Hollywood legendary director

The HBO representatives were very good at talking and chatted for a long time.

Lehman only felt that they had learned the essence of Tai Chi.

For a while, the meeting room suddenly quieted strangely.

After a while, Lehman felt the atmosphere was awkward, and he didn't continue to circle with them at all.

"The Walking Dead is still filming. We need to find a platform to host the trial broadcast. HBO is our company's ideal partner after considering it. After all, our relationship with Warner is pretty good, right?"

"We are also optimistic about this drama, so we can talk about the conditions first."

"HBO doesn't have ads, right?" Lehman asked suddenly.

"Yes, we do not have an advertising business. But we are different from other wireless TV stations in that the user's subscription fee can replace this part of the revenue. Moreover, we are always the most aggressive in buying broadcast rights. Can inquire."

Lehman wanted to laugh a little.

Why is the courage to buy dramas the most? It's not because the coverage area of ​​the cable TV network is inherently worse than that of the wireless TV network. If you don't pay a high price, who will sell it to you?

However, HBO's self-operated business is still very good, although the total market share is not too much, but in terms of profit alone, they are not bad.

"Then how is the share of the subscription fee calculated?"

"The number of new people watching "The Walking Dead" and the number of old users renewing the series to watch the series, the former is 64 and the latter is 80."

Well, old users are generally accustomed to paying for renewals, even if the new drama "The Walking Dead" is replaced with other items, the most is the change in the number of viewers.After all, HBO does not only operate this TV series, it also has a lot of fans from other series.

"This is fair. Warner has a close and mutually beneficial relationship with me. Sometimes, it is better for both of us to deepen our cooperation."

The representative nodded, seeming to express approval, "Mr. Barry Meyer said that you value feelings, and he is right. Well, it seems that looking at your new drama project plan, the previous shooting budget for the first season is About thirty million dollars?"

When Lehman heard it, he understood that this person wanted to start quoting broadcast rights.

As for the importance of sentiment in the front, just listen to it. It is probably a pretext for the next price reduction, but this attitude is not a bad thing for Lehman. After all, the people at HBO are satisfied with the new drama project. , I want to fight for.

"The shooting budget is probably enough. I haven't heard of any delays in the crew."

The man smiled and thought for a while before he said: "The first season is 24 episodes, and the average production cost per episode does not exceed 1.25 million US dollars. So, how about we are willing to pay 3.2 million for each episode purchase cost?"

"3.5 million in a single episode?"

"No, 3.3 million."

"3.4 million?"

"Each episode is 3.35 million, totaling US$8040. We are already very sincere."

"Well, for Barry Meyer's sake, we agreed to the price."

With this $80 million, deducting the production cost, and subtracting the share of the two directors' creative teams, Firefly Pictures can almost get more than 35 million, which is not a disadvantage.

Looking at the rising corners of the HBO representative team, Lehman also knew that the big head was still eaten by the broadcasting platform. Even if the first season of "The Walking Dead" only had 70% of the market prospects of the previous life, it is estimated that the total value of the project will be more than 300 million.

Of course, there is no deduction of operating costs, because that is the sole responsibility of HBO.

However, Lehman has nothing to envy. The channel has always been the upstream of the industry.

This is true whether it is a movie or a TV series.

He is also used to it.After all, if there is no channel to broadcast, no matter how good his drama is, it will not sell for the price.

Just like every year behind the beautiful film market, more than 80% of the works that failed to make money in theaters are buried.

Another example is the Blue Butterfly Pictures he bought, relying on small companies that don't have distribution channels to squeeze it, and it's still going well.

There are countless production companies that go bankrupt every year, but I haven't heard of any company that has a North American distribution channel going bankrupt.

At most, the profit is not high, and it is sold as a tasteless asset.

This is the status quo of the Hollywood film and television industry.

Lehman said again at this time: "However, I have one more condition."

The representative frowned slightly, thinking that there would be repetitions in cooperation, and quickly replied, "What are the conditions?"

"It's not a big problem." Lehman said with a smile: "After HBO broadcasts "The Walking Dead", your company can be responsible for the first season's carousel rights, but in the offline CD distribution market, can we work together? Operation?"

Yes, after the first round of broadcast, the TV station can still sell to local TV stations and even the UK market and other regions to continue to make profits, but the second round of broadcast rights is sold at the price of cabbage. In the third round, it is even cheaper. , Is basically used to enrich the playback time period.

The offline market is different. Because the United States attaches great importance to copyright, it is difficult for pirated copies to flow into the underground market. The American people are also used to buying DVD collections for supported TV dramas, which is only a dozen or twenty dollars after all.

In your spare time, you can take it out and watch it again.

Of course, the revenue shared by both parties is still in accordance with industry rules.

HBO has nothing to do with this, anyway, it didn't hurt their interests.The representative nodded after thinking about it.

After the two parties formally signed the broadcast contract, HBO also immediately started to publicize the matter.

Well, as an extra thing, HBO rarely cuts dramas. Generally, if you buy the copyright, you will definitely play it.

According to the planning of the HBO party, they will arrange the "The Walking Dead" to be broadcast on Saturday night at eight o'clock prime time on January 15.

Counted down.

After the cooperation between the two parties is reached, the circle naturally knows.

For those wireless TV networks, it was nothing more than a failure in competition, but for WB TV stations, it was not so good news.

Their TV business overlaps with HBO, and their program production capacity is not as good as that. The board of directors has always had shareholders who want to urge WB TV to separate its production business, merge and reorganize, to make the coverage of the commercial territory clearer and facilitate the tilt of resources .

As for Lehman, Warner’s internal troubles and the influx of power will naturally not affect their company.

He just chose a more win-win partner based on the profit prospects of the project.

But in Andrew's view, it was obviously a subconscious squad against this kind of signs, and it was naturally uncomfortable in his heart.

But the "Prison Break" project is their TV station's trump card, and they have to support it with all their heart. How can one be depressed.

This is business...