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Chapter 464 Desperate Housewives (Revised)

After washing up her makeup and walking out of the bathroom, Kris Jenner saw that Simon had returned to the round table on the terrace, and she felt a little jealous, you don't have to bother with anything.

Of course, I dare not show it on my face.

In the courtyard, the music of the party and the sound of talking and laughing are still there.

No one seemed to notice what had happened in the past half hour.

After tidying up the hem of the red low-cut dress again, the woman walked over carefully, and sat down beside him after getting permission from the man's eyes.

After observing the angle just now, she was sitting at the farthest position from the fence, so she would not be seen by people downstairs.

Although she doesn't mind, and even wants to be seen, the smart woman obviously knows what can and can't be done.

"The crew arranged an interactive crossover episode of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and "The Real Housewives of New York", which was filmed here in recent days."

After explaining why she appeared here, and seeing the man just casually leaning on the back of the chair and looking downstairs quietly, not intending to chat with her, Kris Jenner shut her mouth tactfully.

Anyway, this 'tiger skin' is enough.

At least Jonathan Friedman must have known she was coming.

After only sitting for a short while, Kris Jenner heard the man ordering her to have a glass of wine brought up. Knowing that she was chasing him away, she obediently got up and left the terrace.

Because of meeting this woman, Simon just thought of the USA TV network.

After last year's merger, through the two series "Beverly Housewives" and "New York Housewives" launched by USA, USA's transformation into a female TV station has been very smooth.

However, these alone are not enough.

In the past year, two large-scale acquisitions and various other things have consumed most of Simon's energy. He does not have much time to take care of the development of the USA, even including the very fancy MCA record, which can only be handed over to A group of senior executives under the company are responsible.

The new year has just begun, and there are still a lot of things in a row.

Until now.

After several years of personal follow-up, Daenerys Entertainment's position in the film field has been very stable, and it is probably time to turn its energy to other businesses.

Cable TV has at least another 30 years to go, an area where Daenerys Entertainment is bound to expand.

In terms of music, although with the rise of the Internet, physical record sales will decline rapidly, but in the West, where the copyright protection system is very complete, the record industry will never disappear, nothing more than transformation.

The major record giants that survived several times of mergers and reorganizations in my memory, although always claiming that life is difficult, have always been making money.

In addition, the recording industry happened to be on the eve of the last boom of the 90s.

Michael Jackson, Madonna and other veteran big names still dominate the music scene. However, the 90s is the era of the rise of teenage pop music.

During this period, a large number of teenage pop singers such as Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and the British Spice Girls supported most of the performance of the Western record industry and spread this trend all over the world until many years later. Later, the Korean entertainment industry continued the combination model that emerged in the 90s in Europe and the United States.

In Simon's view, the biggest feature of being popular with teenagers is that they can make stars in batches.

The rise of traditional superstars such as Michael Jackson and Madonna has a lot to do with strength and luck.For teenage pop singers, as long as they have a good skin and the quality of performance is not too bad, it is almost enough, and the next step is to package according to the fixed routine.

Not only that, but there are also some more direct and quick methods, the draft.

Of course, all these cannot be accomplished overnight, and need to be done step by step.

After deliberation, Simon decided to start with the USA first.

With too much experience in two lives, Simon can easily sort out some rules. For example, the rise of a TV network or media platform often requires a phenomenal TV program.For example, in the late 90s, HBO's "Lan Yi Yi Punishment  Suffocating Beetle Dodging Neon Account You Lame Benzene 饧yi Rolling Yan Xingdu 精野风鄯濉T 犫病虎迷丹脚草费感Shamm ⒄ hanging step

At this stage, there has not yet been a trend of American drama classics emerging one after another.

Cable networks don't put as much effort into TV dramas as they do movies.

This is from the 70's.

During his tenure at the ABC television network, Barry Diller found that it was often too expensive for the television network to purchase film broadcast rights from Hollywood, so he created the telecine model.

Compared with films produced by Hollywood studios, TV movies have advantages such as low budget and short production cycle. Moreover, TV networks personally invest in the production of TV movies, and they also have the feature of exclusive premiere, which will attract more people to a large extent. audience.

Again, Hollywood is very conservative.

Once a business model emerges and proves successful, people flock to it.

Especially with the rise of cable TV in recent years, in order to compete for audience resources, TV movies with many advantages are more prosperous, including the USA TV network. Last year, while focusing on the production of the Wife series, it also invested in the production of several TV movies.

However, in Simon's view, TV movies also have their disadvantages that cannot be ignored.

Unsustainable popularity.

A TV movie, played a few times, the audience will almost lose interest, and then turn to syndicate platforms and video channels, and after mining the remaining value, it will be gradually forgotten, and the popularity cycle can be described as very short.

