Traveling through the Tokyo bubble era

Chapter 933 The Media Tycoon Who Lost Confidence

Hideki Hanyu's surprise attack on the British satellite broadcasting merger turned into a head-on confrontation after Rupert Murdoch appeared.

In this case, the fight between the two sides becomes simpler.

The early preparations and groundwork of both sides have now become the basis for their competition.

In terms of official connections, Murdoch has been building them up over many years and they are deeply rooted.

Hideki Hanyu, however, came from behind and, relying on the influence of the prince, he also relied on his large numbers, and took advantage of interest binding and financial collusion. The capital he accumulated over the years was comparable to that of Murdoch.

Therefore, after Murdoch arrived in the UK on May 21st, the two sides first began fighting in these areas.

Both sides are showing off their talents, forming cliques and factions, and trying to drive their opponents out at the official level before commercial competition.

After all, for both Murdoch and Hideki Hanyu, this is the most convenient way to win the competition.

As long as the opponent is not even qualified to participate in the competition, winning will be a piece of cake.

Hideki Hanyu is not afraid of Murdoch, but he also does not want to fight to the death with him. After all, although he is not short of money, the less he spends, the better.

As for Murdoch, he does not want to engage in direct business competition with Hideki Hanyu because he knows Hanyu's strength better than anyone else.

After all, over the years, the competition between his News Corporation and Hideki Hanyu's companies has never stopped from beginning to end.

When Hideki Hanyu was just starting out in the early years, Murdoch even planned to merge with the Yunshang Group and even secretly made trouble for Yunshang Satellite TV when it was founded.

And when the Yunshang system grew at a terrifying speed, recruiting it became a competition.

Especially in Asia, the competition between the two sides in traditional print media and television media is particularly fierce.

As for the final outcome?

With the existence of Hideki Hanyu, a cheating player, the Yunshang Group has become the only dominant player in the Asian entertainment industry and has almost wiped out Murdoch's influence in the media sector.

The most important reason is that Hideki Hanyu is generous enough. He can force the Yunshang system not to take any profit during its development and use all the profit for development.

But the same cannot be said of Murdoch's News Corporation. Although Murdoch has not yet sold off News Corporation's shares on a large scale like in later generations, his control over News Corporation is definitely not as strong as that of Hideki Hanyu in the Yunshang Group.

Murdoch must respect the opinions of other investors and it is absolutely impossible for him to use all the group's profits for expansion.

News Corporation can certainly develop through loans, but the Cloud System can do the same.

Especially in the years when Yunshang Group was developing rapidly, it was the most glorious time for the development of Japan's economy. As a local Japanese enterprise, Yunshang Group could obtain stronger economic support than News Corporation.

So in the final analysis, News Corporation Asia suffered a total defeat in the confrontation with the Cloud Group. Simply put, it was a defeat in terms of strength and funds.

A simpler explanation is that Murdoch's speed in making money is far beyond that of the time traveler Hideki Hanyu.

After failing in the Asian entertainment and media sector, News Corporation failed to block Crescent Cinemas' global layout, allowing the Cloud Group to control a screening and distribution network across the globe.

This actually made Murdoch very unhappy.

But at that time, Murdoch could still comfort himself that News Corporation had no interest in screening and distribution, and in the field of entertainment media, News Corporation still had an advantage in North America and Europe.

But soon, Hideki Hanyu headed for North America.

The "Phantom Comics" magazine that published the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a huge success. It acquired Marvel Comics and founded Pixar Animation Studios. It used its fashion brand resources to pave the way for "Cloud Fashion" magazine and used its gaming industry resources to invest heavily in gaming-related media.

These seemingly unrelated methods will inadvertently combine to help Hanyu Hideki's capital gradually gain an advantage in the field of entertainment media.

There is also the Blockbuster video rental chain, an industry that Murdoch had never paid attention to before. After being acquired by Genie Entertainment, it quickly developed into the world's largest home video entertainment supplier, with a total number of stores now exceeding 6,500 worldwide.

The growth of Blockbuster even indirectly affected the development of News Corporation Television.

A large number of viewers who originally watched movies on TV chose to rent videotapes offline, causing the number of users of movie channels to plummet.

His current push for a merger between Sky UK and British Satellite Broadcasting Corporation is somewhat influenced by this aspect.

After Blockbuster, Hideki Hanyu founded Cloud Pictures in Hollywood.

After its establishment, this independent film company became the leader of the American independent film industry not only by spending lavishly, but also by means of mergers and acquisitions.

When it comes to big-budget productions, its performance is in no way inferior to that of traditional Hollywood studios.

What hurt Murdoch the most was that he agreed that 20th Century Fox would sell the copyright of the original novel of "Die Hard" to Cloud Pictures for US$7 million.

