After Feng integrated the music industry, Lin Feng turned his attention to the film and television field.

Film and television content actually includes many genres, such as movies, television, variety shows, documentaries, animations, short videos, and so on.

The film and television business will undoubtedly be the core business of the entertainment industry in the future mobile Internet era, and it can even be said that it is the core business!

Because what it carries is not only the value of film and television content itself.

More importantly, the film and television business naturally has multiple meanings such as becoming a traffic entrance, media platform, IP monetization and advertising revenue channel in the Internet and mobile Internet era!

Especially in China, a country with very strict supervision and control in the media field, whether it is the newspaper industry, radio and television, etc., it is state-owned, and it is difficult for private capital to intervene. Even if the film is relatively open, there is still a strict approval system.

With the development of the Internet, new media, represented by the Internet and the future mobile Internet, has begun to slowly penetrate and influence the original media industry pattern in many aspects.

In this case, Lin Feng should be more cautious and avoid touching sensitive areas.

Shanda Chen Tianqiao's painstaking "box strategy" (set-top box) is because it was stopped by radio and television, and many years of layout and investment were ruined, not to mention that he missed his most important two-year development opportunity, which is a typical example!

The core of the "box strategy" is to bet heavily on IPTV, but in addition to the immature conditions such as hardware and network at that time, the most important thing is the policy level!

You know, the integration of IP network and TV network is not decided by one company, although the IPTV pilot was being carried out at that time, but the IPTV license will only be issued to those top 5 TV stations in the country in terms of advertising revenue in the future, and the same is true after that.

This is a billion-dollar lesson!

Therefore, Fengxing has developed all the way, and has always been cautious in this regard, and has not even touched the more sensitive, news media attributes!

It wasn't until after the merger of Tencent that Fengxing came to have the news portal Tencent.com.

Lin Feng has previously invested in the private film company Huayi Brothers, the private program production company Guangguang Media, the private TV drama production company Huace Film and Television and other companies, and it can be said that the layout of the film and television content production side has been very perfect.

However, he has never set his sights on investing in newspaper groups with traditional newspaper media and television stations with traditional radio and television broadcasting platforms - because it is simply impossible!

Therefore, in terms of film and television content, Lin Feng can also invest in filmmaking, and in the future, he can also gradually form a cinema chain through his father's commercial real estate.

In terms of television, he can only use the current TV station's policy of separating production and broadcasting to intervene from the level of variety shows, TV dramas and other content production.

As for the broadcast and distribution platform of film and television, it can only start with the Internet platform.

From the perspective of the film and television industry chain, from the most upstream IP and original materials, to the content production (film and television companies) in the midstream, and the downstream publicity and distribution platforms (cinemas, websites, TV stations).

IP is a literary layout, so leave it alone.

The content production has been laid out, and the top three domestic film and television companies have invested.

As for the downstream distribution platform, the cinema chain is another level that cannot be touched by TV stations for the time being......

What Fengxing can do is the film and television website platform!

…………

From FF video (formerly storm video) to investment in PPS and Tudou, Lin Feng began this layout as early as 2005.

However, limited to the domestic broadband and other basic telecommunications facilities are not widespread enough, although the development of video websites is rapid, and in the past two years, with the entry of a large amount of funds, it has begun to show a disorderly situation.

But in fact, until now, there have been no real winners in this market!

In the first half of 2005, Tudou.com and Hexing.com were launched one after another.

In 2006, Youku and Ku6 were established, and in addition, some portals, including Sohu, Sina, and NetEase, also began to set foot in the video field to provide video services.

Plus 6 rooms, popcorn, PPlive, PPS, UUsee......

In 2006, it can be said that it was the first year of the development of China's online video industry, and many video websites received VC investment to varying degrees, with a cumulative total of more than 100 million US dollars.

At the same time, in October 2006, Youtube was acquired by Google for a sky-high price of $1.65 billion. This merger and acquisition case has opened people's eyes to the huge business opportunities in video sites. For a time, video websites exploded.

By 2007, there were more than 200 video websites.

According to incomplete statistics, during this period, the number of Chinese video websites was at its peak, with thousands of them!

It can be said that in the past two years, video websites are undoubtedly the hottest market in the Internet industry in the field of capital......

At the same time, the network video industry is also developing rapidly, according to the China Internet Network Information Center released the "21st China Internet Network Development Survey Statistical Report" disclosure, by the end of 2007, the proportion of online film and television viewing reached 76.9%, ranking the third highest position among all network applications, 160 million people (a total of 210 million Internet users) have enjoyed film and television programs through the Internet.

