A century-old wealthy family that rose from Shanghai

Chapter 132 The Oriental Daily is founded

Oriental Daily started publishing advertisements a week before its official launch.

First, they placed an advertisement in their own newspaper, the Commercial Daily: "The Oriental Daily will be launched on the 21st, so stay tuned. It will allow you to stay informed about world affairs without leaving home."

Secondly, Oriental Daily also printed a lot of posters and posted them in some places for widespread publicity.

For a time, it attracted the attention of colleagues in the newspaper industry.

Shi Liangcai of Shenbao couldn't help laughing when he saw this: "A new newspaper dares to say 'Let people know what's happening in the world without leaving home'. Then what kind of newspaper is Shenbao?"

At this time, the highest sales volume of Shenbao had reached 14 copies (daily), and the annual profit was to yuan (newspapers have low profits).

It can be said that "Shen Bao" is now the king of China's newspaper industry, and Shi Liangcai is even a tycoon in the newspaper industry. Even the Nationalist government ignores him.

Chen Jinghan, editor-in-chief of Shenbao, responded, "Mr. Shi, the Oriental Daily seems to be aggressively recruiting journalists lately. It seems its owner is thinking of making a big move."

"Then we'll wait and see what kind of newspapers they are!"

Chen Jinghan nodded, then complained, "Mr. Shi, Editor-in-Chief Zhang is interfering too much in our editorial department right now, making our work very difficult! He even secretly set up a news agency with Wang Yingbin. Their motives are obvious!"

According to the rules, the administration of the editorial department was managed by the chief editor Chen Jinghan, but Zhang also exceeded his authority at times, so Chen was the first to express his dissatisfaction; afterwards, Chen Jinghan complained that Zhang Zhuping had secretly established a telecommunications agency, further stabbing him in the back.

Upon hearing this, Shi Liangcai immediately asked angrily, "Is that really the case?"

Although he was dissatisfied with Zhang's arbitrary behavior, he was concerned about the efforts Zhang had put into the newspaper over the years and could not bear to do something that would "kill the dog after the rabbit dies."

But now, Zhang Zhuping has secretly established a news agency. Isn’t that selling the resources of Shen Bao?

How could he not be angry!
Chen Jinghan nodded and said, "That's pretty close. Zhang and Wang collaborated with the editors of Shenbao and Shishi Xinbao to compile their content into a newsletter and send it to newspapers nationwide. This was originally beneficial to the company. But now that the news agency is in their hands, they've secretly established a news agency, which is damaging to the interests of Shenbao."

The money from the first news agency went to Shi Liangcai of Shen Bao; the money from the second news agency went to Zhang Zhuping and Wang Yingbin.

The "Current Affairs News" was bought by Zhang Zhuping for 60,000 yuan and handed over to Wang Yingbin for management. It became Zhang Zhuping's career.

In other words, Zhang Zhuping is no longer willing to be under Shi Liangcai. He already owns his own newspaper and telecommunications agency and is no longer a mere worker.

Shi Liangcai said: "I understand, I will take care of it!"

After Chen Jinghan left, Shi Liangcai thought about it and realized that he still wanted to keep Zhang Zhuping from the bottom of his heart. So even though Zhang Zhuping was so excessive at the moment, he only decided to suspend Wang Yingbin from his position, that is, he would not hold a position in Shenbao.

By doing so, Shi Liangcai hoped that Zhang Zhuping would wake up.

In this era, newspapers were generally delivered to surrounding cities, apart from the city itself. Even in Shanghai, for example, some places outside the concessions required postal delivery.

The postal service is controlled by the government.

This is also why, after repeatedly offending the Commander-in-Chief, Shenbao's editor-in-chief, Shi Liangcai, later received a resounding six-character directive: "Shenbao prohibited from mailing." Shenbao was, for a time, restricted to the concessions and surrounding areas. Ultimately, Shi Liangcai agreed to some of the Commander-in-Chief's demands—including a change in Shenbao's anti-government stance and the immediate dismissal of key journalists like Huang Yanpei and Tao Xingzhi. The only condition he refused to agree to was a final one: that the KMT Propaganda Department send personnel to the newspaper office for guidance.

