Hollywood Tycoon [US Entertainment + Business War]

When Jed found himself finally able to relax a little, the calendar had reached August 1990.According to the contract between Dongfeng Production and NBC, the pilot episode of the first season of "Will and Grace" will be broadcast on September 8st on Wonderful Cable.Unlike "Friends", "Will & Grace" adopts a two-episode broadcast policy, so the production pressure of the "Will & Grace" crew is twice that of "Friends".And because "Will and Grace" has relatively few actors and the plot is relatively single, there is no way to shoot two groups at the same time, so the crew of "Will and Grace" has been very tired in the past two or three months.

As is customary, pilot episodes run two episodes at a time (compared to four episodes for sitcoms), while an archive of the remaining three weeks is prepared.It can be said that the crew of "Will & Grace" must complete the filming of ten episodes before the end of August, which is almost catching up with the normal season of other spring American dramas.However, the crew did not complain. Being able to enter a broadcasting platform like NBC was already something they had hoped for, so why would they complain?Even though the cast and crew had to shoot five days a week, everyone was in great spirits.

On the day when "Will and Grace" was about to be broadcast, the actor Eric McCormack suddenly said: "God! My family forgot to order a wonderful cable station! And my parents' house, I also told them thousand Don't miss my first time."

At this time, Eric didn't have any experience in TV performances, and the only experience he had was appearing in funny skits of various variety shows.When Dongfeng Productions found Eric, Eric even thought that the TV station was playing tricks on him.Although the film and television industry in Asia pays attention to seniority, as long as you have a financial backer who is willing to support you, then there is no problem for you to ask seniors to come over and act for you.

But the film and television industry in Europe and the United States pay attention to seniority. To put it simply, if you want to become a leading actor in a sitcom, you must first act in a short comedy for five or six years.At this point you might be approached by a daytime sitcom for a recurring role (recurring in the episodes but not every episode), and you'll move up to a regular role, and eventually you could be the leading actor , or get discovered by the director of a prime-time sitcom and enter the market.In short, from an unknown comedy skit actor to a regular role actor in a sitcom, there are at least ten years in between.

Maybe you're talented, but it's rarely the case that you land the leading role in a sitcom without even being in a skit.Therefore, Dongfeng Production's selection of actors this time has actually broken some unspoken rules, and it has also dissatisfied the actors' union and the character director's union.But fortunately, no one was optimistic about the two films Dongfeng Productions was working on, and Dongfeng Productions was also a small production company, so the two labor unions didn't make any trouble.

Hearing what Eric said, director James Burrows scolded with a smile: "Don't you hurry up and call to order? If the response of the show among subscribers is not good enough, you are the culprit."

Although the crew was making jokes of one kind or another, everyone was worried.Dongfeng Productions has never produced a TV series broadcast on national TV stations, and all newcomers from screenwriters to actors, even the director himself has just left the ranks of newcomers.Can such a sitcom with newcomers making and starring newcomers succeed?No one in the crew dared to guarantee the ticket.At the same time, the executives of Wonderful Cable are also wonderful.In this era, if the ratings of wireless stations are not good, it can also tell advertisers that our audience group fits well with your potential users, so advertisements will continue to appear.

But what about cable TV?If the show is not good enough, it means that the number of subscribers will drop in the next month.Once the number of subscriptions drops, there will be problems with the funds that cable stations rely on to survive.Wonderful Cable is a newcomer in the American cable TV family. Although the famous NBC is behind him, no matter how powerful the father is, it doesn't mean that the son must be great!More importantly, this is the first time that Wonderful Cable has broadcast a TV series.In the past, the wonderful cable stations mainly focused on special programs, talk shows and reality shows. This pilot sitcom is completely in response to the call of NBC executives for reform.

September 9, eight o'clock in the evening.The sitcom "Will and Grace" produced by Dongfeng was broadcast on Wonderful Cable Channel on time. Since this day was a trial episode, four episodes were broadcast in a row to give the audience an initial impression of the show.Since the cable station does not participate in Nielsen's ratings survey, the cable station's feedback on the program depends entirely on the drama critic columns of major newspapers and the ratings in "TV Guide" magazine. "TV Guide" is a weekly issue, so the relevant ratings for "Will & Grace" have not yet been released, but the drama critics' columns in the major evening newspapers have commented on this TV series the next day.

