King's Road.

Dingsheng Culture Company.

In the conference room, the heads of various periodical departments were crowded together.

Zhang Shaoping sat on the seat, and the first sentence at the beginning was: "Today, there are several new members of our prosperous family, and everyone here should know them, they are Chen Baisheng, Shu Qi, Li Xuantao, and Luo Weiming. ”

"I know, why don't I know, before today, our two families were still enemies." Cen Jianxun said with a "resentful" face, "Our "Film Times" has chased after "Film Fortnightly" fiercely! ”

"It's chasing, that's why "Movie Fortnightly" will marry into its heyday." Chen Baisheng replied with a smile.

The two men spoke in a mysterious way.

At the beginning, Zhang Shaoping said that he wanted to make a film and television magazine, and Chen Guanzhong immediately thought of merging and approving existing film magazines, and "Film Fortnightly" is regarded as a continuation of "Big Close-up", has historical origins, and has a certain existing audience, the most important thing is that it loses money every year, and it is not worth much, but it just made up a Hong Kong Film Awards, which is a deformed wonder in the industry.

The person sent to negotiate with Chen Baisheng was Shum Jianxun. The two didn't say a few words, but Chen Baisheng categorically refused, and Cen Jianxun had to go back.

Just two of them, Cen Jianxun said meaningfully, our "Film Times" magazine wanted to merge you at the beginning, but you didn't want to, and now it's not a merger. Chen Baisheng unequivocally counterattacked, "Film Fortnightly" was bought by Dingsheng, and the implication is that we are "family members" rather than "dependents".

Zhang Shaoping smiled, ignored it, and continued: "To paraphrase Sir Shao's words: 'I am a businessman first, and a filmmaker second. It's the same thing with newspapers and magazines. From my point of view, it is better not to do a publication that does not make money, because it has been losing money, it is thankless to spend money and effort, and it will close its doors quickly. ”

Chen Baisheng listened to this discussion and disagreed with it in his heart, but Zhang Shaoping was talking, and he couldn't interrupt and refute, so he just listened to Zhang Shaoping continue.

"In my opinion, all businesses in the world can be profitable, and the same is true for magazines. There are two most important points in doing media business, especially in the paper media industry, one is sales, and the other is advertising. These two are the lifeblood of the enterprise, and everything must revolve around these two. All of you here are leaders in the industry, I won't say it deeply, and everyone knows it. ”

"Zhang Sheng, according to what you say, don't you want to attract attention with nude photos of female stars? How is this different from magazines such as "Southland Movie", "Silver World", and "Galaxy Pictorial"? ”

After listening to Zhang Shaoping for a long time, he came and went around the word "making money", only to feel that Zhang Shaoping had simply fallen into the money pit, Chen Baisheng couldn't help it, and interjected and asked. Chen Baisheng regretted selling "Film Fortnightly" to Zhang Shaoping at this time, but it was too late to regret it.

Perhaps because of his disgust, Chen Baisheng's words couldn't help but have a questioning tone. When talking about business, Zhang Shaoping hates that others interrupt him, but after all, Chen Baisheng is the first time to participate in the company's meeting, and he is not good at changing color, so he frowned and said: "If you have any questions, you can wait for me to finish, talk freely, and put forward opinions, but when I speak, please listen to me quietly." ”

Zhang Shaoping did not name names, everyone knew that he was referring to Chen Baisheng. Chen Baisheng's face flushed, he felt extremely aggrieved, and was about to get up angrily, but Shu Qi took his hand and shook his head, telling him not to be impulsive and not to be impatient.

Zhang Shaoping ignored Chen Baisheng, and then continued: "Sales and advertising are actually cause and effect, as long as the sales are large, advertising will naturally come to the door." So how can you increase sales? I can summarize it in a few points, it must be orderly and well-positioned, and secondly, it must have a clear character and a good style.

Orderly operation is a prerequisite for the sustainable operation of a formal enterprise, so I will not say more. Speaking of clear positioning, let's listen to the statistical report of the company's marketing and sales department. ”

Zhang Shaoping nodded to Chen Guanzhong, who gave an order, and then saw his secretary pick up the manuscript and said, "Everyone, let's take "Film Times" as an example. In the first phase, "Film Times" sold 80,000 copies in mainland China, priced at 5 cents per book, about HK$1.8 per copy, and 4,000 copies were sold in Hong Kong at HK$5.5 per copy. After deducting the editor's salary, author's remuneration, production cost, delivery fee, etc., the loss was more than 130,000 yuan...... In the fourth phase, 300,000 copies were sold in mainland China and 60,000 copies were sold in Hong Kong, with a surplus of HK$50,000 after deducting editors' salaries, authors' remunerations, production costs, and delivery costs. ”