During this period, the Shenbao and the Commander-in-Chief were in a contest, and both sides made concessions. The Shenbao was allowed to be mailed again after being banned for 35 days.

The Oriental Daily News would naturally not do such a thing. After all, Chen Guangliang's original intention of running a newspaper was to stay out of politics and to be a neutral newspaper.

It may even be that Chen Guangliang enrolled in the class just to improve his social status. If necessary, he could even give up the position of general manager, of course, only after his goal was achieved.

"Manager Chen, this is tomorrow's inaugural issue of Oriental Daily. The first copy has been printed!" Zhang Jinglu rushed to the general manager's office.

Chen Guangliang immediately took the newspaper and began to read it with a little excitement.

To be honest, even the annual profits of Shenbao and Xinwenbao were no more than 200,000 yuan. Chen Guangliang did not care about such a small amount of profit, after all, it still involved some risks.

But he was obsessed with running a newspaper, perhaps because he was not from a wealthy family, but was just a peasant, which made him eager to do something to prove himself and improve his social status.

On the other hand, there are more than a thousand newspapers in the country today (many of which are local newspapers), which is like the era of self-media in the future; Chen Guangliang also hopes to stand out from these newspapers with his own ideas.

On the other hand, Chen Guangliang will eventually need some "mouthpiece" of his own, mainly for commercial needs.

Due to various reasons, Chen Guangliang has always had a special fondness for publishing newspapers.

Looking at the Oriental Daily in his hand, Chen Guangliang was very satisfied.

It does not have as many pages as Shen Bao, but in terms of content, it is already 70% to 80% of Shen Bao. After all, the news of Oriental Daily focuses on "digest articles", which are short and concise and cover a wide range of topics.

"Hurry up and print! From now on, our main publication will be the Oriental Daily. Don't get the priorities wrong!"

"clear"

The Business Daily is now just being distributed, mainly inviting some business people to write some articles and some business news.

It was a bit stressful for Oriental Newspapers to publish two newspapers in a short period of time.

Therefore, Chen Guangliang reminded everyone to focus on Oriental Daily.

"Wait, remember to publish a news item in the newspaper the day after tomorrow - the first issue of the Oriental Daily News is a huge hit, with 3 copies sold in its first day."

Zhang Jinglu didn't react for a moment, but then he realized that the boss was trying to flatter him.

Their 3 copies were given to newspaper vendors, bookstores, etc. Even the boss of the rickshaw dealership received 2000 copies, saying that they were for sale to rickshaw drivers.

So this 3 servings contains a lot of water!
Of course, Zhang Jinglu understood that this was a marketing ploy.
"Well, the market will be shocked then."

"Well, that's news in itself."

Zhang Jinglu immediately rushed out to make arrangements, his movements much more effortless than before. This time, he had a high chance of success. January 1st, Monday.

In the early morning, the distribution department of Oriental Newspaper was already busy. Although some of the news had been mailed yesterday afternoon (to cities surrounding Shanghai), the news in Shanghai needed to be distributed to various newspaper vendors in the early morning.

Since the Oriental Daily was given free of charge to "news vendors" in the first ten days, in order to prevent every news vendor from getting it, the Oriental Newspaper Company distributed the copies, so as to ensure that it could be rolled out throughout the Shanghai market.

"Brother Qin, can you give me a hundred more copies?"

A newspaper vendor said to a person from the distribution department of Oriental Newspaper.

It was given to them for free, and they could make a profit of 0.025 yuan if they sold it.

And by selling a copy of "Shen Bao", they only made a profit of 0.01 yuan, which was more than twice the profit.

"Xiao Feng, this is the number set by the higher-ups. To ensure we can roll out the entire Shanghai market, we'll give each of you 100 points. Some areas will even only have 50 points."

"Your new boss is a bit stingy!"

"Stingy? Do you know how many tickets we have to give out every day? 50,000! Besides Shanghai, there's also Suzhou and Hangzhou. I won't say any more. I have to hurry and distribute them."

Watching Brother Qin's receding figure, newspaper vendor Xiao Feng whispered, "My goodness, this guy is crazy! Giving away 50,000 copies, wouldn't it cost a lot of money in a day?"