China's Internet broadband users have reached 97 million, which has also laid a solid user foundation for the development of the online video industry.

Despite the hot market, there are also a lot of problems with video sites!

Copyright issues, policy supervision, homogeneous competition, high operating costs, and unclear profit models......

After a two-year industry introduction period, these problems began to erupt in early 2008.

The first outbreak is at the policy and regulatory level:

On December 29, 2007, the former State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the former Ministry of Information Industry jointly promulgated the Regulations on the Administration of Internet Audio-Visual Program Services, establishing a licensing system for the operation of video websites. Subsequently, on the afternoon of March 20, 2008, the former State Administration of Radio, Film and Television announced the random inspection of Internet audio-visual program services, and 32 video websites such as Tudou were warned and punished for violating the content. Twenty-five websites, including Xunlei China and Maopu Video, were ordered to stop video program services.

Immediately after that, the capital ebb and flow:

With the spread of the financial crisis, in 2008, overseas investors began to shrink their capital, and video websites ebbed at the capital level.

In the retreat of venture capital, the shortcomings of video websites are becoming increasingly apparent: high operating costs, burning a lot of money, large capital needs, mainly relying on venture capital, large investment, low returns, single profit model, and serious piracy.

Lack of funds, unclear copyrights, and pornographic supervised video-sharing websites seem to face the fate of being eliminated.

For example, in 2007, Tudou's monthly bandwidth cost was more than 10 million, and Youku's was as much as 6 million.

With the continuous strengthening of the copyright awareness of content providers, video website lawsuits continue, and compensation has become a hot topic.

The distress of a small website is not the same as that of a large website......

Even if it does not attract the attention of the copyright owner for the time being because of its small size, you don't have to worry about the copyright lawsuit, but "the advertising fee is only more than 1,000 yuan a month, but it costs 600 yuan a month just to rent a server...... Is there a future for EB2.0 video sharing sites?"The distress of the operators of those small websites is even a bit humble and pitiful.

As far as Lin Feng, who started a business from 2006 to 2008 in his previous life and made a video website, this scene is so familiar that he is also a little embarrassed.

Without financial support, video sites must find a monetization model to survive or stay competitive by differentiating content.

"It is no exaggeration to say that advertising has always controlled the lifeblood of the Internet, and content is the life of the Internet. ”

And "for Internet companies that rely on traffic to win, advertising is their only chance to make money." ”

There is no source of advertising revenue, and the vast majority of video content, which is the main body of video websites, has no copyright, which makes the profit model of these video websites extremely variable, and homogeneous competition will make it difficult for these small websites to maintain.

It can be said that the four major obstacles, such as lack of funds, copyright maintenance, pornographic content and homogeneous competition, have brought the development of most existing video websites to a bottleneck stage.

And in this round of reshuffle, the first-line team of video websites has gradually emerged.

FF Audio, Tudou, 56 (My Music), Youku, Six Rooms, PPS, Cool 6, First Video, PPlive, UUsee.

These top 10 websites have eaten up 88% of user traffic.

Among them, the online video website has the highest market share, which is Fengxing Investment, Tudou, but even so, Tudou only accounts for 22.18% of the share.

The traffic share of the top three websites: Tudou, My Le, and Youku accounted for 22.18%, 19.98%, and 13.92% of the total traffic respectively, accounting for more than half of the traffic of all video websites.

In terms of network video client software, FF audio, PPS, and PPlive occupy nearly 80% of the market share, of which FF video has a share of more than 45%.

In fact, for Lin Feng, 2008 is not a particularly good time to integrate Internet audio-visual platforms.

Because the market is still too small......

Even with the integration now, new players can still slice a slice of the pie from the vast number of new markets.

For example, iQiyi, which was only established in 2010 under the investment of Baidu, is still in the top three positions in the industry with the growth of new users in the online video industry.

The real explosion of video websites was around 2010.

Especially with the explosion of the mobile Internet, with the popularity of the Ipad, the number of mobile video APP users has skyrocketed.

However, considering the "Internet Wenqing" temperament of Wang Wei of Tudou and his divorce lawsuit in his previous life, Lin Feng feels that it is also necessary to make some advance adjustments and layouts at this time......

can't be like in the previous life, but was preempted by Youku, and in turn acquired potatoes, which is a bit too much of a failure.

Buying Youku now and merging Youku and Tudou is actually a good choice!

Although Gu Yongqiang was born in capital, he can still find investment in the capital winter of the financial crisis, but I believe that Lin Feng can impress him if he has a sufficient price.

