I’m in Hollywood

Eric left Long Island on September 14, and first went to White Plains, north of Manhattan, to discuss the production of Shrek with the Blue Sky Studio team. After returning to Manhattan, he participated in the abc group meeting for several days in a row, listening to The senior management of the TV department of the Group reported on the operating conditions of the TV business in all aspects in the first half of the year.

Last year, it signed an 8-year, $9 billion broadcast contract with the American Football League. The group executives were also worried that ESPN would suffer losses due to huge broadcast rights fees.

But in fact, because of its monopoly on the broadcasting rights of the most popular football games in the United States, espn has seen a substantial increase in both cable TV revenue and advertising revenue this year. In the first two quarters, the net profit has exceeded 200 million US dollars. The net profit may even reach 500 million US dollars in the end, which is equivalent to one-sixth of the expected profit of the entire Firefly Group in 1997.

In addition, the performance of the ae cable network led by Lifetime TV has also risen significantly. The ace programs such as Wanted City, Project Runway and America's Next Top Model not only continue to improve the popularity of Lifetime TV, but also Bring continuous profits to the company. Other cable stations, such as the Disney Channel, are also very solid.

The only disappointment is that the performance improvement of abc TV network is much lower than that of its major cable TV departments. Due to the rise of cable TV stations, abc's overall ratings have also declined significantly.

The shift of TV viewers from wireless to cable is the overall trend of the future American TV industry. Although Eric can provide abc with enough excellent programs, he cannot reverse the development direction of the entire industry by himself. However, among the four major public television networks, abc's performance in all aspects still firmly occupies the top position. In order to sell itself at a good price, the cbs TV network tried every means to make its financial report look better in the second quarter of this year, but neither the turnover nor the net profit can be compared with the abc TV network.

Recalling that Viacom and the cbs group's acquisition tug of war has talked about 33 billion, and the final transaction amount is likely to exceed 35 billion US dollars, Eric can't help but gloat. The operation of the cbs TV network itself is not satisfactory. Although the cbs group also has some cable television assets, none of them can compare with the espn that brings huge profits to the firefly group, and even several of the ae TV network. TV is no better. On the contrary, the cable TV assets such as the MTV TV network and the showtime TV network that Viacom already owns are the most valuable in Eric's view.

Once the acquisition is reached, Viacom will certainly not have a better life in the next few years.

Privately, Eric and Chris also discussed in detail the first-stage profit of Firefly Investment during the Southeast Asian economic crisis. According to statistics, the principal of 700 million US dollars raised by everyone has increased to 1.3 billion US dollars, of which, except for 300 million US dollars. It will be used to open positions on the Korean won, and the other 1 billion US dollars will be recovered one after another.

Since Firefly Investment's Yahoo, America Online, Amazon, Firefly Electronics, Qualcomm and other companies are still in a frenzied cash-burning stage, coupled with the subsequent acquisition of Apple, the $1 billion was hardly discussed, so it was easy to determine where to go. . Although Chris and Emily also decided to buy a plane with Eric, the cost of this aspect is not in a hurry to pay.

On the other hand, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has also been on the shelves for more than half a month. Following the global sales of 116,000 copies in the first week, in the second week, with the further improvement of the popularity of the novel, Weekly sales also surged to 150,000 copies, and HarperCollins estimates that the novel is likely to sell 3 million copies overall in the remaining four months of the year in several English-speaking countries.

Before that,

Many Hollywood novels are adapted into movies, and the global sales of the original novels can reach 3 million copies are not many. Therefore, after the first week of sales was released, Katzenberg couldn't wait to call Eric to ask if preparations for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone could be started immediately.

However, Eric knew that the popularity of the Harry Potter series was far from a complete explosion, so he naturally rejected Katzenberg's proposal and planned to wait for the second part of the series to be released before launching a film project. .

After finishing these things, New York Fashion Week has come to an end.

On the British side, under the remote command of Eric, Simon Fuller has selected several girls candidates for the Spice Girls.

However, Eric was unable to rush to the UK immediately, and there are still several interviews for Victoria's Secret Angels, which will require him to participate in person.

Of course, the main work has been done, and the next few days can be relaxed.

