1novels Chapter 241 The Sky-high Purchase Contract
Chapter 241 The Sky-high Purchase Contract
"Prison Break" in Jed's previous life was a very typical TV series with "blossom inside the wall and fragrance outside the wall". The ratings of this TV series on the Fox TV network are actually not ideal. The average audience in the first three seasons in the United States is only 900. million, the ratings ranking is almost beyond the top 50; the fourth season dropped to only 500 million viewers, and the ranking almost broke the hundred.In contrast, during the same period, the average viewership of the national TV series "Crime Scene Investigation" in the United States was as high as 2600 million.Not only in the United States, but also in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and other regions where traditional American TV dramas are heavily boxed, the ratings of "Prison Break" are very tragic, and even the purchaser scolded that "the ratings are not proportional to the purchase cost".
But in Asia, especially in mainland China, with the simultaneous translation of the subtitle group, the entire TV series is extremely popular in mainland China.Although the fans of American dramas in mainland China can be traced back to the era of "The Man at the Bottom of the Atlantic" and "The Expendables Garrison", or the era of "Growing Pains", the real main group of American dramas is still cultivated by "Prison Break".As "Prison Break" ushered in the era of online American dramas, it also gave American drama producers the opportunity to sell genuine American dramas to mainland China.It is interesting to say that "Prison Break" was once sold three times in the Greater China region. The broadcasting rights in Hong Kong belonged to TVB, the broadcasting rights in Taiwan belonged to Dongsen TV, and the broadcasting rights in mainland China were in the hands of Star TV. Phoenix Satellite TV bought it again.
In fact, according to the production rules of general American dramas, "Prison Break" should be cut off in the second season, but perhaps because of feedback from mainland China, the producers once mistakenly thought that this American drama could be sold in China and produced two more seasons .However, "Prison Break" will naturally not appear in the unacceptable situation in North America and Europe in the hands of Jed, because the failure of the original version of "Prison Break" is that the screenwriters did not expect this American drama to produce so many episodes, resulting in the original design. A fixed worldview is no longer enough.
The first season of "Prison Break" is an adventure theme, the second season has become a suspense theme, and the third season has become a bloody police theme... Although the screenwriters cleverly made a government conspiracy theory that the United States The setting that the audience likes to hear and see is used to string together the whole drama, but too little ink is used, which leads to many loopholes and common sense mistakes in the entire American drama.
Of course, Jed's version of "Prison Break" did not give up the "government conspiracy theory" that American audiences love so much, but the logic of the whole show has been greatly improved, including why Lincoln Burrows was imprisoned, and a simple father Being framed by the Vice President of the United States because of his secret identity is too mocking the IQ of American audiences.
According to Jade's assessment, Lincoln Burrows is a special member of the U.S. military's secret operations department, which specializes in handling some "dirty work" for the U.S. military.Due to the failure of a certain operation, a large number of members of the Operation Department were sacrificed. In order to escape responsibility, the former President of the United States, who was the commander of the Special Operations Department of the U.S. Army at the time, tried to transfer Lincoln from the army and transferred to the National Self-Defense Force. Seeing that Lincoln did not resist, he soon succeeded in running for vice president, so he continued to plant Lincoln as a death row prisoner.Although Barrows knew that this was a conspiracy by the Vice President, the Vice President threatened Barrows' girlfriend and son to force him to confess.But Lincoln's younger brother Michael did not believe that his elder brother was a murderer. Under a series of schemes, he also entered the Fox River Prison under his elder brother's jurisdiction.
With Jed's setting and plot outline, the screenwriters of Dongfeng TV Company sorted out the logic of the whole show very clearly. The world view is enough to support the show until the fifth season, and it can be expanded if necessary.But Jade only plans to make three seasons.This American TV series will be his pioneering work in the Chinese market, so in addition to the excellent plot, Jade also used many old drama talents to come to the scene to support the scene.
Of course, the most important thing is that this is the first commercially produced high-definition TV series in the United States.With the advent of digital TV in the United States, the five major TV networks have also opened up digital channels in addition to retaining analog channels, and at the same time started at least two digital sub-channels under their respective names.One of the digital sub-channels broadcasts standard-definition TV network programs for free, which is basically the same as the analog channel; the other sub-channel is a high-definition channel, which broadcasts the best programs of the TV network.It's just that these high-definition programs are all post-transformed, so the picture quality and sound are still slightly inferior to "Prison Break" that was actually shot with high-definition cameras.
Originally, Warner Dongfeng TV Group thought that Jade would directly hand over the TV series to TheWE TV network for broadcast, but unexpectedly, Jed notified the purchasers of five TV networks to come to negotiate.Hearing this news, Warner Dongfeng knew that his chances of winning were not great. Except that ABC might not pay a high price because of the relationship of the parent company, NBC and FOX were willing to pay, especially God knows whether CBS will be in the already How about buying a super popular American TV series while having a national TV series?
What's more frustrating for Warner Dongfeng is that the second round of broadcasting rights of this American drama has also been booked.In order to thank United Vision TV Network for its help, Jade directly handed over the rights to the second round of broadcasting to this Spanish-language TV network.As for the broadcasting rights for three rounds, the five major TV networks didn't even bother to fight for it.
