Chapter 391： Promising cable TV

Colorado is next to California, and the flight time from Los Angeles to Denver is just three hours.

After landing, Tang En and his party went directly to the headquarters of the sta TV network.

Professional cable TV was originally a very small field. Because of the large scale of content and high subscription fees, it was originally an exclusive space for many adult channels. (Note)

Later, hbo and sho entered the field, and quickly established a force, giving this market new vitality.

In the early 1990s, cable tycoon John Malone saw the potential of the professional cable TV market, and began to get involved in this industry, asking his two men, Tony Grammer and Martin Tangwen, to build a company comparable to hbo and sho. Professional cable network.

Therefore, the sta TV network came into being.

But John Malone is too smart, he almost has a vision beyond the times.

With the advent of the Internet tide, John Malone realized the crisis of the TV industry. The traditional TV industry will definitely be impacted by the Internet, and he began to sell the assets of his companies frantically.

sta TV network, under this momentum, was taken into the bag by Dunn.

After completing the acquisition, Tang En did not immediately reorganize or adjust the TV station. It took a whole year to complete the personnel changes under the strategy of this year's Tang En Films gathering all resources and developing professional cable TV stations.

The two founders, Tony Grammer and Martin Tangwen, were taken down by Dunn without warning and replaced by Chris Albrecht, the content **** he dug from hbo.

Now, Chris Albrecht and his team of 17 people have been stationed on the sta TV network for almost two months. Dunn personally came over to check the results.

This is a very new office building, illustrating the short history of the sta television network.

Chris Albrecht led a group of senior executives of the company, dressed in formal attire, and greeted and waited at the door of the company from a distance.

Seeing such a scene, Dunn almost laughed.

Americans also know the scene very well!

With a smile on his face, Dunn shook hands with everyone. When he walked in front of Chris Albrecht, he couldn't help laughing and scolding: "Don't do this in the future, we are a company, and we look at performance, not bureaucracy. !"

Chris Albrecht said: "Only once! The main reason is to let you take a look at the mental outlook of the company's employees, and everyone is your fan. They all want to meet you and shake hands. I can't refuse."

Tang En looked around for a long time and nodded with satisfaction, "It seems that your work is good."

The two founders of the sta TV network were taken down, and then 6 people from the founding team followed and left, which will definitely cause a lot of shock within the company.

In less than two months, Chris Albrecht was able to complete the management transition of sta, reintegrate the staff and put them into work.

This performance alone is no small achievement.

What's more, after he joined the job, he reorganized and adjusted the content of starz TV station and TV station under the sta TV network. Following the model of hbo1 station and sister channel cinemax, the former broadcasts more well-made and exciting episodes and movies. The latter plays relatively low-end, but more violent content.

The new integration of such a clear content chain, combined with the hit drama "Under Six Feet", has allowed the installed users, subscribers, and cleaning users of the sta TV network to grow like a fly!

Now, the installed capacity of sta TV network has exceeded 38 million households, of which only 8 million have not used the trial rights.

In other words, there are already more than 30 million household users in the United States who have watched starz TV!

You must know that before May this year, the sta TV network was established for a full seven years, and it has served a total of 8 million household users.

This is an amazing achievement!

As for paid subscribers, although they still haven't been able to surpass the two old and powerful enemies of hbo and sho, the growth momentum is very impressive.

hbo has 7.5 million North American subscriptions and sho has 5.1 million paying users.

And sta... has broken through the 4 million mark!

More than 70% of subscribers have chosen a three-month subscription package of $23.99, 25% of users have subscribed to a six-month package of $45.99, and 5% of users have opted for a full-year $89.99 package.

So that in the past two months, the subscription revenue of sta TV network has exceeded 100 million US dollars!

This money is collected by the operator Comcast, and then deducts about 8% of the operating service fee, and then transfers it back to the sta TV network.

But this is not an instant transfer, usually speaking, it is settled every six months.

That is to say, the money is at Comcast's discretion in the second half of this year!

Putting it in the bank to eat interest is millions of dollars!

Such a great God of Wealth has shocked Comcast from top to bottom. This kid Tang En must develop!

Dunn has been worrying about whether Comcast and Viacom will operate secretly and squeeze the living space of the sta TV network, but this is good, this huge sum of money has arrived, and Comcast's President Brian Roberts personally called Dunn to express his congratulations.

Very simple, the starz TV station with only more than 4 million subscribers generates revenue of 100 million US dollars in two months, and the Nickelodeon channel with more than 88 million subscribers, the average two-month subscription revenue will not exceed 40 million US dollars!

