The negotiations for "Joy of Life" were much more complicated and lengthy than the outside world imagined.
After all, it is the most watched project in the industry, a deal worth hundreds of millions, and there is still a lot of wrangling going on.
Since the beginning of the project of "Joy of Life", TV stations have contacted us. After the preliminary script review was completed and the actors were ready to start filming, many platforms began to quote prices.
What follows is a series of negotiations. Those who do not have enough capital or cannot meet the conditions are basically eliminated, and those who remain at the end are all potential buyers.
Until recently, the first version of "Joy of Life" was officially reviewed and approved, which means it can be broadcast at any time.
The battle for purchasing dramas has completely entered a white-hot stage!
A restaurant in Shanghai
"Gutai, Director Liu, take care."
Xia Cong, the general manager of Blue Whale and the person in charge of negotiations for "Joy of Life", personally sent the two middle-aged men to the car, rubbed his face, and let the cold air outside help him sober up.
Standing next to him was a thin middle-aged man, who was Xiao Jiu, the director of the Blue Whale Film and Television Department and also Xia Cong's deputy in this negotiation.
"Old Xiao, you cooperated well just now."
"No, I'm just helping out. The key is up to you."
"Okay, stop talking nonsense. If you win the project, I'll take credit for it."
"Thank you, Mr. Xia. I think I have almost figured out the bottom line of several companies. Do you think we should call a meeting?"
"Well, you call someone, I'll contact the boss."
"OK."
That evening, a group of responsible persons and senior executives gathered in the Blue Whale conference room. Wei Yang did not come in person, but participated in the meeting via video call.
After everyone arrived, Lao Xia presided over the meeting, and then Xiao was responsible for introducing the situation.
As Blue Whale has grown rapidly in the past two years, the number of employees has also continued to grow. From the more than 60 people who Wei Yang had just taken over, the number has now increased several times, and the internal department structure and middle and high-level leaders have also made some adjustments, either merging, eliminating, promoting, demoting, or leaving.
It was during this period that Xiao was promoted to director of the film and television department. His predecessor performed his job poorly and "parted ways amicably" with the company.
The director of the Film and Television Department is the largest department of Blue Whale, and he is considered the third-in-command of the company. He was removed from his post as soon as he was told to do so. This shocked the entire company at the time and was even reported by outside media.
Regardless of what the outside world and employees discuss, all senior executives are aware of Boss Wei's courage.
In the entire Blue Whale, except for Wei Yang himself, even Xia Cong, the general manager who has always been the runner-up, may not have a secure position.
The project "Joy of Life" is the most important project Xiao has handled since he became the director, so the pressure is still very high.
If he fails, his fate might be even worse than that of the previous director.
Although Boss Wei acted ruthlessly, he still remembered the old times. The former director was an old employee of the company and had made contributions, so he did not think of letting him go at the time, but instead gave him a sinecure.
When the latter chose to leave, the severance package given was very generous, the background check was very decent, and they also helped introduce him to other companies.
Xiao does not have the qualifications and achievements of his predecessor, and the "Joy of Life" project is a top priority. If he fails to do a good job, he will probably be fired directly.
However, pressure is often accompanied by opportunities!
There have been internal rumors within the company that the company will undergo a certain degree of restructuring after the move next year.
For example, Boss Wei felt that the film and television department was a bit too bloated, so he planned to split the department into two parts when entering the film market, reorganizing it into a TV drama department and a film department.
At the same time, Blue Whale has always been led by Wei as the boss and Xia as the second in command over the years, with the heads of various major departments and projects reporting to them.
This model was fine in the early stages, but as Blue Whale continued to grow, with more and more departments and project leaders, it became difficult for the two of them to manage it.
Therefore, Blue Whale has always had the idea of promoting several vice presidents, each of whom would be responsible for multiple departments or projects, to share the management pressure of Wei and Xia.
The Film and Television Department has a special status. Theoretically, there should be only one deputy general manager, Xiao, but he has little experience, so it is hard to say whether he can get the position.
Therefore, the project of "Joy of Life" is very critical. If it makes great contributions, there will be a chance for it to rise to the top, and even rank very high.
Although the company's specific articles of association have not yet been disclosed, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the vice president has extremely high authority and can even be said to be a corporate giant.
If you get promoted, you will definitely get a salary increase and bonus, and maybe even equity or dividend rewards.