In an apartment on the Upper East Side, it was only in the afternoon, but the curtains in the bedroom were drawn, and a faint light came through the gap.

On the big bed, Cindy Crawford buried her face in the pillow, gasped for a while, and struggled to get out of the man. Can't the two little girls, Giselle and Alexander, satisfy you, and come to toss me like this?

Eric stroked Cindy's skin with enjoyment, and said, They have already gone to France, which is not as leisurely as you are.

Paris Fashion Week was held at the end of the month, Gisele and Alexander hurried to Paris after finishing the New York show, and Miranda was also driven back to Los Angeles by Eric. Due to the fashion week, Giselle and Alexander, who have already made a name for themselves in the fashion circle, are busier than Eric. He still failed to find a chance to eat these two little sheep. He accumulated a few days of lust and naturally burned to Cindy.

I just finished this season of America's Next Top Model and participated in a few catwalks. Next, I have to prepare for the Victoria's Secret show. Where can I be free? Cindy twisted her body again, and finally came out like a mermaid. Eric dived out, grabbed a piece of clothing and looked at it. It was Eric's shirt, so he put it on, tiptoed to the desk by the window in the bedroom, and opened a notebook on the table. The computer, said: Since you are here, help me to see my stocks, this time up and down, it's really uncomfortable.

Eric looked sideways at the woman for a while, then walked back with a laptop and dragged a network cable, thinking that next time he would urge Firefly Electronics to speed up the research and development of wifi equipment, but he said with a smile: You bought the Those stocks in the stock market must have risen a lot again, so you are not afraid that I will get rich?

Cindy put the laptop on the bedside, leaned beside Eric and gave him a charming side glance: It's you who should be worried, mr.biggest, aren't you afraid of me getting rich?

Eric pulled the quilt to cover the two together, pulled the laptop in front of him, operated it skillfully, and said, Isn't it jealous-daddy, why did it become mr-biggest again?

Mr-biggest was called by Candace first, and it's been a few years since Linda helped you with jealous-daddy. Speaking of which, Linda was also in Manhattan recently. Why don't you go to toss her?

There is an mr-big in Sex Want City, and the Candace Cindy said should be Candace Bushnell, the beautiful author of Sex Want City.

Eric heard Cindy say this, and replied, Isn't she looking for a boyfriend? I'm still very ethical and won't destroy other people's relationships between men and women.

That French businessman broke up a long time ago, and only a fool like Linda would think someone would marry her.

Eric just smiled and said nothing.

Except for the women who are deeply involved with him, Eric now treats the others with a mentality of traversing the flowers, which is good for both parties. Eric can enjoy the whole forest, and they also You can live your own life without any burden. Therefore, when he heard that Linda Evangelinsta had made a boyfriend, Eric took the initiative to let it go, and his attitude towards other women was probably the same.

Cindy also noticed Eric's thoughts and said with a smile, If Joanna or Virginia finds a boyfriend, will you let go too?

They are the mothers of my children, of course they are different.

Cindy's eyes flashed and she said, Do you seem to trust them?

certainly.

Eric nodded with a smile. He has already treated the two women as his wives over the years, and the three of them have long since formed a tacit understanding.

Although Eric would only stay in the Hamptons for two or three months a year, the two women living together, plus three children, did not seem deserted at all. Eric went back a few days ago, and was teased by Virginia that the two of them no longer needed themselves.

Chatting casually and casually browsing the Yahoo homepage for a while, Eric opened the stock operation software on the desktop, Cindy reached over, pressed a password without concealment, and entered her account.

At the end of April, Cindy also said that the value of the stock in his hand was close to 50 million US dollars. At this time, he looked at it. Although there are still only four stocks of Microsoft, Cisco, AOL and Intel, the total value of these stocks has reached 7690 US dollars. Ten thousand dollars, combined, it has risen by more than 50% in five months.

Eric opens each stock with great interest to see detailed stock charts.

Among the four stocks, Microsoft has the highest increase. The company's market value has risen from 120 billion at the beginning of the year to the current $177.3 billion. Followed by Cisco, the market value has risen from 33 billion at the beginning of the year to 46.9 billion now. Eric calculated it, which also means that Firefly Investment’s 26% stake in Cisco has increased by 3.6 billion US dollars in more than half a year.

