A few days after Tommy returned to Los Angeles, Herbert called him and said that he and Turner Jr. wanted to visit BT Entertainment Productions and chat with Tommy and Rick Luthor, the head of the show's production team, to find out why BT's self-produced shows have amazing ratings, while Turner's CNN, TPS, and TNT TV networks have been hitting the streets.

In the conference room of BT Entertainment, the resolute little Turner is definitely a doer, and after sitting down to say hello, the fifty-year-old white man with a beard stared at Tommy with straight eyes, and threw out the question, desperate to get the answer.

Tommy didn't rush to speak, it's not that he was afraid of saying the wrong thing, little Turner would beat himself like he beat Murdoch angrily when he didn't agree with him, the old man's gray-blue eyes were full of sincerity, he really didn't understand why a series of self-made movies, dramas and reality shows carefully produced by his three major TV networks were not loved by the audience, and he came to Los Angeles with the idea of seeking medical treatment to ask the BT TV network, a junior.

This old white man from the countryside, who was born in Ohio and likes to buy land when he earns money, and returns to his hometown ranch to ride horses and herd cattle in his spare time, has a short temper, a loud voice, vulgar language, and often makes some strange remarks, which at first glance is not much different from Tommy's father who is rampant in the countryside of Warwick.

But in reality, Turner Jr. is an out-and-out Democratic supporter, who likes to pay attention to and think about serious issues such as environmental protection, world peace, opposition to nuclear deterrence, and the American social system.

Many Democratic supporters, and even Democratic politicians like to act under slogans such as environmental protection and equal rights, and even Tommy is used to putting these words on his lips at every turn, but the problem is that Tommy and those people are just shouting slogans, and those concepts are just tools to beautify themselves, but this little Turner is playing for real, he really thinks that the United States needs to pay attention to environmental protection, the world needs peace, and Americans need universal health care, and is willing to make efforts to promote these.

In addition, he likes to do things in a hands-on style, and interferes with specific program production at every turn, so the self-made programs of the three major TV networks under his name are actually mixed with a lot of content that he hopes the audience to understand, that is, typical adulterated selfish goods, and it will only hell if such a program is produced to look good.

For example, Fox Television Network recently officially named a cartoon series that was previously a talk show warm-up skit "The Simpsons", expanding the length of a single episode to 30 minutes and putting it on prime-time for piloting, which is a cartoon series about the daily life of a typical blue-collar family in Ohio, USA.

Although this cartoon series often makes jokes about the government and capitalists, the politicians who appear in it are corrupt, the capitalists are greedy, and the police will only shake their heads and spread their hands, but every time the story ends well, the most important thing is that this cartoon series conveys a message that although the United States also has flaws, the people living here are optimistic, kind, and rich, and the United States is still a powerful country. It's all past events that make us smile.

Obviously it is a cartoon series, but the characters and plot in it evoke a strong sense of resonance among the majority of ordinary Americans, and the ten-episode pilot episode that Fox temporarily prepared to test the waters immediately entered the top ten in the ratings of its own program, and this kind of pilot performance also allowed Fox to quickly set up a luxury professional content team of more than 20 people for this cartoon series, ensuring that the first season that really starts in the future will be more exciting than these ten pilot episodes.

And Turner Jr. saw the fire of Fox's pilot broadcast of "The Simpsons", and also served as a screenwriter himself, producing a cartoon series to be piloted in prime time, focusing on promoting environmental protection, called "Earth Superman", hoping to let Americans understand the harm of environmental pollution and increase environmental protection awareness through cartoons.

As a result, the result of the two cartoon series fighting at the same time was that Fox's "The Simpsons" was praised by newspapers, magazines and TV audiences, and many TV magazines gave full marks.

And Little Turner, who thinks that "Earth Superman", which perfectly combines depth and entertainment, did not even finish the fifteen episodes of the trial broadcast, because a large number of viewers called to report the various monsters in "Earth Superman" scared their children to cry, and they were suspected of using the excuse of environmental pollution to create children's panic and hurriedly stopped broadcasting and returned to the furnace for transformation.