These senior executives know how much money Blue Whale makes. Even if they are only offered 1% or even 1‰ of shares or dividend incentives, that would be enough to make them excited. If Boss Wei considers going public in the future, that would be even more exciting.
The more Xiao thought about it, the hotter he became, and the more passionate his voice became when he reported. However, Wei Yang and many other senior executives did not notice anything unusual about him.
In other words, they didn't care about Director Xiao's thoughts at all and were completely focused on what he said.
Up to now in the negotiations for "Joy of Life", the prices offered by various companies are basically close to the bottom line, showing their sincerity.
Our old friend Shanghai TV offered 150 million for the exclusive premiere and confirmed that the full amount will be paid in one lump sum.
More importantly, it has come up with a purchase plan for the last two parts of "Joy of Life". On the premise of meeting certain conditions, the purchase prices of the last two parts will increase in stages, to 170 million and 200 million respectively.
If Blue Whale completes the conditions it proposed, the trilogy will receive a total of RMB 520 million in revenue, which will be paid in full.
"What are the conditions?"
When a senior executive asked about it, Xiao took out a folder and looked at it. "It's probably about some guarantees of advertising revenue and ratings. We've calculated it, and it's not that difficult. The sincerity is still sufficient."
It sounds like a bet, but it's actually not that serious.
Gambling usually has very high requirements, and it will squeeze you to death, but the conditions of Shanghai TV are more like additional clauses to guarantee a lower limit.
After all, the initiative lies with Blue Whale, and the conditions set by Modu TV cannot be too harsh. Otherwise, if Blue Whale is not sure of completing them, the subsequent contract will be equivalent to waste paper.
It can be seen that the Magic City TV Station, which has tasted the sweetness many times in the past two years, trusts Wei Yang very much and has invested a lot of money.
The general conditions were circulated in the conference room. Some people frowned slightly, some were confident, but there were not many objections.
Wei Yang had already finished reading the email and seeing that everyone had an idea, he asked Xiao to introduce the next company.
The next one is also an old friend, Hunan Satellite TV. The condition it offered was exclusive premiere, and a one-time payment of 320 million yuan for the entire "Joy of Life" trilogy.
Note that this is a one-time package of three parts, with no strings attached.
In other words, no matter how the first season of "Joy of Life" performs, Hunan Satellite TV has spent all the money on the last two series. As long as Wei Yang can hand in two more dramas, no matter how bad they are, they will accept them.
In fact, this routine is very cunning, because they believe in Wei Yang's bottom line, and they also know that Boss Wei is unlikely to destroy his reputation, let alone make a deliberately bad drama to offend them.
So although this condition seems generous, it is actually just that, so the Hunan TV station has other conditions.
That means giving up 20% of the advertising revenue related to "Joy of Life" and a large number of other collaborations!
Hunan Satellite TV is the number one local satellite TV station, and its advertising revenue is the highest among satellite TV stations. Even if it is 20%, it is not a small amount.
Other related resources such as variety shows, movies, TV shows, advertisements, etc. are also highly valued by Blue Whale.
It not only generates direct and indirect benefits, but also helps the company's development in all aspects. Many times, the company cannot achieve this effect even if it spends a lot of money.
The Hunan Provincial TV station had used this trick to lure Wei Yang before, and this time it was more sincere, with the quantity and quality of resources it provided being superior.
This is also the reason why its bid was ranked second even though it was only 200 million less than that of Shanghai TV. In fact, if Shanghai TV was not the most stable partner of Blue Whale, the conditions of Hunan TV should be put first.
Anyone with a long-term vision knows that some resources are more valuable than real money.
Seeing that the meeting place was somewhat silent, Wei Yang did not say anything and asked Xiao to move on to introduce the next company, who was also an old acquaintance.
The Jiangsu Provincial TV station teamed up with the neighboring Zhejiang Province to offer 160 million yuan for the first season of "Joy of Life" in one go.
Although this price is slightly higher, it is quite acceptable compared to the first two, so it ranks third.
In addition, there is another one, which is the four satellite TV stations led by Beijing and Tianjin, which offered 180 million yuan, the highest price, but the payment terms are according to normal procedures.
Considering that these satellite TV stations had no obvious record of being deadbeats and had an additional 20 to 30 million viewers, they still made it to the finals, but ranked last.