The next AOL, the market value has just reached 19.3 billion, an increase of less than 30% compared to the market value of 15 billion at the beginning of the year. The last Intel, whose market value soared from $48.3 billion to $113.1 billion between 1996 and 1997, more than doubled, but since March this year, Intel's stock price has basically stopped growing. The last two The month also fell.

Cindy watched Eric stop for a while on the Intel stock data page, and also said: What I'm worried about is Intel. I checked the information, and it seems that the sales of chips they released this year did not meet expectations. In addition, amd and Both ibm and Motorola have released new chips, crowding out Intel's market. Eric, should I sell all of Intel's stock?

Later, many people only knew about Intel and AMD, but in fact, in the 1990s, there were still many manufacturers producing cpu chips. The chips that Apple uses now are the power chips produced by Motorola. It's just that the wintel alliance became stronger and stronger, and squeezed most of the other brands of chips out of the market, leaving only an amd hanging half-dead.

Shaking his head, Eric said: Actually, in my opinion, Intel's stock is the most valuable of these stocks. I remember that Intel's profit in the first half of this year has reached 2.5 billion US dollars. That's more than the profits of the other three combined.

Then you mean, keep it?

Of course, Eric nodded and said, It doesn't matter if you don't sell it in the next ten or twenty years. With these stocks, you can at least get hundreds of thousands of dollars in dividends every year in the future.

Cindy thought for a while and said, I'm not short of money now. According to your opinion, can I keep all these stocks?

In all cases, you should follow what I taught you at the beginning. When Yahoo goes public, let's sell it together, so that you can recover all the dividends for decades at one time.

After hearing Eric say this, Cindy guessed that some of these stocks must be unworthy of long-term holding. However, since Eric didn't say too much, she didn't ask any further questions.

After fiddling with the laptop together for a while, it was already evening before I knew it.

The light in the bedroom dimmed, Cindy picked up the mobile phone on the bedside table to check the time, and said, It's almost six o'clock. In the evening, the fashion week organizer will hold a fashion week curtain call party at the Gramercy Hotel, are you going? ?

Eric had no plans for the night, nodded and said, Go, um, let's go to dinner first, and then go there. I've been tossed by you for an afternoon, but I'm starving.

Obviously it's you who tossed me.

Cindy rolled Eric's eyes, turned on the light, still wearing Eric's shirt, and walked towards the cloakroom in style.

Women can never get dressed up quickly, and they found a restaurant for dinner. When Eric and Cindy came to the Gramercy Hotel together, it was already past eight o'clock, the party had already started, and more seriously, Cindy also forgot the invitation at home.

In the elevator, Eric looked at Cindy who was still turning over his handbag unwillingly, and said with a smile, Do you think we can get in after we brush our faces?

Maybe the doorman is face-blind. You have to convince them that you are Eric Williams.

Cindy smiled and replied to Eric, took out her mobile phone from her bag, and when the elevator door opened, she quickly dialed a series of numbers to go out, said a few words, and the two walked to the door of the banquet hall. An executive greeted him warmly and took Eric and Cindy into the party scene.

There were about a hundred or two hundred people in the spacious banquet hall, and the atmosphere of the party was very relaxed.

Eric is no stranger to this fashion circle now. In other words, although he is neither a fashion media executive such as Anna Wintour nor a big-name designer, but because he controls the world's largest media In the group, Eric has more influence in this circle than anyone in the banquet hall.

Of course, Eric was not bored and came to steal the limelight. After chatting with the guests he was interested in for a while, Eric planned to drag Cindy into the dance floor and dance.

However, as soon as he got to the dance floor, Eric saw a familiar Latin girl walking towards him with a smile on his face.

I didn't expect Penelope to appear today, Eric was a little surprised, and stretched out his hands to the girl with a smile: Hi, Penny, I'm so glad to see you here.

The expression on the girl's face froze, she stepped forward to hug Eric, and then explained with bitter eyes, Eric, I'm not Penny, I'm Monica.