Another example is that the Fox Movie Channel launched a TV movie "Pray for Me" with a low cost but a good reputation among the audience, telling the story of the American pilot who carried the atomic bomb to bomb Japan and finally returned safely, focusing on portraying Japan's brutality and ferocity through the protagonist's recall of his brother's death at Pearl Harbor, so that the protagonist can take the initiative to ask Ying to drive the plane to drop the atomic bomb The reason becomes logical, he does not need to blame himself, he is not the murderer who killed hundreds of thousands of people, he is eliminating fascism, he is the American hero who ended the war.

Let's look at the operation of little Turner's uncle, TNT TV Network's self-made TV movie "The Long Shadow", which also tells the story of nuclear weapons, the protagonist is a doctor who participated in the development and testing of nuclear weapons radiation in the United States, and once met a soldier who was dying of cancer because of exposure to nuclear radiation, which made him realize that the nuclear weapons that he thought were supposed to maintain world peace were the biggest obstacle to world peace, and the protagonist fell into deep reflection and self-blame.

You don't need to go to the movies, just read the synopsis, normal Americans know which movie to choose to pass the time, after all, they watch movies for pleasure, not for depression.

After reading "The Long Shadow", the editor of the Los Angeles Times gave the evaluation: Turner Jr. has a brain disease, and it is worse than the illness of the main character of the movie.

"I think the most important thing, like I talked to Mr. Siegel in New York, is trust, trust the production team, and try not to interfere with them too much." Tommy smiled at little Turner and said:

"Communicate with them, discuss a general idea, if I agree, then the follow-up work will be completely handed over to them to be responsible, they will seriously meet to discuss whether the idea is feasible, and then go to market research, detail design, etc., I will not participate in those work, generally before the production of a self-made program, I will only meet the production team three times, the first time to discuss the ideas with them, the second time to listen to the production team report on the entire project plan they completed based on the idea, decide whether to take out the money to produce, the third time, Watch rough dailies with them. ”

Little Turner stared at Tommy fixedly, "I think you're suggesting that I've learned to shut up, boy." ”

"I know that you and your father, Mr. Turner Sr., are both masters of micromanagement with a background in economics at Brown University, and you can remember the locations and even the advertising content of more than 3,000 billboards in the United States, know the duration of each of their advertising contracts, and know which advertising space is suitable for what kind of advertising, I admire this very much, but program production does not need micromanagement, you can't always be a director, producer, screenwriter, lighting, stylist yourself...... This is not an advertising industry where the boss can easily double as an advertising salesman, but a television industry that emphasizes teamwork. Tommy took a sip of Coke and said to Turner Jr.

"You're just telling me to shut up." Turner Jr. repeated, but he laughed: "I've actually realized that I'm not a genius, at least not a genius in the production of the show, and that's why I want to use Warner as a shareholder, not in my own name, I'm afraid I'll be on your board of directors, and I can't help but point fingers, and Warner, they're going to send a good-natured executive to the board." ”

After chatting with Turner Jr. for a while, Rick Luthor finished his work and rushed to the conference room with his team to meet Turner Jr.

Tommy wasn't interested in this kind of business discussion involving the specific production process, and when Turner shifted his focus and began to ask Rick questions of curiosity, he got up and left, and went to a small conference room to have coffee with Herbert Siegel, who had accompanied Turner Jr., and asked him what kind of entertainment he would choose to pass the time if he had a few months of leisurely vacation.

As a result, they sat down for five minutes at most, and while the two were arguing whether to choose to specialize in mountaineering or practice skiing to pass the time, they heard footsteps outside, and the next second, Rick Luthor appeared outside the door with a strange face.

"It's only been five minutes." Tommy glanced at the time on his watch and said to Rick, "I don't think that's even enough time for you to finish introducing your team to Mr. Turner." ”

Rick shrugged his shoulders pitifully at Tommy and whispered, "The conversation didn't go well, Mr. Turner thought I was insincere, and I thought he was sick in the head." ”

The second more ~

(End of chapter)