However, phenomenal TV dramas are different.

For example, "Lan Yi Sui II"

Like House of Cards.

Supported by the popularity of "Lan Yi Sui Fang Na 懔 Customs  Jing  Ye Ben Yi  Lan Jun Bai Dao Family" in memory, HBO's user base has continued to expand rapidly.

Similarly, "House of Cards" produced by Netflix also brought a similar effect.

These are very difficult for TV movies to do.

According to the information in his mind, Simon roughly judged that it was in the late 90s that "Lan Yi turned back and threw the judgment of a certain squid Zheng  Fei Gu said that he had a dark heart" chan accounted for it. J Jiang is ヂ Huan

After the new century, the screen space of TV movies has been completely replaced by classic American dramas that continue to emerge.

As for now.

Hollywood, or the media industry in general in the United States, obviously has not realized this.

Hollywood has always been evolving.

The American media industry in 1992 was not what many people saw ten or twenty years later.

Even, in Simon's view, before the rise of blockbusters and CG special effects in the 90s, the Hollywood film industry, even after decades of development, was not stable, and everyone was just trying their luck.

Whether it was "Jaws" or "ET" back then, or even "Ben-Hur" and "Gone with the Wind" before that, they were all the result of chance.

After the era of blockbusters and CG special effects began, Hollywood entered the most powerful era.

The same goes for the television industry.

Before the 90s, they already had the business model of TV and movies. In addition, TV networks have a strong platform monopoly, and they don’t need to invest too much in TV programs to win audiences, so they seem to be unwilling to make progress.

After the 90s, cable TV rose completely, and competition in the TV industry began to become fierce.At the same time, the prosperity of the Internet also poses a threat to the TV industry, which makes major TV manufacturers pay more attention to content development, and the production of TV series often even reaches the level of movies.

Now, the best way to make the USA TV network develop rapidly is to subvert the traditional business model in advance.

Simon has actually subverted the traditional American TV industry through reality TV shows.

This is only the second time.

Women's TV stations naturally need matching women's programs.

When it comes to TV series related to women, the first thing Simon thinks of is the phenomenal "Desperate Housewives".

The ABC TV network in my memory has even become a trend of being called a women's TV network because of the American TV series "Desperate Housewives", so it can be seen how huge the influence of this American TV series is.

The reason why "Desperate Housewives" became popular is that it is close to life on the one hand, and it exceeds life on the other hand.

The background of this TV series is positioned in middle-class communities that are very common across the United States, and the images of several housewives are typical enough to cover most types of traditional American housewives.However, the bizarre and tortuous plot is an experience that many traditional American housewives may not be able to encounter in their lifetime.

Because there are more than a dozen people's memories in his mind, and "Desperate Housewives" is really classic enough, Simon basically remembers most of the plot of this American drama.

As for the details, Hollywood has never been short of screenwriters.

It's still 1992, Mark Cherry, the core screenwriter of the original version of "Desperate Housewives", is just an unknown little guy, and Simon is not in the mood to find him.

So I just grabbed the knife myself.

In the next few days, after dinner every night, I chatted with Janet and the little guy while holding a notebook and typing.

After a week like this, Janet occasionally added some details with great interest, and the outline of the story and the brief script of the first season were basically completed.

"It's a very interesting story, but it still doesn't feel exciting enough."

In the villa of Cape Dume Manor, after finishing finishing the script of the first season, Janet commented while rocking the little cradle in Melbourne.

Simon sent an electronic draft of the script to Robert Iger in New York, saying: "I have a more exciting story, but I'm just worried that the current housewives won't be able to accept it."

Janet immediately became interested: "Tell me, I'm also a housewife now."

Simon sorted it out briefly, and said: "This is also a story about a woman, but compared to the housewives on Wisteria Street, this woman is a mess. First of all, she is a drug dealer."

Janet patted the cradle with her little hand: "I like it, I must take a picture."

Seeing his son's eyes widen because of his mother's sudden slap, Simon looked like he was about to cry, and quickly reached out to hug his son.

Janet also noticed this detail, so of course she couldn't admit it wrong, and she curled her lips and said, "I'll send this little annoying guy to Australia in a few days."

Simon gently comforted the son in his arms, just smiled.

It was his decision to let Veronica take care of Melbourne, and he couldn't refute himself now.

Janet clearly sensed Simon's thoughts, hummed twice, but didn't ask any more questions, and didn't pursue the story just now. She walked to the coffee table aside, took out a document from the shelf under the coffee table, and said: " Another case has just been sent from New York, and Leon Black and the others are going to make a big deal."

Feeling that the little guy had almost fallen asleep with his head resting on his shoulder, Simon continued to hug his son, walking gently beside the cradle, and asked casually, "What?"