At that time, everyone thought that Cloud Pictures had just entered Hollywood and wanted to attract attention by paying sky-high prices, and 20th Century Fox made a fortune.

As a result, the first "Die Hard" film grossed over 80 million U.S. dollars in North America, and its global total box office exceeded 140 million U.S. dollars.

This directly turned the $7 million invested by Yunshang Pictures into a classic case of making a small profit with a big investment.

And all these box office revenues should have belonged to 20th Century Fox.

But Murdoch's grief did not last long, as the parent company of Cloud Pictures joined forces with local American capital to acquire MCA Universal, controlled by Lew Wasserman.

Although the background of the American Entertainment Investment Company is mysterious and it has many American bigwigs supporting it, Murdoch is sure that the emergence of this company is definitely related to Hideki Hanyu.

After all, after MCA Universal was acquired, although the major shareholder was America Entertainment Investments, the controlling rights fell into the hands of Cloud Pictures.

When MCA Universal was reorganized into Universal Pictures and its three major subsidiaries, Universal Music, Universal Studios, and Universal Television Network, were separated, Hideki Hanyu's influence in the North American entertainment and media sector was already comparable to that of News Corporation.

Especially Universal Television. Although Lew Wasserman is the CEO, the way it spends money madly to produce programs, expands and acquires, and continues to merge is exactly the same as Cloud Satellite TV.

Seeing that after Asia, Hideki Hanyu is now competing with him in North America and the two are evenly matched, Murdoch can only comfort himself in Europe.

But the current situation is that Hideki Hanyu doesn't even want to let go of Europe.

This time, America Entertainment Investments suddenly acquired Abovecloud TV and intervened in the merger of British Satellite Broadcasting Company. It is obvious that Hideki Hanyu is manipulating everything.

It is for this reason that Murdoch rushed to the UK from his New York headquarters as soon as he heard the news.

On the day of his arrival, Murdoch personally showed up to disrupt a meeting between Hideki Hanyu and the heads of two investors of British Satellite Broadcasting Corporation.

Immediately afterwards, he mobilized his official connections in the UK to try to block Hideki Hanyu from participating in the business negotiations.

Even though he didn't want to admit it, he deeply understood that in terms of business strength, he would most likely not be a match for Hideki Hanyu.

But from May 22nd to May 24th, after three days of official confrontations between the two sides, both overt and covert, Murdoch discovered that his many years of accumulation in the UK did not give him any advantage.

The confrontation between the two sides at the official level was evenly matched, and neither side was able to do anything to the other.

Murdoch's home in London.

Murdoch had just learned from his secretary that a member of Congress who had originally intended to support him suddenly expressed his choice to remain neutral and would not support Sky TV in the British Satellite Broadcasting Corporation merger case.

Murdoch frowned and asked, "Did he tell you in person?"

The secretary replied, "His assistant called and told me."

"Haha, you don't even dare to contact me in person. This friendship is really unreliable."

Murdoch scoffed and then asked, "Do you know why?"

The secretary said, "I don't know the reason, but I heard from others that the congressman refused your dinner invitation last night because he went to attend the party held by the prince."

Hearing about the prince, Murdoch could no longer keep his composure on his face, and cursed in a low voice with some annoyance, "Damn it!"

Seeing this, the secretary hurriedly whispered, "According to the information we received, the prince expressed his concern about the difficulties of the British Satellite Broadcasting Company long before you came to the UK. Maybe he really just..."

But before the secretary could finish his words, Murdoch interrupted him directly, "Don't be fooled by his performance, he and Hanyu Hideki are in the same group. The so-called Vigorous membership supermarket, the investor of which is the British Investment Union Company, has Hanyu Hideki's shadow behind it.

The Vigorous membership supermarket has also established an organic brand with the prince. Last year, in the name of organic and environmental protection alone, Vigorous donated 17 million pounds to the prince's fund.

Can you tell me where in the UK that environmental protection costs so much money?"

Murdoch couldn't help but sneer when he said this, "Haha... Our prince is not trying to help the British Satellite Broadcasting Company at all. He is just trying to gain fame for himself."

"So what should we do?" the secretary asked tentatively.

Murdoch waved his hands and said helplessly, "Give up the support of that congressman."

Murdoch is well aware that although the British royal family is now only a figurehead in the official British government, it still has a huge influence on some conservative British upper class people.

So it was impossible for him to do anything to the congressman, let alone to the prince.

As for learning from Hideki Hanyu and using benefits to win over the prince, not to mention that it is too late now, even if there is time, he will not be able to find a "legal and compliant" way to transfer the benefits.

It would be difficult to find a reason to transfer such a huge amount of money through News Corporation's account, and other investors would not agree.

As for his personal payment, not to mention that he would not do such a thing to benefit the public at the expense of his own interests, even if he did, the same problem still exists: what name should he use to do it?

