Chapter 546: Entering the Venue
Spring Festival Gala rehearsal scene.
Today is another day of program review and screening, but the lion dance troupe led by Xu Kun did not participate, but he himself was inexplicably arranged to sit on the judges' panel.
However, his mind was not on reviewing the program, but he was in a dilemma looking at the two invitations in front of him.
One of them was an invitation to the "LeTV New Year's Eve Party" sent by Gan Wei, saying that the best seat was reserved for him and they hoped that he could go on stage to speak.
The other one was an invitation letter from Alibaba Group, which was sent to him through Huayi, inviting him to attend Alibaba's annual meeting. The content on it was still written by Ma Yun.
The problem is that the two companies coincidentally set the date as December 12th - after all, it was LeTV's first year holding the gala, and they were afraid of any accidents, so they recorded the show in advance.
Although Xu Kun has decided to leave LeTV, he still needs to use the LeTV platform for some things, such as the early and mid-term tracking of director auditions.
Moreover, the new generation of Korean girl groups are also in urgent need of Director Xu's personal guidance - this time LeTV invited not only SM, but the essence of the entire new generation of Korean Wave.
But as he is familiar with Alibaba's subsequent development, he naturally does not want to miss the olive branch from Boss Ma.
When he was in a dilemma, Xu Kun suddenly noticed that the judges around him stood up one after another. He looked up and found that it was the leaders of CCTV who came.
Xu Kun had met this director named Shen twice before. His rank was not particularly high, but he was a strong contender for the deputy director. It was said that he had a strong background, so most people did not dare to offend him.
Although Xu Kun was not afraid of him, the sedan chair was carried by people, and it was on someone else's territory, so he stood up as well.
Director Shen, upon seeing this, hurriedly came forward and laughed, "Please don't misunderstand me. I came here specifically to ask Director Xu to come out of retirement and give me some guidance on my recent work. This has nothing to do with our Spring Festival Gala program team."
guide?
Xu Kun was puzzled. Director Shen was in charge of logistics, which had nothing to do with film and television variety show production. What could he want from such a great director? He couldn't possibly want to ask for advice on how to buy greenhouse vegetables, right?
Or……
He has been promoted to deputy director now?
"I have no hope for the deputy director."
As a result, when Xu Kungang raised his doubts tactfully, Director Shen smiled helplessly and said, "I have become the director directly."
This is obviously neither a joke nor Versailles.
So Xu Kun was even more confused.
Director Shen took him to an empty room nearby. After they sat down and poured out their grievances, Xu Kun finally understood what was going on.
Director Shen was indeed directly promoted to the position of station director, but he is not the director of CCTV, but the director of CNTV. The full Chinese name is: China Network Television.
This happened several months earlier than the original time and space. The main reason was that LeTV started out as a legitimate brand, and was able to thrive with variety shows and Korean waves, and it was about to go public.
The leaders of CCTV were excited to see the opportunity and wanted to get a piece of the pie, so they decided to establish CNTV, which, based on the resources of CCTV, continued to expand CCTV's influence on the Internet platform in the same way as LeTV.
Director Shen was chosen as the founder of CNTV.
Director Shen was angry, depressed, and fought against this, but in the end he could only accept his fate and thought about working hard to build a career and then finding an opportunity to return to CCTV in the future.
That's why he approached Xu Kun, the legendary think tank who helped LeTV get started, hoping that Director Xu could contribute some insights to him just like he did to Jia Yueting.
Of course, Director Shen would not just talk nonsense. He hinted that after CNTV is established, he would definitely pay special attention to Xu's people, and the connections he has at the headquarters could also provide some help within his capacity.
Director Shen made his attitude clear, but Xu Kun was not optimistic about his future because when he was a cellmate in his previous life, he had only heard of LeTV, Tudou, iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, and there seemed to be a foreign company called Fei, but he had never heard of CNTV.
The reason is not difficult to guess. It is nothing more than the bloated and sluggish operating style of official agencies. They can neither keep up with the trend of the Internet era nor have the courage to spend money like crazy like Internet companies.