However, the senior executives present all knew Wei Yang. When the other TV stations chose to pay the full amount at one time and had other excellent conditions, the probability of the four TV stations being eliminated was extremely high.
As expected, after Xiao reported the final four platforms, Wei Yang didn't even think about it and directly passed the four satellite TV stations.
After that, I talked with several senior executives and quickly eliminated the Jiangsu and Zhejiang families.
The rest was simple. Between Shanghai and Hunan, should we choose between money and resources? However, it was because of this that the senior executives at the scene had obvious differences and even quarreled.
"520 million, everyone has seen the sincerity of Shanghai TV. We have cooperated many times over the years, so we still have to talk about the friendship."
"Business is business, if all you do is talk about relationships, how can you make money?"
"Friendship aside, who can guarantee that Hunan TV will keep its promise? What if it goes back on its word? This is 200 million yuan."
"The contract is written in black and white. The latter two parts are in our hands, so we have the initiative."
"That's right. We have more than just Joy of Life. We also have other projects. They have no reason to be hostile to us. This is a rare opportunity. Hunan Province is now the only dominant province, and even the Tang people have joined them."
"Tangren is nothing. We were the ones who sold "Startling by Each Step". The guy named Cai... Sorry, boss, I made a mistake."
"Let's not talk about other companies, but what if we cooperate with Hunan Province on a large scale and become highly tied to it and controlled by others?"
"Yes, resources are important, but we can also cooperate with other TV stations. The 200 million yuan is enough for us to do a lot of things."
"Several of the top ten TV variety shows are from Hunan Satellite TV, and half of the advertisers have cooperation with them. Do you know that reaching a cooperation can make the fame and commercial value of Nazha, Zhenyu, Miss Zhao and the boss rise to a higher level? This is a steady stream of money."
“…”
Both sides insisted on their own opinions, and the quarrel gave Wei Yang a headache even through the screen. Finally, he muted the sound and waited until the group of people got tired of arguing before looking at Lao Xia.
"Boss Xia, what do you mean?"
Old Xia looked at the two groups of people staring at him eagerly and shook his head: "I think both methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. This decision must be made carefully..."
After a minute of talking in the same old way, it can be summed up in five words: I listen to my boss.
Xiao was shocked. Old Xia was a shareholder and the second in command. He could get away with it by pretending to be stupid and loyal, but he didn't have that qualification.
When he said "I listen to the boss", Wei Yang's first reaction was not to think he was loyal, but to think he was a waste and didn't even dare to give any advice.
Xiao's mind was racing, wondering which one Wei Yang would choose based on his style.
Boss Wei has a long-term vision. Although he often talks about cooperative development, he is steady in his work, values real money, is used to getting the benefits first, and does not agree with a high degree of binding.
From this perspective, Shanghai TV has a better chance...
Xiao moved his lips slightly and was about to speak when suddenly an idea came to him.
No, the Shanghai TV station gave more real money, but strictly speaking it was paid in installments and there were additional conditions. The Hunan TV station gave 320 million in one go.
Boss Wei does not agree with a high degree of binding. The previous dramas have been cooperating with Shanghai TV. If the "Joy of Life" trilogy chooses Shanghai TV again, it will violate the cooperation policy of Blue Whale.
"I think the Hunan Provincial TV Station is more suitable."
Read the original text at Liu#9@书/吧!
As soon as Xiao finished speaking, he saw a look of satisfaction on Boss Wei's face. He was delighted and felt that he had made the right bet.
Boss Wei did not keep the suspense and announced his decision.
"We contacted Hunan TV Station and wanted to buy out the Joy of Life trilogy in one go. This price is not enough. We need at least another 50 million in cash. We want 30% of the advertising revenue. We also need to continue discussing the details of the cooperation project. We will try our best to take the initiative."
If it is from another company, the price has basically been negotiated and it won’t go up much further.
However, Hunan Province contributed little in the way of real money, and it was more about dividing the cake. Blue Whale used the trilogy as bait, so there is still room for negotiation.
At the same time, the Shanghai TV station also needs to be appeased, and Blue Whale’s new drama will be taken care of later.
Boss Wei's prestige in Blue Whale is beyond doubt. No one else will object to what he has confirmed.
