Early June 1988.

Hong Kong, Clear Water Bay, luxury residential area.

The rich people who live here should be happy. In particular, those who retire and enjoy their old age should be even happier.

However, Run Run Shaw, the founder of Shaw Brothers Film Company and the owner of TVB, is not very happy now. Because, in recent years, although his wealth has increased a lot with the appreciation of real estate prices.

But he paid more attention to the film and television cultural industry, but he didn't make any money.

TVB TV is a little better, although its performance has declined over the years, it is the only two TV stations in Hong Kong after all.

Since the old rival Li's TV station was acquired by the new entrepreneurship department and renamed Xingchen Channel, the ratings have surpassed. However, the business model of Xingchen TV is different from TVB, it does not focus on advertising revenue, and even greatly cuts advertisements in the program. Xingchen only uses the audience ratings in Hong Kong as a reference index to decide to sell those film and television and animation rights to customers all over the world.

Xingchen Channel's programs are not expensive, the price of each episode is only a few thousand Hong Kong dollars, and even a few hundred Hong Kong dollars a episode in some smaller market areas are also sold, even in developed country markets, each episode does not exceed 30,000 Hong Kong dollars, which can be called a relatively cheap hit drama, so some customers in the international market who cannot afford American dramas often consider introducing cheap Hong Kong dramas. However, Xingchen TV's programs are sold all over the world, and even if a single episode is cheap, it is sold to hundreds of TV customers, which is a very large income.

The income of Xingchen Channel can be as high as 1 billion Hong Kong dollars a year, most of which is earned from selling the copyright of dramas. Hong Kong's advertising revenue is only more than HK$100 million.

And TVB can hold on, because the advertiser's budget has not been reduced, so the annual advertising revenue of five or six billion yuan is enough to make TVB TV station slightly profitable.

What's more, TVB is also supporting the trend of hot sales of Hong Kong dramas, selling self-made Hong Kong dramas to the world, and there can be a copyright sales income of two or three billion yuan a year.

Shaw Brothers Film Company, that is a bleak business, not only the performance of the film production business is very poor, but also the cinema business, the box office has also plummeted, last year's total revenue fell below 100 million Hong Kong dollars, and this year I am afraid it will be even lower.

"Why has the performance of Shaw Brothers Film Company declined again recently?" Shaw's old voice sounded in the study, and he was no longer too concerned about the business situation of Shaw Brothers Film Company and TVB TV.

Instead, he handed over the operation of TVB to his wife Fang Yihua.

As for Shaw Brothers Film Company, it is nominally the controlling shareholder of TVB, but Shaw Brothers Films actually has a business for its main films, but in fact, it is already very unbearable.

And the core people have all gone to TVB, and now the person in charge of Shaw Brothers Films is the middle-level Huang Cassia of the original company. Although, many people feel that Uncle Shao Liu's door is slamming and frequently jumps to his peers.

However, Huang Cianming was almost forty years old and was laid off by the original company and was forced to apply for Shaw Brothers.

Now let him be the general manager of the Shaw Brothers film business, not optimistic about his ability, just because the old man of the Shaw Brothers Film Group has either changed jobs or is doing TV, and not many people are willing to make movies.

This is the turn of Huang Cianming, an unknown figure, to take the position.

And this history has not left a small person with a name, nor has it been able to reverse the decline of Shaw Brothers Film Company.

Last year, the annual box office data of all theaters of Shaw Brothers Film Company was less than 100 million yuan. Not only the local data in Hong Kong, but also the Shaw Brothers cinema chain in Nanyang.

There are probably more than 50 movie theaters, which are not small. Even if it is rented out to collect rent, it is more than so much money, but in the whole of last year, more than 50 movie theaters only collected 80 million Hong Kong dollars. After deducting the production budget and the third-party film investor who received a share of the film distributed by Shaw Brothers.

belongs to the Shaw Brothers movie, and in the end it is less than 50 million yuan!

There is no movie theater, and it only creates 1 million revenue a year...... With this income, you can use the venue to do these things, such as selling clothing, department stores, and opening restaurants, and it is more than that!

In the golden age of Hong Kong films, other film and television companies are making a fortune, and Shaw Brothers is a little cool!

"I'm sorry, Uncle Six! In the past few years, the Hong Kong film market has changed too much. Before, it was just companies such as Golden Harvest and New Art City that used big stars to attract audiences, and we could still imitate them. However, in recent years, movies have been based on special effects, and new start-up film and television companies are leading the world in technology, and they may burn tens of millions of dollars to do special effects in a movie. Other film companies, Golden Harvest and New Art City, will also come up with one or two blockbusters to do computer special effects. Our company's annual production budget is not enough for 5 million, and the budget for each film is hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is not enough for special effects at all!" Huang Cianming said with his head bowed in front of his desk, he looked like a primary school student in front of Run Run Shaw, and he didn't dare to talk back at all.

Shaw closed his eyes, I don't know if he was too uncomfortable or thinking about the problem, in short, there was only the sound of two people breathing in the study at this time, and after a while, Shaw slowly opened his eyes.

"You go first, maybe I don't really understand movies anymore. Run Run Shaw's words sounded a little sad, Huang Cianming didn't know why, but the chairman asked him to leave, he didn't dare to disobey, and he didn't dare to ask more.