Jed asked people to collect all the local and national newspapers in the country to sort out information. There were 31 professional TV critic columns in the United States, and 19 of them mentioned "Will & Grace", which made Jed see hope.Don't worry about whether people praise you or not, if you can get people to notice you, then it is more than half of the success for TV people.Of the 19 columns that mentioned Will & Grace, 11 mentioned them in passing, while the other eight columns were full-length reviews.Among them, 8% of the critics thought the TV series was good, [-]% of the critics thought it was bad, and the remaining [-]% expressed their willingness to watch a few more episodes.The negative evaluation of "Will & Grace" mainly comes from the "sexual orientation" of the protagonist. After all, this is not an era where sexual orientation can be discussed openly. Such a male protagonist who admits that he is gay has indeed stimulated a lot. the heart of man.For this kind of drama criticizing the drama purely for personal sexual orientation, Jed directly threw it aside.

Just when he remembered that he was reading a drama review, the secretary reminded him that Jameson, the general manager of Wonderful Cable, called.As soon as Jed connected, he heard Jameson's hearty laughter, "Mr. Sherman, thank you very much for providing this TV series! In the past, audiences always thought that we could only make reality shows, but in fact we broadcast The TV series are also very exciting.”

"Of course." Jed replied quite proudly, "It's produced by Dongfeng, and it must be a high-quality product. If it wasn't because of Dongfeng's lack of manpower, I would have made a TV series that shocked the entire United States."

Jameson just smiled and didn't answer Jed's words.In Jameson's view, Dongfeng may have made some achievements, but it is still a little far from the best production company in the United States.As for Jed's promise to make a TV series that shocked the United States, Jameson has the right to think that Jed is joking.But Jameson still said, "Mr. Sherman, I'll see what you Dongfeng produced in the future. If there is no accident for "Will and Grace", we plan to continue to book next year, provided that your episodes It’s wonderful as always. By the way, by the way, I hope that "Friends" will also be able to watch Changhong!"

Jed just smiled and hung up the phone. He knew that Jameson would not believe what he said, and in fact he would not believe what he said.A good TV series can be successful not only by copying the classics, you must release the right TV series at the right time to be what the audience needs.The second is that an excellent team participates in the production. The ability of a gold medal screenwriter is actually limited.It is precisely because of this that Jed expanded his manpower arbitrarily.It can be said that almost all the money Jed got from the insurance company was spent on Dongfeng Production.It can be said that if Dongfeng Production goes bankrupt, nearly two-thirds of Jed's personal assets will be gone.Fortunately, Jed has the backing of the Sherman Family Development Fund. If he really goes bankrupt, he can only be a dude obediently.Although Jed cannot directly call the fund, he can use the fund to invest.According to Jade's plan, except for part of the funds to short-sell the Japanese yen and stock market futures, almost all of the remaining funds are used to hold Microsoft and Apple stocks for a long time.Although some executives believed that Jed was too optimistic about technology stocks, these opponents finally withdrew their negative votes after analyzing Jed's massive data.

By the second week of the broadcast of "Will & Grace", everyone's reputation has obviously improved a lot.In fact, "Will and Grace" was originally a very life-like sitcom, and the main audience it served was women, which happened to coincide with the existing audience of Wonderful Cable.Grace is a pretty good girl, a little confused, full of expectations for love... Such an image is in line with the positioning of most young American women, so they will project their emotions onto Grace.And many of the problems Grace encountered in life and relationships are also encountered by young American women, so many viewers can't help but regard Grace as themselves.The important thing is that, like many women, the men Grace meets are so bad, but fortunately, Grace has a friend Will who will help Grace curse the bad men together.Therefore, many female viewers have some longing in their hearts, why is there no Will by my side?You can complain together, share together, and even have a shoulder to lean on after a fight with your boyfriend.I have to say that Jade's script was very successful.

In fact, NBC is also very happy with the success of Wonderful Cable, after all, it is indeed a very risky behavior to set aside half of the prime time for a new show.Even if the less successful episodes can be cut in half during the winter break, it is not so easy to recover the wasted time of nearly three or four months.While Dongfeng Productions was waiting anxiously, "Friends" also ushered in the official broadcast. NBC's newly created "1+1" comedy time slot on Tuesday began to promote half a year ago, and the clips of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" also began to be broadcast on a large scale more than a month ago, but there are many viewers Expressed interest in these two dramas.On the day of the trial broadcast of the two dramas, whether it was Castle Rock Entertainment or Dongfeng Productions, the executives stayed in the company to wait for the latest Nielsen ratings report.