Giving money to big shots is also a skillful thing.

If you just give me the money, I'm afraid the prince won't even look at it.

Thinking of this, Murdoch couldn't help but admire Hideki Hanyu.

How could the other party have thought of tying their own interests closely together with the prince's in the name of environmental protection?

On the surface, all profits from the sales of the eponymous organic brand jointly established by Vigorous membership supermarket and Prince in Vigorous membership stores will be donated to Prince's environmental protection fund for environmental protection causes, and not a penny will flow into private accounts.

Whether it is the prince or the Vigorous membership store, they are all dedicated to the cause of environmental protection, sacrificing their personal wealth, and winning reputation and external praise.

But in fact, everyone knows how to play this game.

Let’s first talk about Vigorous Membership Store’s profit calculation for organic brands. Whether they make money or not, I’m afraid only they themselves know, and it all depends on the operation of Vigorous Membership Store.

As a mature businessman, Murdoch knows that there are too many tricks involved.

And after the money is donated to the prince’s environmental protection fund, how much of it can be used for real environmental protection?

Ten percent?

Don't be naive. If even 5% can be achieved, it would mean the prince has a change of heart.

As for the rest of the money, doesn’t the operation of the environmental protection fund require money?
The prince is working blindly for environmental protection, doesn't it cost money?

Even the implementation of environmental protection work requires third-party companies.

Who owns these companies? The average person doesn’t care, and those who know won’t really tell.

Perhaps the prince is a shareholder of one of these companies.

After all, environmental protection itself is a very huge "business" in Europe.

In this case, it is only natural for the prince, as Hanyu Hideki's ally with interests, to help Hanyu Hideki.

Thinking of this, Murdoch waved his hand with a grim expression, signaling his secretary to go out and leave him alone.

But what Murdoch didn't expect was that the secretary only went out for a few minutes and then returned in a hurry.

"Boss... Boss...I have urgent news..."

The secretary had obviously run all the way here and was out of breath when he spoke.

Seeing this, Murdoch said with some displeasure, "You need to be calm when doing things, and you can't panic when encountering things."

But the next moment, the secretary's breathless words made Murdoch lose his composure and stand up directly from his chair.

“Boss, there’s news from the New York…New York headquarters.

At an international conference held in Washington today, the American Secretary of Commerce met with British business representatives visiting North America.

According to the latest news, the minister expressed during the talks that the UK must respect the opinions of American investors in the UK.

The name of America Entertainment Investment Company was specifically mentioned, indicating that normal investment activities should not be obstructed by official forces.

"Is the news confirmed?"

Murdoch, who had just told his secretary to be calm and not panic at the slightest thing, now stood there asking questions, but he did not look calm at all.

The secretary nodded, "OK."

"Those bastards would do anything for money!"

Murdoch no longer cared about his manners and started cursing.

He didn't need to guess to know that the reason why the American Secretary of Commerce specifically mentioned this matter must be the work of the people behind the American Entertainment Investment Company.

Although he still can't figure out the ins and outs of this company, just from the few people who have been exposed, the network of relationships behind it is as deep as the ocean.

Murdoch originally thought that those people would not be directly punished due to their status.

But who would have thought that those people's bottom line was much lower than he expected.

Or perhaps, Hideki Hanyu gave these people benefits that were difficult to refuse.

Thinking of this, Murdoch hurriedly asked his secretary, "Is there any news about Hanyu Hideki? Did he go to North America?"

The secretary replied, "According to the public information I just found, Hanyu Hideki did leave the UK this morning, but he did not go to North America. Instead, he returned to Japan to attend a friend's wedding."

As soon as the secretary said this, Murdoch's face suddenly became extremely ugly.

Since he arrived in the UK, despite the relationships he had accumulated over the years, he was only able to compete on equal terms with Hanyu Hideki, which made him feel somewhat unhappy.

But Hideki Hanyu's momentum is already established, and even he has to admit that he is an unprecedented business genius.

Even though Murdoch was unhappy about being able to tie with such a person, he was also secretly proud of it.

But now the secretary told him that when he was giving his all, Hideki Hanyu just left.

What does this prove?
This proves that Hideki Hanyu didn't take him seriously at all.

This proves that when facing his attack, Hideki Hanyu easily blocked it with just one hand.

He could even use America's power to turn the tables.

At this moment, Murdoch must make a choice: whether to continue to entangle with Hanyu Hideki through official channels or to directly enter into commercial negotiations.

For the former, it is very likely that his advantage will become smaller and smaller over time, especially when American officials come forward.

As for the latter...

Murdoch asked himself, does he still have the confidence to defeat Hanyu Hideki?
This chapter mainly uses Murdoch to let everyone understand the strength of the scumbag from the side.

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(End of this chapter)