Then he smiled and shouted, "Newspapers for sale! Newspapers for sale! The new Oriental Daily News lets you stay up-to-date on world affairs without leaving your home. Ruan Lingyu's husband turned out to be a wealthy second-generation rich man who relied on Ruan Lingyu's acting career for a living."

Wang Chunhua, a reporter from the Oriental Newspaper, had been following Ruan Lingyu for some time and had even taken photos of them living together, so this news was accompanied by photos.

"Boss, what do you mean Ruan Lingyu has a husband?"

"The Oriental Daily News has something to say"

"Then give me one."

In order to make the Oriental Daily a hit, Chen Guangliang did a lot of work. Ruan Lingyu's gossip was just one of them, "Swordsman of Shu Mountain" was another, and "Horse and Dog Classics" was another. Of course, the others were mainly news from many "digests", which were very comprehensive and covered a wide range of aspects.

Chen Guangliang even published a "business article" under a pseudonym, specifically a news story about Shanghai real estate. The article analyzed various aspects and concluded that the Shanghai real estate and land market would become even hotter this year. Another motivation for publishing this article was Chen Guangliang's desire to continue to speculate on land and real estate, despite his limited influence.

the other side.

Today, the rickshaw pullers working the day shift at the Changjiang Carriage Company were given four or five copies of the Oriental Daily News, which they will be promoting through a grid-like system. If they sell all of them, they'll earn a dime, a windfall.

evening.

Chen Guangliang, Hong Yanbin, Huang Chunsun, Zhang Jinglu and other management members are all waiting for feedback from the marketing department.

Thirty thousand copies have been distributed, but have the vendors sold all the newspapers?

Therefore, everyone is very concerned about the effect.

"Manager Chen, through our survey feedback from 30 vendors, concluded that all our newspapers have been sold out, with not a single one wasted. In fact, since this afternoon, some vendors have been asking our marketing and circulation departments if they can get more newspapers."

There were thirty vendors spread across various areas of Shanghai. Oriental Newspaper conducted an on-site investigation through the marketing department and then reported the situation to the headquarters via a public telephone.

Chen Guangliang and others smiled. This result meant that the sales volume of their Oriental Daily was actually 30000 copies, because the price paid to the newspaper vendors was the market price.

"Editor Zhang, has tomorrow's newspaper sales news been printed yet?"

"Yes, we printed the Oriental Daily News, which was a success on its first day of publication, with sales exceeding 50,000 copies."

Everyone looked at Chen Guangliang with admiration. He had only given away 30,000 copies, but he insisted that the sales volume had exceeded 50,000 copies.

If you think about it carefully, this is a very good business strategy - people tend to follow the herd mentality. After hearing that the Oriental Daily is so good, why wouldn't they buy a copy to try it out?
Huang Chunsun then said, "Starting tomorrow, we can accept advertisements for ten days from now. I believe the advertising fees will allow us to make a small profit!"

"Well, we'll recruit investors based on a stable sales volume of 30,000 copies."

"Yes, this will avoid disputes."

I dare not say how much money I can make from running a newspaper.

Even if you apply for 8 pieces of paper and sell 14 copies a day, you will only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year.

If Oriental Daily News sells 4 copies a day with only four pages, it probably still doesn't make a profit.

First of all, the cost of four sheets of paper is 0.4 cents, but if they are wholesaled to newspaper vendors, the price is only 0.16 cents (0.25*0.65); this means that for every copy of the Oriental Daily News printed, the Oriental Newspaper Company loses 0.24 cents, and if 720 copies are printed, the loss is yuan.

And this 720 yuan had to be earned from advertising fees. The advertising fee for a small advertisement was more than 30 yuan a day (there were a lot of advertisements in newspapers in that era).

Of course, the retail price of Oriental Daily News is 0.25 cents, which is deliberately kept low; once sales stabilize, the price will increase to more than 0.3 cents.

Overall, we might not make a penny in the first half of the year!
But as long as sales go up, there are plenty of ways to make money.

"Okay, the Oriental Daily had a great first day. Let's have dinner together later. It's my treat."

"Ha ha"

Several shareholders were all smiling happily!

From the current perspective, Oriental Daily has achieved half of its success!

(End of this chapter)