1727 whimsical
Imagination is full of infinite possibilities. In the conception stage, they can even use their imagination to stuff the entire universe into a small room, and the same is true for founding a company; but in the actual execution stage, things are full of many variables, as Netflix has experienced It took twenty years of stumbles and breakthroughs to evolve into the top giant in the industry. This is not an easy task..
Renly is the hands-off shopkeeper, responsible for all the imagination, and he draws a big pie at random.
But Andre cannot do this. He needs to consider the actual feasibility. Even if it is really feasible, there are a thousand different possibilities for failure during the execution process..
Regarding the establishment of distribution channels, Andre's thinking direction has always been focused on traditional theater chains. Now that the situation has suddenly been opened up, the entire idea must be overturned and restarted. This is a huge project, and he vomited a long sentence. He temporarily suppressed those messy thoughts and asked the simplest and most direct question..
“Relying on your own ability to fill the content library, you know, this is a long-term process, and you cannot become a big fat man in one bite. So what should you do with the accumulation of subscribers in the early stage? It took Netflix thirteen years to accumulate less than 20 million paying subscribers through video rentals and TV boxes." Andre directly pointed out the core of the problem in a few words..
Although "House of Cards" has been a huge success, Netflix's plan to fill its content library with original works has only just begun. Setting aside this point for the moment, and forgetting for the moment the difficulty of finding 10 billion investment, it must be noted that, There are prerequisites behind the success of "House of Cards"：
Thirteen years of accumulation of subscribers provided a solid platform, and then "House of Cards" won attention through solid and excellent content, completing a leap from quantitative change to qualitative change. This is a "wine-flavored, fearful alley" In the era of "deep", standing out in the ocean of network information is definitely not that simple..
“I don't have any ideas." Renly didn't panic at all. The natural answer made Andre choke in his throat. He stared at Renly with a depressed face, and then secretly grinded his teeth, "Sebastian ! You almost made me swear. You know, that's very, very impolite..”
Renly shrugged, not caring, "I can only say that Sony Columbia has the second largest film library in the industry, but they do not manage their streaming platform well..”
Andre's expression paused for a moment, and then his eyes brightened..
As of 2017, as far as Renly knows, North American streaming services are divided into three parts: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.
Netflix is the only one with 50 million users in North America and 120 million users worldwide. It has opened up with excellent TV series such as "House of Cards", "Breaking Bad", and "Stranger Things", and its market value has even begun to catch up. Disney - In 2017, Disney showed unparalleled dominance in the entire movie market with its Marvel series and Star Wars series, but it still could not stop Netflix from catching up. This shows the trend of the times, which also prompted A series of subsequent actions by Disney.
Amazon caught up from behind and jointly launched online streaming media-related services based on the priority users (Prime) of its own shopping website. Amazon has as many as 90 million North American Prime users, and as of 2017, nearly 30 million of them are Already started subscribing to Amazon’s online streaming media. The Emmy Award-winning “Transparent” and the Oscar-winning “Manchester by the Sea” are Amazon’s works, and they have begun to produce the TV series version of “Lord of the Rings”.
Hulu is stepping up its efforts. This online on-demand platform founded in 2007 is jointly invested by NBCUniversal, Disney and News Corporation. The three represent the huge film libraries of Universal Pictures, Disney and 20th Century Fox respectively. This makes Hulu Their resource content library is far ahead of the competition, and the original series "The Handmaid's Tale" also swept the Emmy Awards. However, their subscriber base is only 16 million, which is seriously inconsistent with their rich financial resources..
To put it simply, Hulu’s original series model still refers to HBO’s classic routines. It mainly focuses on dark, adult, and high-quality lines, but ignores the rapid youth trend of audiences in the Internet era; at the same time, it lacks the expansion of overseas markets. This also makes Hulu’s subsequent financial support lag behind Netflix and Amazon. In 2017, the three giants’ investment in Hulu’s original works was only one-third of Netflix’s and half of Amazon’s..
Specific to the six major Hollywood film companies, Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, which gave them a 60% stake in Hulu, and they are also preparing to establish an online streaming media for sports content through ESPN, fully catching up with Netflix..
Warner Bros. later also owned 10% of the copyright of Hulu through Time Warner's capital injection. In addition, Time Warner created its own streaming media platform "HBO-NOW" in 2014, and all HBO dramas are available Watch it here, "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld" are still their top series, in addition, they have also reached a cooperation agreement with Apple's "Apple-TV".