"Why is it that sales are going up, but our magazine's profitability isn't improving?" Zhang Shaoping said in a deep voice, "That's because our magazines in these issues are selling so much because of the popularity of Hong Kong dramas such as "Hero Huo Yuanjia" in the mainland. In Hong Kong, our magazine's reputation is still too small, and only major film institutions are interested. The mainland has good sales, but the advertising cost is too low, and Hong Kong needs to sell at least 100,000 copies if it wants to attract the favor of advertisers. ”

The major magazines under the heyday, "Outside" are half-dead, purely Zhang Shao's paperback signboard, and the two magazines "TV Times" and "Film Times", which have high hopes, each printed 10,000 copies in their inaugural issues, but only sold more than 7,000 copies in total, and some of the remaining magazines were sent to airports, high-end hotels, and movie theaters, and some were sent directly to several college campuses for free, losing money and making money as advertisements.

Sales in the mainland are rising and rising rapidly, but if they are subsidized to the holes in Hong Kong, the profits are much smaller.

On the contrary, the sales of "Vogue" magazine are surprising, the first issue sold a total of about 150,000 copies in the two places, and the fourth issue has rushed to 670,000, and even exported overseas, the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and other regions have been ordered, and the advertising cost alone is better than the total sales profit of all magazines.

"Of course, the magazine has only been published for four issues, and there are such sales, and our efforts have not been in vain, and everyone's efforts are still worthy of recognition." Zhang Shaoping's tone just relaxed, and then changed again, "But they are all magazines that were launched at the same time, why is the sales of "Fashion" so hot?" There has to be a reason for such a big gap, right? ”

Qiu Shiwen is a shareholder director anyway, and seeing that the atmosphere is too serious, he said with a smile: "The reason is very simple, because the audience of "Fashion" magazine is relatively wide, suitable for both men and women, while the audience of film and television magazines is much narrower, and the sales volume is of course much lower." ”

Liu Tianlan said: "I'm a woman, let's look at it from a woman's perspective." The new and trendy clothing, hairstyles, dress-ups, shopping, fashion figures, pop culture, fashion lifestyle, and style names introduced in Vogue magazine are all refreshing and popular. We women like to dress up, and the trend led by "Fashion" allows us to learn to package ourselves and give full play to our personal charm. So it's no surprise that Vogue magazine is well-liked by readers. ”

"You're to the point! That's what does it mean that people nowadays are using Vogue magazine as a standard to measure trend elements? Zhang Shaoping smiled and clapped his hands, "This shows that "Vogue" magazine has gradually become a professional and authoritative magazine in the fashion industry in the eyes of more and more readers. ”

Speaking of this, Zhang Shaoping said word by word: "Authority is what we have to do!" ”

Chen Baisheng held back his sulk for a long time, and finally waited for the opportunity to fight back, and immediately jumped out and said: "Our "Film Fortnightly" selects the top ten Chinese films and top ten foreign language films every year, all of which are rated by senior film critics, which is authoritative enough, but there are still very few people who buy them. ”

"That's not how authority is defined!" Zhang Shaoping shook his head and said, "Your film professionalism is enough, but is anyone convinced of the two top ten movies evaluated?" If it's authoritative enough, your Academy Awards won't make people laugh! Professionalism is professional, authority is convincing, and the vast majority of people agree that the Hong Kong Film Awards are regarded as the highest honor for Chinese films. ”

Shu Qi was also a little disappointed, and said: "Zhang Sheng, the movies that most people agree with are those movies that have no connotation and laugh at them, and they forget after watching them, how can such a movie win an award." ”

Zhang Shaoping rubbed his temples and felt a headache, how could these people be brainless one by one.

According to Zhang Shaoping's view, even if it is a gossip magazine, as long as it can make people think of the magazine as soon as they mention gossip, then it can be said that this magazine is authoritative in gossip matters. Therefore, whether a magazine has an authoritative surname and whether it is high-end and high-grade depends on whether the audience it is aimed at agrees with it.

Zhang Shaoping thought about it and put it another way: "Anything that is authoritative is influential!" On the contrary, everything that is influential is authoritative! Am I right? ”

Everyone nodded, unable to hear the problem.

Zhang Shaoping spread his hands and said: "Isn't this enough, if the magazine can't be sold, it won't have influence, and if it doesn't have influence, it can't talk about authority." On the other hand, if it is not an authoritative magazine, it will definitely not sell. ”

Shu Qi and Chen Baisheng were dumbfounded when they heard this. Zhang Shaoping's fluttering words stripped away the so-called "authoritative surname" of their film critics.

