Chapter 318 Chicken Talking to Duck
Since Yahoo set off a wave of the Internet, redefining "operating income is the only criterion for measuring the quality of a company" and telling the world's users that whoever wins the world, there is no one who does not want to do the Internet.
At that time, every corner of the streets and alleys was filled with a series of emerging terms such as "website", "user" and "visit volume". , they can get tens of millions of start-up capital from investors, and what they need to do is to burn the money in the shortest possible time.
If considerable traffic is harvested during this process, then A round, B round, C round or even going public would no longer be a dream. People at that time would not care whether the company was profitable or not, because Yahoo, their role model, also became bigger , just accepted the ad.
The savage growth environment has given birth to countless Internet companies, and created countless millionaires, tens of millions, and even billionaires. The lucky ones in the eyes of ordinary people are nothing but wild grown-ups to capital. Chinese chives.
Compared with capital, a self-made guy is simply synonymous with nameless and powerless.
Are you doing well?
Then I buy you, isn't it over?
In this way, Disney took the lead, set an example, acquired Soxin and Dawei, and ignored the world’s number one search engine, copying portals mechanically. As a result, the company was scrapped within two years;
Such a situation reminded the people who came later, so Time Warner, who felt that plagiarism was stupid, directly acquired the Internet service provider America Online; Vivendi, which owns Universal, swallowed the Internet satellite operator in North America; Paramount's Viacom even ate the supplier of communication optical cables used to transmit signals.
It is true that the Internet is a channel, but isn’t signal transmission and provision also a channel?
Disney proved that we don’t understand the Internet, so we will kill the entire industry from the source!
Unfortunately, these three acquisitions also failed.
AOL was sucked dry by Time Warner, Vivendi suffered a huge loss in the second year after swallowing the satellite operator, and Viacom even suffered from indigestion due to different industries.
As a result, four of the Big Six in Hollywood who wanted to enter the Internet got rid of it.
The rest of Sony, because of its corporate status, can’t afford to make waves, but News Corp., which owns Fox...
Keith Murdoch, this old coin, is laughing and watching four silly beeps from beginning to end!
Because from the very beginning, he never thought of becoming a portal like Disney, and he didn’t want to strangle the source like Time Warner, Vivendi, and Viacom. Instead, he focused on being ignored by almost all capital. But it can harvest the most users in the shortest time, obtain the largest traffic, and the Internet community that is the easiest to succeed!
"It's ING and Rotten Tomatoes!"
"If these two websites develop, they will be an effective tool to check and balance Roland Allen!"
The old man leaned back, the calmness on his face disappeared, replaced by a seriousness and earnestness towards the company's development.
"Yes, we only discovered the reason why Roland Allen and Disney teamed up after reviewing the directory report of the investment department!" Seeing that Boss had accepted their analysis, the content president of News Corp. said affirmatively. The tone continued: "Although Rotten Tomatoes was only established in August last year, in just one year, they have thrown off countless competitors and become the most popular communication center for movie fans in the world after IMDb."
"Although Rotten Tomatoes will never be able to shake the position of IMDb in people's hearts, because as an Internet movie database, the data collected by IMDb will never be able to catch up with Rotten Tomatoes. Those ancient materials are all recorded by Cole Needham holding a video recorder. The recorded ones, a lot of backups are even lost to Hollywood, but as a platform for fans to communicate, Rotten Tomatoes is a little less serious than IMDb, and a little more entertaining, and this is why we are optimistic about them."
"According to the analysis of our investment department, Rotten Tomatoes will be able to replace the fan communication sections of Yahoo, MSN, and IMDb within two years at most, becoming the world's largest fan communication center, and this momentum of development will encroach on the market share owned by each , although Roland Allen is crazily reducing Yahoo, and IMDb was also sold to Amazon by him, but he is still the second largest shareholder of Amazon. Amazon's current video discs all rely on IMDb links to drive sales. Not only that, Roland -Although the World of Warcraft film and television in Allen's hands has been turned into a copyright company by him, he has not shut it down, and has also increased the output of the project!"
"Under this situation, we took the initiative to contact Rotten Tomatoes and inject funds to help them develop. In fact, we are already declaring war on Roland Allen! Not to mention, we also contacted IGN at the same time..."
"Although IGN is also a new website, this year, "PCMagazine" has listed it as one of the top 100 websites. After more than three years of development, their influence on gamers is unparalleled, and Roland Allen Isn’t Blizzard Entertainment the biggest source of cash under its name? "Warcraft", "StarCraft", "Diablo", "GTA"..."
