Colorado is next to California, and the flight time from Los Angeles to Denver takes only three hours.

After landing, Don and his entourage went directly to the headquarters of STA TV Network.

Professional cable TV was originally a very niche field, because the content scale was too large, and the subscription fee was high, and it was originally the exclusive space of many adult channels. (Note)

Later, HBO and SHO entered the field and quickly established a force that gave the market a new lease of life.

In the early 90s, cable mogul John Malone saw the potential of the professional cable TV market and began to get involved in the industry, asking his two subordinates, Tony Granmore and Martin Tangwen, to build a professional cable network comparable to HBO and SHO.

Thus, the STA television network came into being.

But John Malone is so smart that he almost has a vision that is ahead of his time.

With the advent of the Internet tide, John Malone realized the crisis of the TV industry, and the traditional TV industry will definitely be affected by the Internet, and began to sell the assets of its companies frantically.

STA TV Network, also under this momentum, was pocketed by Don.

After the completion of the acquisition, Tang En did not immediately reorganize and adjust the TV station, and waited for a whole year to complete the personnel change under the strategy of Tang En Pictures to gather all resources and develop a professional cable TV station this year.

The two founders, Tony Granmore and Martin Tangwen, were taken down by Donn without warning and replaced with Chris Albrecett, the content god he poached from HBO.

Now, Chris Albrecht and his team of 17 people have been on the STA TV network for almost two months, and Donn has come over in person to accept the results.

This is a very new office building, which illustrates the short history of the STA television network.

Chris Albrect led a group of senior executives of the company, dressed in formal clothes, to greet and wait at the door of the company.

Seeing such a scene, Don almost laughed.

Americans also know the scene!

With a smile on his face, Don shook hands with everyone one by one, and when he walked in front of Chris Albrecett, he couldn't help but laugh and scold: "Don't be like this in the future, we are a company, and we look at performance, not bureaucracy!"

Chris Albrecht said: "This is only once! The main reason is to let you see the mental outlook of the company's employees, and everyone is your fan, they all want to see you and shake hands, and I can't refuse." ”

Tang En looked around and nodded with satisfaction, "It seems that your work is good." ”

The removal of the two founders of the STA television network, followed by the departure of six members of the founding team, is sure to cause quite a stir within the company.

Chris Albrecht was able to complete STA's management rotation in less than two months, reintegrating employees and putting them back to work.

This performance alone is no small achievement.

What's more, after he joined the company, he reorganized and adjusted the content of Starz TV and Encore TV under the STA TV network, modeled after HBO1 and sister channel Cinemax, the former broadcast more well-produced dramas and movies with better plots, and the latter broadcast relatively low-quality but more pornographic content.

Such a clear new integration of the content chain, coupled with the hit drama "Six Feet Below", has made the STA TV network's installed users, subscribers, and cleaning users all grow like flying!

At present, the STA television network has installed more than 38 million households, of which only 8 million have not used the preview permission.

In other words, there are already more than 30 million home subscribers in the United States who have watched Starz TV!

You must know that before May this year, STA TV network was founded for 7 years, and a total of 8 million home users have served.

This is a remarkable achievement!

As for paid subscribers, although they still haven't surpassed HBO and SHO, the growth momentum is very impressive.

HBO has 7.5 million North American subscriptions and SHO has 5.1 million paid subscribers.

And the STA ...... It has already broken through the 4 million mark!

More than 70% of subscribers chose the three-month subscription plan for $23.99, 25% for the half-year plan for $45.99, and 5% for the full year for $89.99.

So much so that in the past two months, the subscription revenue of STA TV network has exceeded 100 million US dollars!

The money is collected by the operator Comcast, and then the operating service fee of about 8% is deducted, and then transferred back to the STA television network.

However, this is not an instant transfer, usually speaking, it is settled every six months.

That is, in the second half of the year, Comcast has free reins to spend this money!

Put it in the bank to eat interest, it's all millions of dollars!

Such a god of wealth shocked Comcast up and down, Donne, this kid, is going to be developed!

Don has been worried about whether Comcast and Viacom will operate secretly and squeeze the living space of the STA television network, but now that this huge amount of money has arrived, Comcast President Brian Roberts has personally called Don to congratulate him.

Quite simply, Starz TV, which has only more than 4 million subscribers, generates $100 million in revenue in two months, and Nick Rodeon, which has more than 88 million subscribers, will not earn more than $40 million in subscription revenue in two months on average!