Luo Weiming felt funny when he saw Chen Baisheng, who has always been good at fooling, was deflated in front of Zhang Shaoping, he was not a brainless person, and he would never hold the idea that film critics are the most professional. He came out to play a round and said: "Zhang Sheng has something to say, it shouldn't be a rejection of literary films, why not tell it to you?" ”

"I divide film magazines into two categories, one is popular fashion, which is aimed at the general public and reports what everyone likes to see. The other type is professional, facing industry insiders and fans with high-end appreciation levels, focusing on professional film reviews, doing in-depth reports and analysis. ”

Hearing this, Chen Baisheng and Shu Qi were much more relaxed, and Zhang Shaoping still valued the opinions of film critics after all. Everyone also knows that today's highlight has arrived, and they are all listening seriously.

"As we all know, Film Times and Film Fortnight are quite homogeneous in terms of content, so they have to be reorganized. In addition, if you have good suggestions for several other magazines, you can also put them forward. Since we have the right to host the Hong Kong Film Awards, we must have the right to match the influence and authority, otherwise, no one will take the award seriously, isn't it a joke? ”

Giving an award, there is not even a trophy, and most of the people who go are also jokes, Zhang Shaoping would rather not hold such an award, rather than let people laugh like a fool.

When discussing the issue of reorganization, everyone can freely express their opinions, and whether it is feasible to change it or not, and every proposal has to go through a period of heated debate. Zhang Shaoping specially ordered several well-known foreign film publications, such as "Film Handbook", "Hollywood Reporter", "Variety" and so on as a reference.

At lunch and dinner, everyone settled the matter in the conference room, and they debated fiercely until about 10 o'clock in the evening, and finally came up with a rough reorganization plan.

"Film Times" changed from a semi-monthly magazine to a weekly magazine for the simple reason that there are more than 200 films shot in Hong Kong every year, but only half of the films that can be released are shot, about 120 or so a year. If you add other movies in the Greater China region, you can write enough movie entertainment material every week.

The permanent columns of "Film Times" include "Film News Information", "Industry News", "Studio Highlights", "Reader Interaction", "Star Style", and "Star Dream".

"Movie News Information" is nothing more than what movies are released that week, who is acting, what genre, the release date, which theaters can be watched, etc. "Industry dynamics" includes information on film companies of all sizes and information on major studios, such as film openings, recruitment, rental equipment, and recruiting actors. "On-set tidbits", that is, picking two or three crews to follow up and report on the filming process. "Reader interaction", such as idols and the like, fans send blessings, and vote for the "set tidbits" of the crew. "Star style" is mainly poster stills, life photos and photo photos, and is also voted by the "reader interaction" column. "Star Dream" was also voted for, including directors, screenwriters, actors, etc., who talked about their bumpy experience of entering the showbiz, which was a bit of an interview.

The dynamic columns include "Close Contact", "Most Popular Artist of the Month" and "Most Popular Artist of the Year". The former is voted by readers every month to vote for idol stars to participate in a certain event, such as charity, what competitions, various ribbon-cutting activities, etc. The latter two can be seen by comparing the cover characters of Time Magazine.

The "Television Times" column was set up in the same way as "Film Times", but it was changed to a monthly magazine.

Such a column is based on Zhang Shaoping's dictation, and everyone sorted it out together. Looking at these from the perspective of people of this era, it is simply too advanced and too good, and if it can be done, the sales of the magazine will definitely be so hot that it will not work.

Chen Guanzhong asked everyone's doubts: "Zhang Sheng, can readers vote for celebrities to participate in events or something?" ”

Zhang Shaoping said: "I haven't tried it, how do you know?" For merchants, who he invites is not invited, and this can also be advertised in our place for free. stars, they can not only get appearance fees, but also interact with fans, killing two birds with one stone. Needless to say, movie fans can get up close and personal with idol stars. As for us, we can get a large number of fans. Everyone is beneficial, and it should be possible to negotiate. ”

Deng Xiaoyu asked: "Free advertising?" ”

"In the beginning! When our influence explodes, that's when they come to us with money! Zhang Shaoping smiled, "How much they take advantage of us, it won't take long for me to spit out all the principal and interest." Oh, by the way, TV Time magazine, the Greater China edition and the international edition are all in one, so let's do it later. ”

"Film and television have the most popular artist selection, what about singing, dancing and hosting?" Qiu Shiwen asked.

"Is there any artist in Hong Kong who is not interdiscriminate? I can't really find a few people who haven't made movies or TV before! Zhang Shaoping thought for a while and said: "When "Film Times" magazine voted for the year, these were all included in the list, since it is called 'the most popular artist', of course, it is the best among all artists. ”;