"Each series can bring hundreds of millions of revenue to the company!"
“The good word-of-mouth even makes gamers think that Blizzard Entertainment will definitely surpass EA and become the largest game company in America. However, under such circumstances, IGN is associated with us, which…”
"If I were Roland Allen, I wouldn't be able to bear it."
A well-founded analysis made Old Coin nod silently.
As a guy who has inherited the family business since he was 21 years old and entered the media industry, he certainly understands what IGN and Rotten Tomatoes really mean, the Internet community? Or is it the epitome of the information age? Or is it the user gathering place that people often say? These are the characteristics of the website, but not the root of the website!
For the media guys, IGN and Rotten Tomatoes are tools to fool the public in the Internet age!
In the early days of development, the public can naturally speak freely on it, but after killing all competitors, the manipulation of capital appeared - just like "Captain Marvel", because there were too many bad reviews, so Disney let Rotten Tomatoes change The scoring rules were dropped; just like "The Last of Us 2", because there were too many bad reviews, Sony asked IGN to modify the number of valid ratings in the same time period. This kind of Internet community is a tool for selling goods to capital, but now this tool can have a great impact on Roland Allen's industry!
Because the right to dominate positive and negative reviews is not in the hands of Roland Allen, but in the arms of News Corporation.
If News Corp. wants to mess with Roland Allen, just smear it.
Use the power of public opinion to destroy the cash flow of the two companies!
"So, Roland Allen feels threatened."
Old Coin nodded his head and said—
"Over the years, Roland Allen has shown us time and time again his control over the Internet, whether it's the promotion of Spider-Man, the hype of Titanic or the hype after the Oscars. Discussion control, as long as it is within his reach, it is all overwhelmingly praised, making those opponents wonder whether it is himself or the whole world that is wrong. However, while paying close attention to the film and television community, he did not rush To develop the game community, or in other words, he may have wanted to support a game community in the same way that Yahoo supported IMDb at the beginning, but Microsoft's intervention made him terminate this plan. However, no matter what the reason is, we invested in IGN first, It is an indisputable fact.”
"So, this time, Roland Allen is helping Disney cut off our animation film business on the surface, but secretly, he wants to spy on our attitude towards him. If we show that we don't care about Blue Sky Studios, he will Might think we're scared of him and try to be soft on IGN and Rotten Tomatoes, but if we get tough and buy Blue Sky Studios before the Frozen Planet deal is done, he might think we're targeting He then worked out a series of countermeasures, whether it is holding Microsoft to rebuild a game community to fight against IGN, or using the number of users already owned by IMDb to separate the discussion board from the database and benchmark Rotten Tomatoes. It is possible..."
"Yes, Boss, this is the result of our evaluation."
After hearing the boss's concluding remarks, the Content President of News Corporation lowered his head again.
Although all the analysis is done by them, the conclusion of the wise man can only be done by the boss.
Such a situation also made the old coin staring at him chuckle.
"If that's the case, it all makes sense."
"The acquisition of Blue Sky Studios was a pit dug for us by Disney and Roland Allen. They just wanted to see how we jumped."
"So, do you guys have a solution?"
Hearing these words, the content president with drooping eyes shook his head regretfully, "Sorry, Boss, we didn't think of any solution. Roland Allen has too many allies and it's too difficult to deal with."
"Haha~" Such words made the old coin laugh.
Pursing his lips, he took out a cigar from the drawer, cut it skillfully, and lit it with a match.
Continuously rotating the cigar to ensure that every place would be licked in place by the flames, staring at the jumping flames, he said again: "You can guess Roland's thoughts so accurately, how could you not think of a solution?"
"It's just that you have thought of it and dare not say it."
"The easiest way to get around this is to not respond to his acquisition of Blue Sky Studios and keep dragging things out because of his deals with Ronald Perelman and Carl Icahn. It ends before Blue Sky Studios terminates the contract with us, and at that time, Roland Allen will naturally lose two solid allies."
"Bill Gates is a businessman. When Roland Allen sold all Yahoo shares, the relationship between them will not be as close as it is now, and Ronald Perelman and Carl I. Kan is even more open-minded. They want to promote Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo, so they will get along well with Roland Allen. better friends."
"At the same time, don't worry about Gilead. At that time next year, the governor of Texas will be running for election. They will not interfere with any business activities during the election period, so as not to catch their competitors. In this case, Roland’s staunch ally is actually only Berkshire Hathaway, which was originally a shareholder of Disney.”