All that remains is whether Lao Xia and his team can get the Hunan Provincial TV Station to agree to Wei Yang’s request. Blue Whale is still confident.
The initiative lies with Blue Whale, not Hunan Province. If the other party does not agree, "Joy of Life" will not be sold at a low price. At most, the company will cooperate with other platforms.
"Joy of Life" is now a goddess that everyone is chasing after. Everyone just hates that they can't marry her, and they don't care whether she is a spare tire or not...
What we are discussing today is not just the TV premiere rights, but also other copyrights, including DVD, patch advertising, peripheral authorization, etc.
In the past, these basically had to wait until the TV series was broadcast or even became popular before they could be sold, but "Joy of Life" was unusual. Relevant partners came to the door very early on, and the bids were not low.
Wei Yang doesn't need to make too many specific decisions on this, as many things have already been discussed, and the main thing is to report to him and inform the relevant senior management.
Blue Whale has not sold all of these copyrights. It has only sold them to a few with particularly high bids. The rest will be discussed after the broadcast.
Even so, the relevant departments of the first season of "Joy of Life" earned more than 30 million, significantly exceeding the previous most profitable "East Palace".
All the senior executives in the conference room were smiling happily. Boss Wei was not a stingy person. The more the company earned, the bigger their year-end bonus would be.
The atmosphere of joy has never stopped. After talking about these copyright fees, there is still a very important project, which is the online broadcasting rights of "Joy of Life".
LeTV purchased the first season of "Joy of Life" for 75 million yuan, or 1.875 million yuan per episode.
Penguin offered 200 million yuan to package the "Joy of Life" trilogy.
So the choice left for Wei Yang was simple: sell them separately or sell them all at once. The former would cost more, while the latter would save trouble.
Of course Wei Yang chose to sell them separately.
Although the price of TV drama copyrights keeps rising, the increase is under control and will not increase dramatically in a short period of time.
But the situation is different for online broadcasting rights. The past two years have been the craziest time, with a different price for each season.
It is 75 million now, and maybe it will exceed 100 million by next year. Weiyang TV Station can be sold as a package, but the same will never be true for the online platform. At most, a priority clause will be added.
Wei Yang has already asked Xiao to convey this situation, but Penguin only paid 70 million in a single season, which is far behind LeTV.
The highest bidder wins, and Boss Wei could only express regret to Brother Ma.
After the meeting, Wei Yang did some calculations.
The investment share of "Joy of Life" is not much different from that of "Eastern Palace". Blue Whale took 50%, Jade Shrimp took 20%, and the remaining 30% was used to attract some partners and raise funds.
A rough calculation of the current amount of income is 95% of 50% + 70% of 20%, which means I will have more than 200 million in cash, minus very small costs and taxes.
Wei Yang's face fell: "I worked so hard, and this is all I earned?"
If other people heard this, they would beat him to death. Besides, this is only part of it. Other future benefits may more than double.
But Wei Yang was still not satisfied, mainly because that little fat girl Fan Xiaopang made 1 billion every day, which made him very excited. But now when he settled the accounts, the gap was quite large.
"It would be great if I could really make 1 billion in one go someday."
Boss Wei is not just daydreaming. In the future, there will be many TV series that will be priced in the hundreds of millions, not to mention movies. The producers of "Wolf Warrior 2" will get more than 2 billion yuan in profits.
The golden age of the entertainment industry is coming. Even if there is a cold winter later, these few years are enough to make money...
…
On November 13, Wei Yang’s birthday, Blue Whale and Hunan TV reached an agreement.
The latter purchased the "Joy of Life" trilogy at a price of 380 million + 30% of related advertising revenue, paid the full amount in one lump sum, and launched multiple collaborations with Blue Whale.
The purchase price of the drama was not announced to the public, but it was stated to have set a new record for the highest selling price in the history of domestic TV dramas.
This also triggered speculations from the outside world.
According to the latest statistics as of October, Wei Yang is temporarily ranked second in the 2011 Forbes Celebrity Income List with an annual income of 180 million yuan, while Yao Ming ranks first with an income of just over 200 million yuan.
Compared with 2010, which was almost the same, Wei Yang's data this year is obviously unreliable and much less than his actual income.
The company's revenue, investment income and personal income from "The East is Green" and "Come on, Mr. Love" alone are no less than this number, not to mention other projects.