Universal Pictures owns 30% of Hulu's equity and also has its own streaming media platform "Seeso", but it has not put much thought into its operations and has not made any further moves for the time being..
Viacom Group, the parent company of Paramount, competed with Disney to acquire 20th Century Fox. Hulu's shares were one of the important reasons, but unfortunately failed in the end; but then, Viacom Group defeated Disney and successfully acquired They also own Sky TV in Europe, and they also own CBS in the United States, and streaming media platforms are also on the rise..
Finally, Sony Columbia Pictures.
Sony Colombia's streaming media service has never been able to take off. In fact, they have their own free streaming media platform Crackle, but its popularity and subscription numbers have never been high. Firstly, because the applicable areas and applicable platforms are very limited, there are only limitations. These are just LG and Samsung products in specific regions; secondly, the parent group itself has never put much thought into their operations..
It was not until 2017 that Sony belatedly established its own new streaming media platform "Funimation-NOW" through a series of acquisitions and landed in North America. They found a new way to provide a large number of animation works for online viewing. I hope Able to take advantage of the strength of Netflix and Amazon to open up the market in an eccentric way.
To put it simply, among the six major Hollywood film companies, Disney and Warner Brothers are still the leaders in the industry and are making frequent moves; Paramount and Universal Pictures continue to compete in different ways; 20th Century Fox has simply withdrawn from the group and stopped playing. ;The last remaining Sony Columbia Pictures belatedly.
In any society in any era, it is very easy for a company to fall behind or even collapse if it cannot accurately grasp the context of the times. There are countless giants that have been crushed by the wave of the times. The wave of the streaming media era has once again changed the structure of the entire industry. and pattern, it all depends on whether the senior leaders have such a vision..
2013In 2016, Warner Bros. replaced Barry Meyer with Kevin Tsujihara. In fact, they took a fancy to Kevin Tsujihara's vision and ability in the field of television, because the parent company Time Warner has noticed that the power of the big screen is moving towards the small screen. Screens are flowing and they need a leader who is more familiar with the TV space.
Obviously, Sony Group failed to make adjustments in time.
As Andre said, it is definitely not that easy to build a streaming media platform. In some cases, even if a huge financial chain can be found to support it, it will take time to produce the work, put the work online, and accumulate subscribers. And time requires more financial support.
Even those who talk on paper are aware of the difficulties involved..
But what if negotiations for copyright cooperation could be completed with film companies? Just like Netflix did back then, it first used the content libraries of other film companies to support it, and then took the route of its own original films to gain more development time. This... This is almost the best development template for Sisyphus Films now..
Renly now raised a key point: Among the six major Hollywood film companies, Sony Columbia Pictures' film library resources are second only to Disney, but they have never spent any effort on their own streaming media platform, even though Even though they took back the copyright rights from Netflix, they still didn't take it seriously. They were sitting on a treasure trove without any intention of exploring and using it - this is the leadership's misunderstanding of the context of the times..
Look at Disney. They refused to be limited to the success of the Marvel series and the Star Wars series. They proactively began to remake all their classic animated films into live-action films, exploring and re-exploring the potential of copyrights, and at the same time, on streaming media platforms while Sony Columbia Pictures is still repeatedly conceiving its own "Spider-Man Universe"”.
Sisyphus Pictures is discussing cooperation with Sony Classics, and the decision has basically been finalized; so, what if Sisyphus Pictures further discusses cooperation with Sony Columbia Pictures at this time? Or, Sisyphus Pictures directly acquires the "Crackle" platform and creates its own streaming media platform based on it？
It is obviously unrealistic to muddy the waters between Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu; but acquiring Crack is not necessarily that difficult..
Andre's thoughts began to spread.
Renly then added, "Didn't you raise Sisyphus's first fund before? How much was it?" He vaguely remembered that it should be three hundred million U.S. dollars. The specific number was not clear, but that was not the point..
Without waiting for Andre's answer, Renly continued, "Our current cooperation with Sony Classics, the contract stipulates an investment of less than 100 million US dollars, and we can create up to three crews at the same time. This is the limit; but outside of this, We can start preparing to shoot our own original series. I heard from Joel and Ethan before that they were thinking about shooting a series, and then David Fincher and David Lynch, they are all interested in TV series..”
This is Renly's advantage, his contacts in the industry！
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