Although the former is an accidental outbreak, and the latter is an average income, such data results are enough to illustrate the gap between cheap basic cable TV stations and professional cable TV stations!

If the STA TV network can continue to develop according to this momentum, the future will be limitless!

Chris Albrect led Don and his party through the various offices, and everyone was very enthusiastic about Donn.

Tang En was very satisfied with the mental outlook of the employee, and talked with him while walking, "Today and Saturday, let everyone work overtime here, and no one will give opinions?"

Chris Albrect explained with a smile, "The TV station has a special job, and there will be no programs when they are all on vacation, and they will be off in shifts." Besides, tomorrow night is the penultimate episode of the first season of "Six Feet Under", and the ratings are estimated to have an explosion, and everyone is also enthusiastic about work. ”

"Six Feet Under" has a total of 13 episodes, starting June 3, with one episode airing every weekend night during prime time.

So far, 11 episodes have aired.

Tomorrow, August 12th, the penultimate episode will be broadcast.

"Oh?" Donne's eyes lit up with anticipation, "The ratings will increase further?"

"It's the number of viewers, not the ratings, we are a cable TV station, and this data is of little reference significance. Chris Albrect shook his head solemnly.

Don rolled his eyes, this Chris Albrect is really not very good at things, no wonder when he was at HBO, he didn't get along well with his boss, and he was a little angry, "Then you just said it was meaningful!"

Chris Albrect sneered, "There will definitely be an increase in the number of viewers, we have made a growth curve, if nothing else, tomorrow night...... The number of viewers can exceed 2 million. ”

With more than 4 million subscribers, half of the STA TV network is waiting to watch "Six Feet Under" on TV, which is already a good achievement.

In the future, when HBO was in full swing, the hit drama "Westworld" had an average of about 12 million viewers per episode on all platforms.

"Under Six Feet" is amazing enough to come up with such ratings in such an era and in such an environment.

After all, there is only one "Band of Brothers"!

Subscriber ...... How long will it take to surpass SHO?"

Donne's question is very tricky.

Chris Albrecket's answer was cautious, "STA's future goal is to beat HBO, and it has decades of development history, and it wants to squeeze out the SHO position...... I think we have to wait until "Band of Brothers" airs to take advantage of the influence of this miniseries. As for HBO, I need three years!"

Tang En raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, "Two months ago, you didn't say that!"

Chris Albrecht frowned and said in a deep voice: "I did say at the time that I would take HBO down within a year. However, after taking over STA, I found that there was an obvious gap between the hardware facilities and software conditions here and HBO, and I needed time to rectify and replace them. ”

Don was silent for a moment, then laughed, "Chris, it seems that you don't have enough faith in Band of Brothers! I spent $80 million to buy the North American rights to this TV series, but it's not as simple as defeating SHO." ”

"With just one miniseries, I want to beat HBO...... Difficult!"

Chris Albrect shook his head and added: "Cable TV is a long-term market, and if you want to keep the audience firmly in your hands, one TV series is not enough, you have to continue to provide quality content." Otherwise, viewers subscribed to watch "Band of Brothers" and might have abandoned the STA network in a few months. ”

Tang En nodded, "So, one "Band of Brothers" is far from enough, we have to produce more and better TV series, and use continuous attraction to bind the audience! Tang En Pictures has launched two series "Six Feet Under 2" and "The Line of Fire" this year, and there will be a comic book adaptation of "The Punisher" starting filming in October. On your side, you also need to synchronize, didn't you bring the content team with you?

"There is a project that is being conceived. ”

"What?"

"A comedy of urban life, "Desire for the City" is a female theme, this is the story of two male protagonists, who came to Hollywood to struggle and want to be stars. ”

Donn's eyes narrowed slightly, and he thought of it accurately, this is HBO's "Star Buddies" broadcast in 2004.

"Copyright is fine, right?"

"No, it's just an idea at the moment, when we were at HBO, we didn't leave any paper documents, it was just verbal communication. ”

"Hmm. ”

Don narrowed his eyes, and he had a plan in his heart.

Chris Albrecht is a comedian, and he is best at comedy. Although he later advocated investing in 100 million-level productions such as "Rome" and "Spartacus", it was many years later.

He jumped to the STA TV network, and according to the normal logic of thinking, he must launch a big enough production to show his ability, but he is just conceiving a comedy, and he is obviously not confident enough.

Tang En took a deep breath, it seems that the heavy responsibility of the content still has to be shouldered by himself!()

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