"A comprehensive clothing company called Limited Brands.inc (Limited Brand Company), which focuses on sportswear and underwear for teenagers and women. It is a listed company with a recent market value of 13.1 billion US dollars. Because 80 With the continuous expansion in the [-]s and the economic downturn in the last two years, LTD’s operations are also in trouble. However, Leon and the others are very optimistic about the Victoria’s Secret underwear brand owned by this company, so they plan to initiate a privatization acquisition.”

Simon hadn't reacted before, but only remembered when he heard about Victoria's Secret.

Victoria's Secret.

Many years later, the annual Victoria's Secret show is equivalent to a fashion industry's Super Bowl.It is also Victoria's Secret that won the top supermodel in the first decade of the new century.

After being surprised for a short time, Simon was not too surprised that the Apollo Management Company under the charge of Leon Black, a subsidiary of Cersei Capital, chose the parent company of Victoria's Secret.

Wall Street private equity firms have their own areas of expertise.

Because of its relationship with Melisandre and Daenerys Entertainment, Apollo Management, which focuses on private equity investment, has focused a large part of its attention on clothing and cosmetics industries in addition to its expertise in real estate investment. The same is true for Simmons and its stake in Estee Lauder.

Now, it is reasonable for Leon Black to lead the team to target the parent company of Victoria's Secret.

It owns high-quality brand assets, the tight cash flow leads to temporarily poor operating conditions, and the stock price is at a low level. This is also the main condition for a company to be targeted by private equity.

Thinking about this, Simon asked: "13.1 billion US dollars, how much premium is needed for a wholly-owned acquisition?"

Janet rolled on the sofa like a kitten, casually flipping through the documents in her hand, and said: "Leon and the others are in contact with the management of LTD. If a good-faith acquisition can be achieved, the premium will probably be within 30%. The clothing industry is very competitive. It is fierce, unlike the new technology companies that are emerging now, so even if the invitation is made publicly, the premium will not be too high. If it is too high, Leon and the others will voluntarily give up."

LTD is obviously an acronym for Limited Brands.inc.

Simon calculated in his mind that with a 30% premium, the complete acquisition would cost about 17 billion U.S. dollars, and Apollo Management would be able to spend such a large amount of money.Of course, this will undoubtedly mean a lot of risk: "After the acquisition, what do Leon and the others plan to do?"

Janet said: "Like Simmons, after a few years of operation, after the company recovers, it will go public again, or conduct a second private equity operation and sell it directly to other private equity companies."

Simon nodded: "The federal economy is now at the bottom. If Leon and the others confirm that this company has enough high-quality assets, they will only hold it for a few years, and it will indeed appreciate in value."

But Janet heard other meanings in her husband's words, her delicate body jumped up from the sofa, leaned on the armrest of the sofa and looked over, "You don't have other ideas, do you?"

Simon smiled and said, "You guys buy this company first."

Victoria's Secret's current catwalk is basically still in the fashion week show stage. According to the original timeline, it was not until the end of the 90s that Victoria's Secret began to gradually turn the Victoria's Secret show into an entertaining commercial event.

If Cersei Capital can acquire LTD, perhaps, it can also produce this very eye-catching fashion show in advance.

Chapter 465 Graphics Card (Repair)

At the beginning of the year, we searched for projects and prepared pilot episodes. In the promotion season in May, we promoted to TV networks and started broadcasting in autumn. This is the project operation process of most TV programs in the United States.

Simon used his spare time to complete the outline and rough script of the first season of "Desperate Housewives". Many details still need to be revised, so that the right to authorship can also be transferred.

For such a female TV series, it is actually very strange for Simon to name the screenwriter himself.Now he doesn't need to rely on a TV series to accumulate anything.

Of course, this does not prevent Hollywood from quickly spreading the news that Simon Westero himself has created a new project.

Although it is a TV series, it is still a popular reality show in recent years, which has already proved that Simon can also create the same miracles in the field of TV as in movies.

You must know that popular reality shows such as "Survivor" and "Who Will Be a Millionaire" have not only created billions of industrial value, but also made a large number of reality TV stars popular.

Take "Who Will Be a Millionaire" as an example. Although the popularity of this puzzle reality show has been declining after the initial prosperity, the annual salary of the show host Regis Fell has reached tens of millions. US dollars, this is already the annual income level of Hollywood first-line superstars.

The Housewives of Beverly Hills, the first of the four reality shows launched in 1988, had the lowest ratings, but the housewives became household TV stars.

Even if the income of participating in this reality show itself is not high, relying on other TV shows, commercial endorsements and personal careers developed outside of TV, it is also famous and rich.This is why Kris Jenner is so obedient in front of Simon.