After leaving the study, Huang Cianming left in a hurry, some distance from Run Run Shaw's villa to his own home, but even so, he came to report every day, and when he was on the way, Huang Cianming couldn't help but start thinking about what Run Run Shaw's words meant.

Since its establishment in 1958, Shaw Brothers has been a leader in the industry, and although Shaw was 50 years old at the time, his mind was much stronger than that of the average young man.

Shaw Brothers Film Company follows the route of commercial films, and "audience first" is the secret of Shaw Brothers' rise in the first place. At the beginning, Shaw watched a few movies a day and more than a dozen. All kinds of movies and dramas in ancient and modern China and abroad are well understood.

In Shaw Brothers, whether directors and actors will be reused is also based on box office records, among which Li Hanxiang was reused by Shaw because of the huge sensation caused by the filming of the Huangmei opera film "Tianxian Pei" in Chinese mainland, and in this regard, his decision was very wise, causing Shaw Film Company to reach the peak of the industry.

But with the development of the times, movies have long been different from the past. However, Shaw's understanding of movies is still stuck in his youth, at most the aesthetic preferences of his fifties and sixties, so not only can he not help Shaw Brothers Film Company keep up with new technologies and trends, but also because the concept is too old, it will drag down the development of Shaw Brothers Film Company.

The rise of Golden Harvest in the 70s, and the emergence of New Art City in the 80s. These were supposed to be the elements of success that would have awakened Shaw Brothers and imitated its rivals. However, Shaw Brothers did not, but made the movie worse and worse.

The movies of the new entrepreneurship department are hundreds of millions of big productions at every turn, and the tastes of Hong Kong audiences are more picky. For Shaw, this is a huge disaster.

Everyone is demanding Hong Kong movies with a budget of more than 100 million, who still watches Shaw Brothers' garbage movies with a budget of hundreds of thousands and millions?

As a result, Golden Harvest and Xinyicheng also need to continue to spend tens of millions of yuan to purchase the supercomputer of Xinchuang Electronic Technology Group and cultivate their own special effects team.

As for the Shaw Brothers, they have become outcasts of the times, and it is impossible to spend so much money to make special effects blockbusters, and even ordinary movies can't be made well.

So much so that Run Run Shaw, who has feelings for the brand of Shaw Bros. Films, had to make a difficult decision - to find the right buyer and sell the asset at the right price.

……

"Mr. Lin, the information you asked for about the Shaw Brothers Film Company has been brought to you. "The secretary is very neat.

Looking at the information in his hand, Lin Qi felt a little embarrassed, he was very lamented by the decline of a generation of empires, and at the same time, he was still very interested in the resources of the Shaw Brothers' cinema line.

Shaw's life is legendary, and he is probably one of the few people who lived to be over 100 years old. However, Shaw's greatest achievement in his life was not only the establishment of the Shaw Brothers Film Company or the operation of TVB, but since the 80s, he has continued to donate funds to the mainland free of charge to fund education in China.

In other words, it is other tycoons, either for political status or for economic policy tilt. Or they may make a name for themselves and make their own name, and most of the charitable donations are called on others to donate.

But Run Run Shaw is a rare real person, the donation is entirely his personal wealth, and the donation for education is basically earmarked. The Shaw Building, which can be seen all over the country, proves that Uncle Shao's donations are real.

And after donating so much money, Uncle Shao Liu did not seek business benefits, on the contrary, he began to donate money on a large scale for charity. Not only is there not much investment in mainland business, but business in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia and other places is constantly shrinking and selling. The proceeds were entirely raised by Shaw's ongoing fire sales of privately owned assets.

For such a person, Lin Qi has a very good impression, as the saying goes, Da is good for the world, and Run Run Shaw did this perfectly.

"Contact the people in charge of Shaw Brothers, find out what they are talking about, and see if Shaw Brothers is planning to sell it now. Lin Qi instructed the secretary, and then began to check the information of the Shaw Brothers Film Company.

For Shaw Brothers Film Company, Lin Qi acquired it, mainly to make up for the disadvantages of the newly entrepreneurial film and television group in terms of theatrical distribution channels. The development of world film history proves that only when channels and content work together can we maximize profits.

As for Hollywood studios in the United States, they can't operate theaters...... That's because, after World War II, the antitrust law continued to become stricter, and Hollywood movie giants were forced to sell theater chains in the United States to avoid violating antitrust laws.

However, Disney, Warner and other giants do not invest in theaters in the United States, which does not mean that their distribution power is weak. Because, after these giants abandoned the theater chain, they invested in more promising television networks. So much so that more of the revenue of these giants comes from the media, rather than the traditional film business.

In the era of eyeball economy, mastering media channels such as TV stations and the Internet is actually no less important than mastering physical channels such as cinemas.

Moreover, the fact that Hollywood giants do not own theaters in the United States does not mean that theaters are not worth anything. In the overseas market, many Hollywood giants are not worried about the anti-monopoly law, as long as they can acquire the market of the cinema chain, these giants will not hesitate to acquire.

"Mr. Lin, the manager of the Shaw Brothers film and cinema business was only temporarily promoted, and he didn't have much real power, and this kind of thing needs to be decided by Uncle Shao Liu. The secretary said.

"Well, then you can help me pre-plan Uncle Shao!" Lin Qi pondered for a moment, and also felt that he should go and negotiate in person.

"Okay. The secretary replied neatly.