Although the former is an accidental outbreak and the latter is an average income, such data results are enough to illustrate the gap between cheap basic cable TV stations and professional cable TV stations!

If the sta TV network can continue to develop according to this momentum, the future will be unlimited!

Chris Albrecht led Dunn and his entourage to walk through the various offices. Everyone was very enthusiastic about Dunn.

Tang En was very satisfied with the mental outlook of the employees, and talked with him while walking, "This Saturday, let everyone work overtime here, and no one will give any opinion?"

Chris Albrecht explained with a smile, "Well, the TV station has a special job. There will be no programs after vacation, so I will take shifts. Besides, tomorrow night will be the second to last season of the first season of "Six Feet Under" It is estimated that there will be an explosion in the ratings, and everyone has the enthusiasm for work.”

"Six Feet Under" has a total of 13 episodes. Starting from June 3, one episode will be broadcast at prime time every weekend night.

So far, 11 episodes have been played.

Tomorrow, August 12, the penultimate episode will be played.

"Oh?" Tang En's eyes lit up and his face looked expectant, "Will the ratings be further improved?"

"It's the number of viewers, not the ratings. We are a cable TV station. This data is of little reference." Chris Albrecht shook his head solemnly.

Dunn rolled his eyes, this Chris Albrecht really doesn't know much about it, no wonder he didn't get along well with his immediate boss during hbo, and he was a little angry, "Then you say it's meaningful. !"

Chris Albrecht sneered, "There will definitely be an increase in the number of viewers. We have created a growth curve. If nothing else happens, tomorrow night...the viewership will exceed 2 million."

The sta TV network has a total of more than 4 million subscribers, and half of them are waiting in front of the TV to watch "Six Feet Under", which is already a good achievement.

When hbo in later generations was at its peak, the popular drama "Westworld", the total viewership of each platform, averaged about 12 million per episode.

In such an era and such an environment, "Six Feet Under" has produced such ratings, which is already amazing enough.

After all, there is only one "Band of Brothers"!

"How long can subscribers exceed sho?"

Dunn's question is very tricky.

Chris Albrecht's answer was very cautious, "sta's future goal is to defeat hbo, and it has decades of development history. If you want to squeeze out the position of sho... I think we will have to wait for "Band of Brothers" after the broadcast, Leveraging the influence of this miniseries. As for hbo, I need three years!"

Tang En raised his brows and opened his eyes wide, "You didn't say that two months ago!"

Chris Albrecht frowned and said solemnly: "I did say at the time that hbo would be dismantled within a year. But after taking over sta, I discovered the hardware facilities, software conditions and hbo here. There are obvious gaps, and I need time to make unified rectification and replacement."

Dunn was silent for a while, and then laughed, "Chris, it seems that you don't have enough confidence in "Band of Brothers"! I spent 80 million US dollars to buy the North American copyright of this TV series, not to defeat sho It's that simple."

"It's hard to beat hbo with just one mini-series..."

Chris Albrecht shook his head and added: "Cable TV is a long-term market. If you want to hold the audience firmly in your hands a TV series is far from enough, it needs to be Continue to provide high-quality content. Otherwise, viewers may subscribe to "Band of Brothers" and give up the sta TV network in a few months."

Tang En nodded, "So, one "Band of Brothers" is far from enough, we have to produce more and better TV series, and use continuous attraction to bind the audience! Dunn Pictures has launched "Six Feet" this year. There will be two episodes of "Under 2" and "The Wire", and a comic adaptation of "The Punisher" will start filming in October. On your side, it needs to be synchronized. Didn't you bring the content team with you? There is no good project. ?"

"There is a project that is being conceived."

"what?"

"A comedy about urban life, Sex and the City is about women. This is a story of two male protagonists who came to Hollywood to fight and want to be stars."

Tang En squinted his eyes slightly, and then he thought accurately, this is "Star Companion" broadcast by hbo in 2004.

"Is the copyright okay?"

"No, this is just an idea at the moment. When we were in hbo, we didn't leave any paper documents, we just communicated verbally."

"Um."

Tang En squinted his eyes, and he thought about it.

Chris Albrecht is a comedian, and he's best at comedy. Although I also strongly voted for billion-dollar productions such as "Roma" and "Spartacus", it will be many years later.

He jumped to the sta TV network. According to normal thinking logic, he would definitely launch a big enough blockbuster production to show his ability, but he was only thinking of a comedy film, and he was obviously not confident enough.

Tang En took a deep breath, it seems that the heavy responsibility of the content still has to be carried by himself!

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(Sanqi Chinese)