Generally speaking, the five major TV networks must choose the first round of broadcasting rights for American TV dramas. If the TV networks are left, the national cable TV stations will continue to choose. Of course, pay TV stations are calculated separately.The rights to broadcast the second round are usually purchased by regional TV networks or professional TV networks; Overseas territories such as Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico.Generally, after three or four rounds are sold, it is time for DVDs and video tapes to be released.
Except for ABC, which only sent a small manager from the five major TV networks, the directors of the other four major TV networks were present.Jed didn't reject ABC just because it only had a small manager. Jed was eager to let this small manager see what a real American TV show is.The Sherman Entertainment Twin Towers in Burbank naturally has state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, especially in order to reflect the high-definition picture quality of "Prison Break", Jed took all the newly built 41-inch LED thin TVs from Samsung come out.Although this TV is not as big and thin as the TVs of the later generations, it is enough to make the directors of the TV network brighten their eyes.
The progress of the TV industry is not only the progress of TV networks and production companies, but also the progress of broadcasting equipment.This ultra-large thin TV in front of me is undoubtedly a good device to support high-definition TV in the future, especially just now the staff specially introduced that this TV has built-in Dolby 5.1-channel decoding technology.
We must know that in the era of analog TV, stereo dual-channel is already the ultimate, and the era of digital TV has already begun to move towards 5.1-channel.Seeing the fussy expressions of these directors, Jed secretly sneered in his heart. The TV he cooperated with Samsung actually perfectly supports 7.1-channel, and the 9.1-channel technology is just a step away.It's just that the programs broadcast by the TV network are not yet supported, so it is unnecessary to put them on the market.As for wanting to surpass movies, I'm afraid TV will not be able to do it for a while.
The audio standard of movies is actually one of the taboos of many film companies. Currently, the most well-known standard is the standard of Dolby Laboratories. Jed already knows that Dolby Laboratories has started to develop panoramic sound technology at this time. It supports 128-channel audio technology, which is countless times more delicate than the popular Dolby 7.1.
In addition to Dolby Laboratories, Sony Group's SDDS eight-channel technology and Spielberg's DTS 5.1-channel technology are also mainstream in major cinemas.It's just that Dolby Laboratories takes the high-end route, while Sony and DTS take the low-end technology.In addition to these three, after Jade invested in Dolby, he also cooperated with Samsung in the Galaxy Audio Lab. The standard in this secret is named after the Nordic goddess of dawn "Aurora". Now the lab is developing Aurora 11.1 channel technology.This technology will be a future audio technology that far exceeds SDDS and DTS, and the sound fidelity can be compared with Dolby Atmos, but the price is much lower. device.
Jade first broadcast several promotional videos of "Prison Break" to the five major TV networks, some focused on actors, some focused on plot, and of course some focused on special effects... Then "Prison Break" was broadcast for two hours pilot episode.The pilot will not be aired on the network, but will only be included as a mystery easter egg in a future DVD release.The two-hour pilot episode is actually mainly a montage-style editing of the original first episode and the reasons why Lincoln was imprisoned. Because it is to impress the TV network, it includes a lot of explosions and war scenes.These two hours made countless directors who watched the film stare wide-eyed, and they remained so until after the broadcast.
"Mr. Sherman, we at NBC are willing to buy "Prison Break" for $50 an episode!"
"We at CBS are willing to buy "Prison Break" at a price of 70 US dollars! If the number of viewers can exceed 30 million, we will add another 1500 US dollars for the episode. If the average viewership at the end of the year can be maintained at more than 20 million, we are willing to do another episode. Pay $[-] per episode!" The director of CBS was clearly prepared, and the price increase method and purchase amount he proposed were very attractive.
"It's not enough sincerity." Jed shook his finger, "My production cost for each episode is already as high as 200 million U.S. dollars, and you only gave me a maximum price of 120 million U.S. dollars. I'm so sorry for my production company employees gone."
The director of CBS smiled wryly and said: "Mr. Sherman, you still have the second, third and even fourth rounds of broadcasting rights to sell, and the DVD copyright and peripheral copyrights are also your own. According to the rules of our industry, the first round of broadcasting rights for American dramas is very rare. It’s less than 100 million US dollars. And to show sincerity, we added more than the ratings, which is an extra exception.”
"Don't friends at FOX talk?" Jed was very puzzled, why the people in the Fox TV network were so god-like.
"Of course we bid, but we want to bet against Mr. Sherman." The director of FOX said with a smile, "If the average viewership of "Prison Break" does not exceed 500 million people, we will not pay a penny and "Prison Break" will go overseas in the future." The agency right belongs to us; if the average audience reaches 500 million, we will purchase 50 episodes; if it reaches 1000 million, we will purchase 70; Buy it for one episode."
"It sounds like we are still at a disadvantage." Jed shook his head with a smile, "You have already taken a fancy to our overseas agency rights, how can we not order something? If the ratings exceed 2000 million, you not only have to give 200 million one The price tag of the set, but also give us 10% of the advertising commission."