"Delaying time is very beneficial to us, and if we procrastinate, we may not have to respond in this regard."
"What do you think?"
When Old Coin was holding a cigar in his mouth and looking at his subordinates with a half-smile, the words of praise came out instantly—
"Chairman, this method is really wonderful!"
"Why didn't we expect that Roland Allen's allies would decrease by themselves as long as we delay?"
"Without Bill Gates and others, the threat of Roland Allen will be drastically reduced. At that time, we will not have to prove anything to him, because he is not worthy of his asset-light strength!"
The evaluation like holding a stinky foot made the smile on the old coin's face even bigger. After the subordinate waved his right hand and finished talking excitedly, he said slowly: "But the problem is, if you drag it, the governor of Texas Have you ascended to the position of Grand Commander?"
"No matter what the reason for Roland's filming of "Black Hawk Down", it was a disaster for us."
"So this method is still flawed, what do you think?"
The smile of the content president of News Corporation froze instantly, and he struggled to put down his right hand, showing embarrassment.
From the surface, he looks like an ignorant waste, but in fact, while he is at a loss, his eyes are full of helplessness, because they have thought about delaying time, but it doesn't work.
From the moment Fox found out that Roland Allen was going to acquire Blue Sky Studios, everyone from top to bottom analyzed his motives and pondered how to deal with it. After much deliberation, they all felt that they could only compromise.
Because News Corporation, like Sony, has the wrong composition and is a foreign-funded enterprise!
The best way to deal with foreign-funded enterprises is to use their long arms to govern the broken basket and decapitate them!
However, most of the time, they are not afraid of such things.
Because not everyone can play long-arm jurisdiction, Time Warner tried to cheat them back then, but failed.
But Roland Allen is different, you never know what this guy is thinking!
Since he dared to force "Black Hawk Down" to Sony today, he might get an even worse project to Fox tomorrow, and by then, News Corp. and Sony would be nothing but fruitless , You and I are under the tree...
Sony: "What did we do?"
News Corporation: "I don't know!"
Sony: "What's the situation now?"
News Corp.: "The weak do not deserve to live..."
The question is, if you don’t procrastinate, just confess?
This is even more impossible!
Business struggles must not admit defeat, absolutely not!
"IGN and Rotten Tomatoes are impossible for us to let go."
Thinking again and again, the old coin after smoking a cigar finally made up his mind, "As for Blue Sky Studio..."
"Reassessing the influence of animated films on Fox!"
"If animated movies are not important to Fox, we can give up Blue Sky Studios."
"But they can't give up directly, but continue to drag, let them acquire Blue Sky after "Frozen Planet"."
“We need to send him an unexpected signal that we just want to grow in the Internet space.”
“As for IGN and Rotten Tomatoes, that was an accident.”
"After receiving the message, as long as he uses gentle means to compete with us, we have already won."
"Because the longer it takes, the better for us. I need time to convince the board of directors to move the company from Australia! When News Corp. becomes an American company, we don't have to worry about these guys trying to grab our company. Already!"
The firm words let the content president breathe a sigh of relief.
If the Boss rationally refuses to confront the opponent, it means that the company has a chance to survive.
As for Blue Sky Studios?
They have evaluated this company many times and did not see much potential.
In this case, if you lose it, you lose it.
And if Roland Allen were to know News Corp.'s speculation and plans, he would definitely say with a beeping face—
"I'm really not on the fifth floor! I'm just a stinky brother who is doing things on the first floor!"
What IGN what Rotten Tomatoes?
After Roland won the Oscar, he went into the sky!
All he thinks about now is left Apple, right Google, ex-Amazon, post-Gilead, and then ask God to borrow ten years, and then he can hit whoever he wants! Who cares about these sites?
News Corporation is purely scaring itself!
However, while Keith Murdoch was wondering, Roland Allen actually collected their information.
Like what became the largest newspaper group in the UK in 1981, immigrated to America in 1985, and reached out to the TV industry... Because of the mistakes he made due to his own infatuation, this time he read all the familiar materials.
After he read the materials of the News Corporation, his restless heart also calmed down.
Is it because News Corporation has a problem?
Yes or no.