You must know that if Youku and Tudou merge, they will immediately become the number one leader in the market, with a market share of more than 35%.

This temptation, coupled with the right price, Gu Yongqiang will definitely be tempted.

He was a businessman, not a dreamer......

As for Wang Wei, Lin Feng prefers to let him do some more literate projects, such as Douban, such as animation, or ...... Station A!

So, Lin Feng personally came forward and secretly interviewed Gu Yongqiang and Wang Wei successively.

Subsequently, the three parties sat together and had a confidential talk.

Lin Feng's opinion is very simple and direct: "Now the video website is still burning a lot of money, and it will not be profitable for a long time, and the business homogeneity of the two sides is serious, and there will be competition in copyright, advertising and other aspects in the future, this situation will last for at least 2-3 years, so it's not interesting to burn money, it's better to merge." ”

Although Lin Feng's words are ordinary, it depends on who said them!

What ordinary people say, the two of them may laugh it off and take it seriously. But when Lin Feng said it, they had to listen carefully and think about it seriously.

Yes, as a top-ranked video site in the industry, they are able to continue to raise funds.

But no matter how rich VC is, it is not as rich as Lin Feng......

Not to mention that there are countless traffic entrances and resources under the Fengxing Group.

If Lin Feng wanted to make a move, either side would be nervous.

Especially Gu Yongqiang, he was even more worried.

After all, Fengxing originally held 40% of the shares of potatoes, and potatoes are now ranked first.

And Lin Feng is notoriously generous, and the prices given to the two are very attractive.

Therefore, in the end, he still persuaded Gu Yongqiang and Wang Wei.

Since Youku and Tudou have already carried out several rounds of financing, the last time they talked, the investors of the two companies sat together again, and Lin Feng came out to discuss the merger and acquisition.

Youku's investors: Sutter Hill Ventures in Silicon Valley, Farallon Capital, Chengei Ventures, Bain Capital.

Investors in Tudou: IDG, GGV Capital, JAFCO Asia (JAFCO? Asia), Capital? Today? Investment）、General? Catalyst, KTB Venture Capital Fund (KTB? China? Optimum? Fund)、GC? Entrepreneurs? Fund、CA-JAIC? China? Internet? Fund。

All investor representatives were present.

Lin Feng saw that most of them were acquaintances, and they had dealt with all the large and small acquisitions that were popular before.

He didn't talk nonsense, and directly said what he meant.

Nima, super bosses like Lin Feng have come forward in person, this face must be given!

And these investment institutions calculate, in just 1 or 2 years, there are at least 3 times the return, what do you disagree with?

Not only did they all agree to the merger, but they also wanted to keep their shares in the merged company and were willing to invest more!

If you can follow Lin Feng, this case will be too reliable!

Lin Feng thought about it, the key to whether to keep these VCs is whether to list the merged Youku Tudou.

It doesn't seem necessary to go public, in the previous life, Youku Tudou was listed, and it was delisted after Ali acquired it. Tossed around, it doesn't make much sense.

He shook his head: Forget about this project, if there are other investment projects in the future, you will also be counted!

…………

On May 18, 2008, Fengxing Group announced the acquisition of Oneness Network Technology Co., Ltd. (Youku) at a price of 300 million US dollars.

At the same time, it was announced that Fengxing Group has completed the acquisition of 60% of the shares of Tudou Holding Company (Tudou) at a price of US$160 million, because Fengxing Group has previously held 40% of the shares of Tudou, and after the acquisition, Tudou has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fengxing Group.

After the acquisition, Fengxing Film and Television Group (Youtu Group) will be established, which includes video websites and video software such as Tudou, Youku, FF Audio, and PPS.

According to the announced news, Youku will focus on the field of genuine high-definition long video from now on, while Tudou will continue to adhere to the original intention of "everyone is the director of life" and create a rich and diverse UGC original video platform.

Gu Yongqiang will remain as the chairman and CEO of Youtu Group, and Wang Wei is ready to continue to start a business after cashing out.

The move to acquire Youku and Tudou and merge the two has suddenly excited the already slightly dull online video market.

Immediately, people reacted that the merger of these two companies means that there is a behemoth on the online video website!

Several other companies in the front-line camp, such as Liujianfang, Cool 6, and 56, panicked all of a sudden......

No one noticed, at the same time, Fengxing Group also acquired an inconspicuous small company: for 4 million yuan, from the founder Xilin, it acquired AcFun barrage video network, a two-dimensional website that does animation serialization and imitates the Japanese video sharing station NICONICO animation to make a barrage player with subtitles.

The investment is so small that it doesn't even need to be announced......