Moreover, Wei Yang’s income now does not only come from film and television production and being an artist, he also makes a lot of money in other areas such as financial investment, copyright operation, and commercial operations.
The most noteworthy is Red Shark Games, which has several games that have achieved profitability this year.
"Honkai Impact 3rd" by the miHoYo team, which was highly expected by Wei Yang, actually did not make much money. After all, it was a debut work, and it was more about training the team, cultivating the market, and laying the groundwork for "Honkai Impact 3rd" which could really make money.
The game "My Love from the Star" has good revenue data thanks to its strong IP, and its player stickiness is very high, so it can develop in the long term.
In addition, under Wei Yang's command, Red Shark also represented two games that Wei Yang remembered and made a fortune.
At present, excluding miscellaneous expenditure costs, Red Shark's net profit this year exceeds approximately RMB 50 million.
It certainly can't be compared with those big companies with billions of revenue, but it is a new company after all. It has been established for a limited time, the team is also growing, and it has just got on the right track. It is great to have so much profit.
It is not easy to run a gaming company. Only with Wei Yang's guidance and its own national IP can Red Shark develop steadily.
Now Red Shark has begun researching and designing the game "Joy of Life".
The subject matter is mainly martial arts and plot. Let's see if there can be a real-time interaction between film and game. If the effect is good, "The Journey of Flower" and the like can be prepared.
In fact, Wei Yang’s biggest regret is that he failed to get the agency of “League of Legends”.
When he learned in the first half of the year that the game had not yet been launched in mainland China, he immediately asked someone to contact them, only to find out that he had overthought. Penguin had even copied the other party's parent company, so it was impossible for it to give the agency rights to others.
Wei Yang had no choice but to give up. Now he had nothing to do and was thinking about whether there were some other games that Red Shark could get a bargain on.
Unfortunately, I didn’t play many games in my previous life. Apart from a few national games, I don’t know much about other games.
"Genshin Impact" was barely coded, could it be possible that Red Shark would copy "PUBG" and "Honor of Kings"?
The former is easy to deal with, but I don’t think Xiao Ma will sue me for plagiarizing League of Legends…
If you add up all these earnings, the 180 million on the celebrity list would more than double, but I don't know if the financial investment is counted.
But no matter what, after Wei Yang became rich, there was less and less marketing and promotion, and many contracts were kept confidential, making it difficult for the outside world to understand the specific circumstances. Even some of the income and assets were unknown to the outside world.
In this case, it is not difficult to understand why the Forbes Celebrity List made a wrong judgment about him.
In the past, Boss Wei’s business was only this big, so he could still estimate some things. Moreover, since he was not strong enough, there were many people selling information.
Now that his career has started, he has more projects and companies to deal with, and there are so many crossovers that Boss Wei himself is sometimes confused and doesn't even ask his private financial team for advice, let alone outsiders.
Moreover, as his power grows and his network of contacts expands, people who originally didn't care about leaking information will now be wary and won't talk nonsense.
No matter how impressive the Forbes rankings are, they cannot possibly look through Boss Wei’s account books and contracts, and the estimated data is bound to be inflated.
But no matter how watery it is, it is certain that Wei Yang will make a fortune if "Joy of Life" is sold.
What's more, the Hunan TV station kept it secret, but LeTV did not. Boss Jia was trying to fool everyone every day to cause an ecological backlash and make LeTV's stock even more outrageous.
75 million, he even agreed to pay it all in one go, but he just demanded that the selling price must be made public and Blue Whale cooperate in the promotion.
The same requirement applies to Penguin. They are a new website and need to build their reputation, otherwise they would not spend so much money.
Therefore, the price of the online broadcast rights of "Joy of Life" could not be hidden at all, and soon everyone knew that the online broadcast rights of the first season of "Joy of Life" were sold for 75 million.
Regardless of whether LeTV’s stock price rises or not, Shanda’s stock is very favorable anyway.
Chen Tianqiao was so angry that he started cursing. He must be happy to make money from online literature IP, but now he is working on Shanda's delisting, and it is a critical moment.
The online novel "Joy of Life" has gained great benefits, and its stock has appreciated, so he has to find a way to raise more money.
If nothing unexpected happens, Wei Yang will top the Forbes Celebrity Income List in 2011, becoming the object of envy of countless men and admiration of women...
(End of this chapter)