However, Xu Kun was not stupid enough to tell such hurtful truth to his face. Instead, he analyzed the current situation of video websites and possible future developments to Director Shen in detail.
Although he did not reveal any sign of being pessimistic about CNTV, upon hearing that the video website would likely embark on an even crazier expansion mode after its large-scale listing, Director Shen's expression gradually became solemn.
After a long while, he made a request: "Director Xu, could you help me contact Mr. Jia of LeTV? I hope to lead a team to visit and learn." It is a big gimmick for the people from the central station to visit and learn from LeTV. It is estimated that Mr. Jia will definitely not refuse.
However, Xu Kun did not say anything too definite. He just said that he would contact LeTV and give a reply at the latest tomorrow.
After seeing off the worried Director Shen, Xu Kun returned to the review site. From a distance, he saw Zhao Benshan getting furious at Lang Kun.
Xu Kun didn't rush forward, but randomly found someone familiar to ask what was going on. As a result, he found out that Zhao Benshan's sketch was rejected because of his world view issues.
Seeing that there is still a month before the Spring Festival Gala, it must be very stressful to rehearse the program again.
Old Zhao wanted to quit, but Lang Kun refused to show mercy and refused to let him back down. It was no surprise that Zhao Benshan was furious.
The Spring Festival Gala director team did a really unfair job, and Uncle Benshan was definitely going to vent his anger about this, so Xu Kun didn't go up to persuade them, but chose a quiet corner to call Lao Jia.
After hearing what Xu Kun had said, Old Jia could not help but sigh, "This is really a storm brewing!"
"Is it so exaggerated?"
Xu Kun disagreed: "Anyway, I don't think highly of CNTV. In the past two years, there have been official organizations that have set up online platforms, and everyone has seen the results. Even if CNTV has the resources of CCTV, the chances of it becoming big and strong are not high."
"I'm not worried about this CNTV thing."
Jia explained: "What I am worried about is that some Internet giants will go bankrupt."
Is the Internet giant going to fall?
The first thing that came to Xu Kun’s mind was Alibaba. After all, when the shopping festival was held before, Ma Yun was obviously very interested in the film and television industry.
But Jia's answer was not Alibaba, but another Internet giant that is now at the peak of its career: "Baidu has just co-founded a video website called iQiyi with a private equity fund from the United States. The current hot topic is that it is going to imitate us and Youku to produce online dramas, and it is going to invest heavily."
Strange Web?
Shouldn’t it be iQiyi?
Was it a butterfly effect caused by myself, or did I change the name later?
It’s no wonder that Jia feels under so much pressure. Even if video websites today cannot defeat the capital giants, they can still choose to be acquired and admit defeat and leave.
But LeTV's model means that he has no room for compromise, and once Jia becomes a loser, he will most likely be backlashed by his supporters behind him.
So the backend is actually a double-edged sword. The good thing is that it can provide assistance, but the bad thing is that it leaves you with fewer choices and no way out.
At this time, Jia said: "You said that official institutions have never succeeded in building online platforms, but isn't LeEco actually a government-business partnership? Now that Internet giants are entering the market, if LeEco doesn't solve its fundamental problems as soon as possible, it will sooner or later suffer from problems.
I have decided that I will have a public discussion with the higher-ups after the listing, and I will never allow them to interfere in LeEco's operations again!"
Faced with tremendous pressure, Jia has obviously given it his all. As for the success rate, it depends on the stock price trend of LeTV after its listing.
"Kun'er!"
Jia's tone suddenly became affectionate: "If I can do it, we brothers will work together to make LeEco bigger and stronger, and become an industry giant like Baidu, how about it?!"
If Xu Kun hadn't known about returning to China next week, he might have been encouraged by him.
After all, the LeTV platform has also provided him with a lot of support. If it can grow as big and strong as iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video, it will undoubtedly benefit Xu Kun's status in the entertainment industry.
but……
"You and Gan Wei can do it, too."
Xu Kun finally declined half-jokingly, "I finally made up my mind to get out of LeEco, and now you want to pull me back. Isn't my determination in vain?"
(End of this chapter)