Jed has become a senior member of Nielsen since the acquisition of Dongfeng Productions. In addition to seeing the comparison of ratings in the same period, he can also see the total ratings of the week.Nielsen divides episodes into many types of cross-comparison data and provides data analysis accurate to the minute.Therefore, Jed can understand well which of his scripts the audience likes and which ones do not.In addition to the overall ratings and ratings for the age group of 19 to 45, Jade also asked Nielsen to provide classified ratings surveys for middle school students, college students, social freshmen and newlyweds.At this time, although some production companies will use questionnaires to understand the tastes of the audience, it is not real-time after all.And Jed's analysis method is to simultaneously understand the highlights and low points of the episodes. Only by thoroughly understanding the tastes of the audience can the production company produce a near-perfect TV series.According to the idea provided by Jed, a computer company in Silicon Valley in Los Angeles specially produced a system for Jed. This system can compare the plot of the TV series with Nielsen's ratings data for longitudinal analysis to understand the advantages and disadvantages of his own series; It can introduce episodes of the same period or the same type for horizontal comparative analysis to understand the difference between the opponent and itself.Jed specially applied for a patent for the entire system. Unexpectedly, after five years, this system has become the standard equipment of most production companies. Of course, some people accused Jed of introducing utilitarianism into the TV drama production industry.

Jed also watches "Seinfeld" in his office, and as in previous lives, the beginning of "Seinfeld" is not particularly attractive.Jed thought to himself, if "Friends" hadn't happened, the rhythm of "Seinfeld" would be no problem.However, Jade introduced the idiomatic methods of later American dramas. The first three episodes must catch the audience's attention, otherwise the drama will fail.When "Friends" ended, Jed got the fresh ratings survey report. The ratings of "Seinfeld" were not too stagnant, but when "Friends" was about a third of the time, the ratings suddenly showed a trend of increasing until the end of "Friends".Seeing this data, Jed knew he had succeeded.And this data also caused controversy among NBC executives. According to NBC's idea, "Friends" should be used as a backstage drama for "Seinfeld".But the problem is that "Friends" is firmly suppressing "Seinfeld" in the ratings now.Fortunately, this is still a trial broadcast, and it may not be certain that it will gradually become popular later.It's a pity that NBC's idea didn't come true until the winter break began. Although the ratings of "Seinfeld" remained at a good level, it was significantly lower than that of "Friends", which made NBC a little depressed.But no matter what, NBC's "Tuesday Comedy Night" brand was also made. Just when NBC was planning to make an appointment for the second season, Jed sent a message.

"I think the advertising share for the entire period needs to be adjusted. I can accept that the TV station accounts for 5%, but why does Castle Rock get [-]% more share than us?" Jed asked lightly on the phone.In fact, everyone knows that Castle Rock takes half of the advertising fee. After all, everyone thinks that "Seinfeld" will be the main guarantee to boost the ratings.But now it is "Friends" that drives the ratings for the entire period, but the advertising share is the lowest. NBC was also a little embarrassed, so it had to promise to readjust the advertising share in the next season.Castle Rock has nothing to do about it. Who makes their own drama weak?

Just after "Friends" and "Will & Grace" established their autumn files, the TV magazine "TV Guide" quoted a photo of Jed in a nightclub on the cover, and the title was "Hollywood's new generation star screenwriter ?” Despite the interrogative headline, TV Guide gave Jed’s two sitcoms good reviews in the text. ""Will & Grace" is a comedy that has aroused a high level of discussion among female audiences. Although the setting of this drama has been controversial, it is undeniable that this is a comedy that captured the hearts of the audience. The 25-year-old former playboy Jed Sherman suddenly became the hottest science fiction writer and novelist in the United States after experiencing a life-and-death change. Turned into a playwright. The cooperation with MGM and New Line is not known for the time being, but the production company under his name has turned his TV series into reality. According to analysis, due to "Will and Grace" "Friends" is expected to add about 50 new subscribers this year. The "Friends" broadcast on the national TV network has won the favor of college students and young people with its warm, funny and relaxed content. Now perhaps We can only see their performance in the ratings. But in another ten years, when the loyal viewers of "Friends" really become the pillars of society, maybe we can talk about the influence of "Friends."

The "TV Guide" feature naturally sparked discussions, but most of the media still believe that Jed Sherman is indeed the most iconic figure among Hollywood's new generation of playwrights.Even the top executives of ABC and CBS conveyed a message through the media that they hope to cooperate with Dongfeng Production. The new TV drama can be a sitcom or a formal drama.However, Jed Sherman is considering relocating Dongfeng Productions. After all, with the development of the company, it would be too outrageous to share an office building with Dongfang TV.