 500 companies.

This information is more suitable for dissemination in Japan.

"The world's top 500 companies may be too high-brow to be accepted by many, so we have prepared a ranking of Japan's top 500 companies."

"When the time comes, our newspapers will publish 10 global giants and 10 Japanese giants each time, and then compare them."

“It not only reflects the gap between the two more directly, but also helps the news to form a discussion trend in society.”

No matter what, it is more interesting to compare them.

"Also, every 10 days, we compile the list of companies into a book and publish it in the company's largest economic magazine."

“And after publishing all the lists, produce a special issue containing all the rankings.”

Masato Takeshita plans to print hundreds of thousands of copies of the special issue and give them away free of charge to important universities and institutions around the world.

If you want to increase your influence, spending money is always the fastest way.

"Hi!"

After the meeting, the former Daily News executives saw the two people off and immediately returned to the conference room.

"It's amazing that you can come up with such a wonderful idea."

"Yes, you are worthy of being called the Dragon of Japan. With this information, I am confident that I can increase newspaper sales by 100 million copies."

At this time, the president of the Mainichi Shimbun shook his finger.

"One million copies is not enough. Our goal is to be number one in Japan. We need at least two million copies to have a chance of achieving our goal." "Mobilize all the connections in the company to make sure more people see this list."

Faced with the president's orders, even the representatives of the two major families had no choice but to obey.

"Hi!"

Then he looked at Hasegawa Hiroshi, the new president of the subsidiary TBS TV station.

"Hasegawa-san, we need to promote this list on TV and make it a hot topic for me."

"Hey, please rest assured, President."

Hasegawa Hiroshi was being very careful because his predecessor had just been retired.

There is no way, mainly because the previous leader was so deceptive.

Before 1981, TBS had long been the dominant private television station in Japan.

Later, Fuji TV rose to prominence, and TBS gradually retreated to third place due to its arrogance.

In 1991, the new president did something ruthless, like gambling on the company's fortunes. He disbanded all prime-time programs and started a celebrity variety show instead.

The direct consequence was that he offended a large number of former partners.

For example, Toei produced an animation called "The Adventure of Dai".

This animation is adapted from Shueisha's popular serialized manga, and the producer is the famous Toei.

The ratings were very good, and Toei was also putting all its efforts into the production. Many peripheral products had even started to be produced and sold.

As a result, TBS's action directly destroyed everything.

How can everyone not be angry when a profitable project becomes unprofitable or even loses money due to the TV station’s rude and irresponsible behavior?
The key is that the audience doesn't buy it either.

The TV station's ratings declined instead of improving, becoming the fourth-largest TV station, just above Tokyo TV. TBS was then mocked by the public as "the sound of a crane."

This is a Japanese proverb that means a person in authority acts arbitrarily without regard to the opinions of others.

This factor influenced Masato Takeshita's smooth acquisition of Mainichi Shimbun and his repurchase of TV station shares from Mitsui Bank.

TBS TV station has offended too many people, even its client Dentsu, and it will take a long time to smooth things over.

In addition to TV towers and own newspapers, periodicals and magazines should also be arranged.

For example, the famous Bunshun magazine was hinted that the Mainichi Shimbun will have bigger moves next.

It can be said that everything is for the purpose of increasing the heat.

Soon, with the intensive planning of all the staff of the Mainichi Shimbun, 500 world-class giants ranked from 491 to 10, as well as 10 Japanese giant companies, were printed in the most conspicuous place in the newspaper as front-page headlines.

In order to attract more users, it also gave it a very explosive title - "The World's Top 500 Companies VS Japan's Top 500 Companies".

Minaminogawa is an ordinary R&D staff member of Xinghai Electronics. When he saw his colleague reading the newspaper with great interest, he couldn't help asking.

"So serious, is today's newspaper good?"

Without even looking up, Araki replied perfunctorily, "Yeah, it's very interesting. The Mainichi Shimbun has created a ranking of world and Japanese companies."

“Oh, corporate rankings?”

Minaminogawa became interested and also found a copy of the Mainichi Shimbun morning paper in the office.

"This company is only ranked 490th. I thought it was a very famous company."

"Oh, so it's about calculating assets, not market value."

Fortune's Global 500 companies are primarily calculated based on annual sales, so most of the companies on the list are manufacturing companies.

For example, companies like Sharp in the past were about to go bankrupt in the 21st century, but they were still able to become Fortune 500 companies.

Many Internet companies make a lot of money, but it is difficult for them to make the list.

As for the list based mainly on market capitalization, it was created by Fortune's competitor, Forbes magazine, which likes to imitate Fortune magazine and make micro-innovations.

“It’s a really good list, which will help college students find jobs.”

Not only Xinghai Electronics, but every individual and company that subscribes to daily news is attracted by this list.

Many people who read other people's newspapers decided to order one.

The only regret is that the list of companies is too small. There are only 20 companies in total, which is not satisfying at all.

"Your method is really powerful, and every move is a killer move."

Watanabe Tsuneo, president of the Yomiuri Shimbun, who is known as Japan's top editor-in-chief, has been paying close attention to the actions of the Mainichi Shimbun recently.

He looked at today's newspaper and knew that this was a ruthless move by the Mainichi Shimbun against the Sankei Shimbun of Japan.

I believe that from now on, the daily news will publish a large amount of economic news, continuing to suppress the opponent who is most likely to surpass itself.

Of course, he also knew that the Nikkei Group was just a subsidiary, and the main targets of the Mainichi Shimbun were still Asahi and Yomiuri.

But even if he knew, he couldn't stop the daily news from retelling it.

Because even he himself is very curious about this list and wants to know which companies will be on the list next.

However, he still had to take some measures, so he immediately gave orders to the editor to also create a corporate ranking list.

The daily news goes from back to front, so we'll go from front to back.

As for the lack of time and possibly inaccurate data, those are all for the companies that follow.

The world's top companies have so much exposure that it is easy to complete the ranking.

The Daily News naturally knew this, so it adjusted the section the next day.

Not only is there a list at the end, but the top 10 companies are also printed in the newspaper. Walking in the footsteps of others will leave them with nowhere to go.

"It's a pity, but it's good to be able to have some impact."

Watanabe Tsuneo looked at the new issue of the Mainichi Shimbun and frowned slightly.

Competitors use various tactics, and Daily News keeps dissecting them.

But what people are more concerned about is newspaper sales.

"President, today's newspaper sales have increased by another 42 copies."

"It's great, this is the beginning of our company's recovery."

Newspaper sales on the first day did not increase much, only about 10 more copies than usual.

Now that the topic has become popular, more users will choose to order. I believe that in the next few days, the daily news will be in a state of skyrocketing sales.

He was right. The sales of the Daily News soon exceeded 550 million copies and became a nationwide discussion trend.

Even celebrities in the entertainment industry, most of whom are uneducated, would follow suit and mention this list.

Although there is still a gap of 3 million copies to Asahi and 4 million copies to Yomiuri, it is not so hopeless anymore.

Of course, one must be able to conquer the country and defend it.

The short-term surge in daily news is mainly due to the power of the Fortune 500 list.

If we want to maintain this hard-earned market share, we need more interesting news and similar sensational events.

It is always better to rely on yourself than on others. Next, Daily News needs to work hard on its own.

(End of this chapter)