Chapter 616 (1/2)

At the Oscars, the public suddenly realized.

It turns out that the contradiction between westrow system and Hurst group has existed for a long time.

Three years ago, in order to get rid of the heavy debt burden caused by the merger of Reynolds nabesk, Reynolds nabesk group chose to sell a large number of its assets, including 20% of the shares of ESPN, a famous sports television station of metmet / ABC Group.

Danielis entertainment is very optimistic about the development of cable TV, so it chose to bid. Hurst group, which is in the process of diversified transformation, also intends to bid for these shares.

At that time, igrit was in the early stage of its development, and igrit portal needed the support of news and information content from traditional paper media.

Hurst group offered content support to igrit portal as a bargaining chip in exchange for Denise Entertainment's initiative to give up its bid for ESPN shares, and finally successfully pocketed these shares.

However, after getting the equity of ESPN, Hurst group turned back and refused to fulfill its original promise of cooperation for fear that the Internet media would affect the interests of the traditional paper media industry.

As a result, disputes between the two sides arose.

The article also specifically mentions that danilisi Entertainment's offer for the equity of ESPN was as high as $200 million at that time. After giving up, Hurst group reached a deal with only $180 million, saving $20 million, including another tax avoidance operation of no less than $20 million.

However, after taking a big advantage, Hurst group is not satisfied. It is not only unwilling to fulfill the initial commitment of cooperation, but also thinks that the bidding of danielis Entertainment Group makes Hurst group pay more money for ESPN shares in disguised form. Therefore, it has been using its media to launch attacks on westrow system.

For example, the San Francisco Chronicle, a subsidiary of Hurst group, has been in direct confrontation with the westero system in recent years.

The source of the conflict is the recent disturbances.

Congressman David Melrose, who is supported by the Hurst family, constantly uses his power to try to launch improper investigations into new technology companies in the westero system. The reason is not to protect the interests of the majority of voters, nor is it the so-called monopoly accusation against these companies. The root cause is just the news information, classified information and social networks provided by igritte company Such free Internet services hurt the interests of traditional paper media giants like Hurst group.

As evidence, the New York Post article also included a picture of William Hurst III and Congressman David Merlot hanging out at a cocktail party, looking like a good friend.

For the public readers, compared with a lot of serious posing, this photo is obviously full of ”collusion” atmosphere, which has great lethality, and instantly makes many people identify the potential tendency.

Members of Congress elected by one vote are still the spokesmen of the rich and powerful.

For this report, David Merlot, a spokesman of Hurst group, immediately became the focus of media and public attention, also jumped out to refute, but the effect was obviously not significant.

Following the article in the New York Post, igritte portal has published more articles about David Merlot's interest relationship with the Hurst family. This congressman, who has been re elected for three terms, has received a large number of political donations from the Hurst group in the past three elections. This year's impact is not only that. As the political spokesman of the Hurst family, David Merlot is still here recently Urge Congress to lift the ”ban on cross media ownership” that restricts the media from having too much say. Once the ban disappears, the news and information that the American people have daily access to may be controlled by a few media giants, which will be a strong blow to the freedom of the press.

It can be said that the ”double standards” of this congressman between promoting the monopoly of traditional media and cracking down on the emerging Internet industry are absolutely shameless.

While Hurst group and David merroth are struggling to deal with the disclosure of this article, another related article in the Wall Street Journal has also attracted a lot of people's attention.

”Do you want to be a friend or an enemy?”

The report did not comment on the inside story of the conflict between the Hurst group and the westrow system, but analyzed in detail the possible impact of the incident.

Hurst is not a public company, but it also publishes results.

In 1993, Hurst group's total revenue was US $2.11 billion, with a growth rate of 9% and an annual net profit of US $169 million, with an annual growth rate of 12% and a net profit rate of 8%.

Like the American automobile industry, traditional paper media groups are restricted by many trade unions, but they can't transfer their production bases overseas. Therefore, the operating cost is quite high. Hurst group can maintain a net profit margin of 8%, which has exceeded the average level of the industry.

Now, just for the westrow system, the cumulative advertising budget of 65 million US dollars invested in Hurst group in the past year has accounted for 3% of the other party's annual revenue. All this revenue has disappeared, which will have a significant impact on the performance of Hurst group in 1994.

Furthermore, if Simon westero uses the influence of westero system to ask other partners to ”stand in line”, the additional negative impact will be at least twice as much as westero system itself.According to the 9% revenue growth of Hurst group in 1993, once the conflict between the two sides continues, it is likely that the revenue growth of Hurst group in 1994 will stop completely.

For the traditional paper media industry, which has gradually begun to show a declining trend, stagnant revenue growth actually means retrogression.

After all, whether it is based on inflation or the natural growth of workers' wages and other factors, a company must ensure considerable performance growth every year in order to maintain the normal operation of the enterprise.

Once the growth of business revenue stagnates, the continuous increase of inflation, employee wages and even debt burden will not stagnate. The first impact is the enterprise profits.

When profits are gradually offset by the negative impact of stagnant revenue growth, there will be a series of chain reactions, such as layoffs, sales of business, spending cuts and so on.