I’m in Hollywood

A large-scale M\u0026A case involving a potential amount of 400 million US dollars is far from something that Elizabeth can decide. Even Murdoch needs to consider it carefully. Although News Corporation has always been firmly in the hands of the Murdoch family, this is also a matter of course. Mainly because Murdoch's excellent management ability has continuously brought profits to shareholders. If Murdoch goes his own way, shareholders will certainly turn to his opposite. `

Hearing Eric's idea of ​​acquiring Hasbro from Elizabeth, Murdoch flew to Los Angeles from New York and spent a whole day discussing this matter with Eric, but the result of the negotiation was not as good as To everyone's mind, News Corp. has been focusing on the media industry and has not been involved in other fields for decades, but Hasbro is a toy company that has little to do with the media.

Although the prospect depicted by Eric is very tempting, Murdoch is not a traveler like Eric who has seen the box office miracle of Transformers with his own eyes. With just a depicted 'big cake', the old man is still It was very cautious to choose to refuse, and the final negotiation result was that Fox first bought the copyright of Transformers, and Firefly could start the acquisition of Hasbro by itself in the next few years, and then the two sides jointly opened a big movie.

In the evening, Eric and Murdoch walked out of the sharp corner manor house side by side, followed by Katzenberg, Elizabeth and Kelly and others. Murdoch has to fly directly back to New York by plane. Elizabeth made a phone call gesture to Eric on the other side of Murdoch's luxury car, and also got in. As a filial daughter, of course, she had to send it in person. Father goes to the airport. `

Watching Murdoch's car leave, Katzenberg, who was standing beside him, said to Eric: If Fox alone can make Transformers show the kind of profit prospects you describe, I guess Murdoch gram would definitely not hesitate to acquire Hasbro, or even work with us, it's a pity he doesn't have that confidence. Eric, I don't think it's necessary to make such a hassle at all, we can buy it separately now Hasbro, enough funds in the Firefly account.

Jeffrey, let's get rid of this idea for the time being. I've already told you what I've been thinking about in recent years, Eric shook his head with a smile, and added: Also, Firefly is now far ahead of the rest of Hollywood. The Big Mac of the media conglomerates. We should slow down.”

Katzenberg seems to have said that, and did not mean to argue with Eric. He also knew in his heart that it was time for Firefly to slow down.

In recent days, Firefly's 1994 annual financial report statistics have been released. Firefly's film, TV, peripherals, amusement parks and other business sectors have achieved a total operating income of 18.7 billion US dollars. Although it unfortunately failed to exceed 200 million US dollars, it has already shocked many people. At the same time, the group achieved a net profit of 16.7 billion for the year. Compared with 1993, the two sets of data have risen by 62% and 4o% respectively, mainly due to the acquisition of abc TV station last year, which increased the operating income of Firefly by 7.5 billion US dollars. `

After the acquisition of abc,

After nearly a year of business integration and redundancies, Firefly expects that its revenue and net profit in 1995 will break through the $200 million and $200 million mark, respectively. Such strong revenue and profitability have left other Hollywood rivals far behind. The most obvious comparison is that of Time Warner, which was stably controlling Firefly in the past few years. Although Time Warner has been secretive and has not publicly announced the financial information for 1994, Eric has already seen the relevant information for the first time. data of.

In the whole year of 1994, Time Warner's film business brought only 3.3 billion US dollars in revenue for the group, a 40% decrease compared to 1993. Warner Bros. Entertainment's highest-grossing film The Ultimate Witness also only reaped $3.3 billion in revenue. The box office of 105 billion US dollars is far lower than Firefly's North American box office The Lion King which has a box office of 3.1 billion US dollars. The global box office share is far less than that of Firefly.

Dragged down by the sluggish film business, the entire Time Warner Group. In 1994, the annual revenue was only 8.3 billion US dollars, which was left by Firefly by a full 104 billion US dollars. Moreover, compared with the good times when Steve Ross was alive, he had maintained a stable profit. Last year, Time Warner suffered its first loss in years. Although the loss was only $9.1 million, which was insignificant compared to the $8.3 billion in revenue, it was already a very dangerous signal, indicating that Time Warner, which has lost Steve Ross, has begun to decline.

In addition to Time Warner, Paramount's parent company Viacom, Fox's parent company News Corp, and Universal's parent company mca are far from comparable to Firefly. Columbia’s parent company, Sony, is much stronger than Firefly, but after Colombia’s $2.1 billion write-down at the end of last year, the market value of Columbia Pictures has fallen below $300 million, even less than one-tenth of the media’s valuation of Firefly. First, as for MGM, there is no sense of existence.

It can be said that the Firefly is completely unmatched in Hollywood at this time.

Recalling the exciting data in his mind, Katzenberg couldn't help but look at Eric beside him. Everything about Firefly today is due to this young man who has a keen eye in film and television media. G is more and more letting go of the management of the Firefly Group, but everyone inside the Firefly Group understands that Eric is the soul of the Firefly. Without him, there would never be the miraculous rise of the Firefly today.

Although he is the CEO of Firefly Group, Katzenberg has always been very clear that he is better at micro-management, and his judgment and control over the general direction of the group are definitely not as good as Eric's. The acquisition was the merger of abc last year. During this period, Eric’s crazy acquisitions were all questioned. Many people speculated that the shallow-founded Firefly might collapse because of this excessive expansion, but in the end, Firefly Not only swallowed these two industry giants, but also successfully integrated these two companies into the Firefly system.

At this time, Eric's decision to suspend expansion was not just because his investment in high-tech industries such as the Internet absorbed a large amount of funds from Firefly Group. Although he successfully completed two major mergers and acquisitions and initially digested it, However, the two large-scale mergers still caused some problems within Firefly that took several years to resolve. The reason why these problems did not come out was entirely because Firefly’s strong profitability temporarily offset various contradictions.

After Murdoch left, Katzenberg did not leave in a hurry, and returned to the villa with Eric, and talked about a recent headache inside ABC.

Three hours after prime time from 8 to 11, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on nbbc can bring in $1.5 billion a year, and The Late Late Show with David Letterman on cbs also makes $5000 a year, but ABC's 11 o'clock news program Nightline can only make an average of $1ooo a year. We didn't have a good choice in the past, but recently, David Letterman's contract with cbs is about to expire, and Robert suggested to dig him Coming to abc, david letterman is also very excited about this suggestion, our prime-time show ratings are very strong and can play a very good leading role in his talk show. But robert just made this suggestion, the president of the news department David Westin broke into his office and had an argument with him, and they almost got into a fight. (To be continued.)

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