Since News Corporation entered America, they have completed nearly a hundred acquisitions—
Acquired six TV stations and Twentieth Century Fox in the mid-1980s, laying the foundation for the TV group;
Purchased the exclusive rights to broadcast NEL games in 1994, officially entered the TV field, and opened an entertainment TV network;
Fox News Channel was established in 1996 to challenge CNN, and in the same year, Sports Network was established to challenge Disney's ESPN;
In 1997, it spent another 4.7 billion to acquire New World Radio and Family Channel;
In 1998, Harper-Collins Publishing Company was swallowed up. Twenty-two major cities in the United States have radio stations.
In addition, in 1993 they also bought STARTV in Asia, allowing Star TV to further cover Asia;
Established the British digital TV platform in 1998, broadcasting more than 200 satellite channels;
Interactive sports was launched in 1999. At the end of this year, Sky Broadcasting Corporation will enter Germany...
This series of acquisitions made News Corporation rapidly expand, and also caused Keith Murdoch's shares to fall off a cliff.
Because many acquisitions are share swaps.
Of course, the funds to complete the above acquisitions are the focus of Roland's discovery, because—
"When they acquired British SkyTV, they owed nearly 5 billion in financial debt?"
Roland looked at Kate in disbelief, but it was Kate who answered him with blank eyes, "The information is absolutely accurate."
"This is illogical. Even if SkyTV is purchased in all cash, it will cost less than 5 billion!" Roland looked puzzled.
In such a situation, Kate also sighed, and said helplessly: "My news cannot be wrong."
"Moreover, the golden decade of News Corporation's development in the UK relied on Mrs. Thatcher."
"After Mrs Thatcher stepped down, she was replaced by John Major of the Conservative Party."
"So even if the acquisition is weird, you don't need to be surprised."
"because…"
"Rules are meant to be broken." Before Kate could finish speaking, Roland took it up.
"Hmm~" Kate nodded, expressing her approval.
If you want to collect all the information of News Corporation, then using state machinery is naturally the best way, and it is difficult for Roland to find a way in America, but he can find out clearly about News Corporation's second mine in the United Kingdom.
Please ask Kate to call her natal family, those guys who are mixed in the British aristocratic circle can check the matter out in minutes.
Although none of this information is classified, and the investigation methods are not concealed, it is easy to be known by News Corporation.
But for Roland, this is the best result.
Because his ultimate goal is to acquire Blue Sky Studios, as long as News Corporation is willing to sit down and talk, he can even accept the bidding method of a bear hug, and to check their background, he just hopes that they can sit down and talk...
The message Roland wants to convey is—
‘We all know about your unruly behavior in the UK. '
‘As a non-American company, these behaviors have been suspected of endangering public information security. '
‘As a company that settles in US dollars, you know the consequences of doing so. '
‘No one should try to magnify their moves. '
However, Roland just wanted to calm News Corporation down and not buy Blue Sky Studios first, but in the eyes of News Corporation, this particular thing is already a warning!
While making an offer to Blue Sky Studios, they also checked News Corporation's background in the UK?
If this is not dissatisfaction with the means of their cultivation of restraint, what else is it?
If before, Keith Murdoch only had 80% confidence in the analysis of his subordinates, then now, he has affirmed that Roland's offer to Blue Sky Studio has ulterior motives!
And in this case, is Fox's animation business still very important?
It's ready to be cut anyway, so don't do it!
So, the matter of re-evaluating the importance of the animation business to Fox was directly thrown aside by them.
Using the word dragging formula, pretending not to know about it.
No way, this is the pain of foreign companies.
America’s local companies can hit you if they want to, without any reason.
Although America does not want a monopoly to appear, it just does not want a monopoly company to appear in the country. For them, if their company can monopolize the global market, that would be a great thing!
After all, the most correct way to develop is to grab your opponent and support yourself!
Not only suppressed the enemy, but also strengthened oneself.
As for hooligans?
Capital comes into the world, from head to toe, dripping blood and filth from every pore.
Note: ①IGN and Rotten Tomatoes were the targets of News Corporation from the very beginning. Although these two companies were acquired by News Corporation in 2004, News Corporation invested in Rotten Tomatoes’ angel round investment before that. In addition, News Corp.'s Internet information is still done together with Nokia, which is Nokia in the 2G and 3G era. ②It is no secret that the development of News Corporation in the UK relied on the power of Margaret Thatcher. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of The Sun, in 2004, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) published a record The post dissed Murdoch's development process, and among them, it was written about News Corporation's return to Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. Thatcher's return to News Corporation. The September 14, 2004 issue is still available on the BBC official website. And the close connection with the British Conservative Party is also the reason for Time Warner to attack and annihilate them.
(end of this chapter)