The private rooms in Wanghailou are not large, but the environment is comfortable and you can see Houhai Sea by standing by the window.

Tonight’s meal is arranged according to the most expensive level. There are not only famous dishes such as boiled cabbage and Buddha jumps over the wall, but also “Taishi Five Snake Soup”. The chef was hired from the Shewangfen Restaurant in Gangcheng, and he also paid for the brand authorization.

Because of this dish, many local people from Yanjing have come here specifically to try it out.

The deputy director from CCTV tasted the snake soup and said with a smile:
“When it comes to finding partners, quality is more important than quantity. It seems that the most well-off TV stations are all here. Some satellite TV stations are losing money every year, so how can they afford to invest overseas? Moreover, there are few precedents for state-owned assets to invest in Internet companies. For example, how should the valuation of Tudou.com be calculated?”

Fan Wumian replied:

“We can entrust a professional valuation agency to set a price for Tudou.com, including the online copyrights of more than 1700 films and TV series, and the market value is estimated to be around 10 billion RMB.”

“Tudou.com’s total revenue in the first three quarters of this year was over 9700 million yuan, and is expected to exceed 1.3 million yuan for the whole year. The number of weekly active users has increased by 720 million. Once the obstacles in network speed are solved, the market potential is huge. It would be great if we could get your support.”

“If you are willing to raise funds, I am willing to sign a bet agreement. If the company’s valuation does not reach 5 billion yuan in five years, if anyone wants to withdraw their shares and investment, I will not only return the principal in full, but also give an additional 30% interest.”

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that Fan Wumian does not actually need the funds from the major satellite TV stations. The targeted financing is simply to gain a firm foothold and prevent the interests of the major TV stations from being affected.

Otherwise, you can easily raise money by just shouting a few times in the market, which is much easier than negotiating cooperation with satellite TV stations.

Everyone knows this well.

The current situation is that Fan Wumian needs the TV station’s resources, while the TV station hopes to generate revenue through him.

The deputy director wanted to ask if the risk was high, but when he heard that he could sign a gambling agreement, although he didn’t know what the so-called gambling agreement was, he still asked with satisfaction:

“If the investment is not profitable, is it legal to withdraw the investment and get the interest?”

Fan Wumian explained with a smile:
“Many Silicon Valley venture capital companies will sign a bet agreement with entrepreneurs. I need to borrow some film and television resources, and Tudou.com is short of funds. It is normal to suffer a loss during cooperation.”

Giving up part of the market share and having the opportunity to dominate the mainland market is obviously a very cost-effective deal.

If Tudou.com becomes the dominant player, it will have a firm grip on pricing.

In order to prevent the film and television companies from taking all the profits after all the hard work, there will be a situation where the purchasing price of a single episode of a drama is tens of millions, but the video website does not make any money and is only trying to make a profit by losing money.

It can be said that in more than ten years, the reason why actors are worth hundreds of millions or even billions of RMB is largely because video websites and TV stations are competing with each other and are taken advantage of by others, causing the cost of purchasing film sources to skyrocket.

Now he is in a different perspective. Fan Wumian certainly does not want to lead Tudou.com to success only to be taken over by other film and television companies a few years later. Therefore, he has already prepared to learn from the Silicon Valley giants and adopt the strategy of “mergers and acquisitions”.

iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku and a bunch of other video sites are all competing with each other, and it is difficult for any of them to make much profit. However, if Tudou takes 10% to 1% of the market share, even if the membership fee is only yuan per month, based on the user base of million, plus advertising fees, advanced on-demand, copyright distribution and payment, peripheral products, etc., the market value may be pushed up to hundreds of billions of dollars.

So even though it seems quite troublesome, Fan Wumian is still willing to put in some effort to give it a try.

Know that you can make money without losing money.

The person in charge of Shanghai Satellite TV was even more excited and said in a joking tone:

“Mr. Fan, isn’t this valuation too high? Tudou.com is still losing money. Can it be cheaper?”

Fan Wumian did not say anything final, and replied:

“Tudou.com has basically met the rigid requirements for listing on NASDAQ. Silicon Valley has always felt that long video platforms are very novel. Perhaps the total market value can be pushed to 10 to 3 million US dollars. The billion RMB valuation I mentioned is very conservative.” “In order to make money in harmony and avoid conflicts due to market expansion, I chose private financing and gave priority to you for financing and investment. I have invested more than million Hong Kong dollars in succession. I really didn’t bid a random price.”

“At the end of August, Google wanted to acquire Tudou.com and offered $8 million. I rejected it without hesitation.”

Everyone here has a stable job.

The main reason for trying to bargain is that they don’t have any spare money and want to get as much shares as possible. Compared with real businessmen, they seem more Buddhist and not so stingy.

In their minds, Tudou.com is basically a “new channel for monetizing TV station resources and generating revenue.”

Some things are not against the rules, but you can do them if you become a shareholder.

For example, the online copyright of the TV station’s old dramas can be packaged and sold or exclusively licensed to Tudou.com, or the copyright fees can be earned by broadcasting variety shows on Tudou.com.

By then, the TV station’s annual revenue will increase by seven or eight figures with almost no additional costs. This kind of business will naturally be favored by the TV station’s management.

Nowadays, people only regard video websites as a derivative industry of TV stations, much like DVDs. As for replacing cable TV, even if there really comes a day like that, most of you here would have retired or been transferred long ago, so there is no need to think that far ahead.

The reason why Tudou.com was able to convince Hubei Radio and Television was partly because Fan Wumian promised to pay 10 yuan for each episode in exchange for the online broadcasting rights of “Entertainment Camp”. He also hoped to package up all the previous programs, restore them digitally, and put them on Tudou.com.

Looking at the success of Entertainment Sky Media and Super Girl, both under Hubei Radio and Television, you will find that some people in Hubei Radio and Television have quite a business sense.

Fan Wumian hopes to lean on a big tree for shade, integrate the resources of major TV stations, and firmly hold the market share.

The executives of these TV stations were also secretly calculating in their hearts, hoping to get a piece of the Internet pie through Fan Wumian and his Tudou.com.

Finish another glass of wine.

The deputy director made the final decision and preliminarily finalized the cooperation plan, proposing that China Television Entertainment hold a 10% stake in Tudou.com, and the rest would be divided among Hubei Radio and Television, Yanjing Satellite TV and Shanghai Satellite TV.

After discussing with them.

The deputy director then asked Fan Wumian:

“Oh, by the way, look at how this is being done. I’m afraid many of our sister companies will have opinions after hearing the news. How about Mr. Fan release more shares? The higher-ups have been paying attention to the development of the video website industry. They want our TV station to keep up with technological progress and avoid being eliminated by the times. It can also be seen as letting them learn from Tudou.”

It was obvious that he was optimistic about Tudou.com’s business prospects. Fan Wumian smiled and replied:
“Then add another 5%. This is only the A round of financing. We will try to cooperate to launch new businesses first. It is a good opportunity to accumulate some experience in state-owned capital investment in Internet companies. I hope that we can achieve win-win cooperation. When we carry out the B round of financing next time, we will try to expand the scale.”

That being said, Fan Wumian felt deep down that by the time Tudou started its Series B financing, other TV stations might not be able to afford it anymore. Perhaps the net profit of some TV stations for a whole year would not be worth even 1% of Tudou’s original shares.

He tried to win over major TV stations to cooperate simply because it could create a win-win situation.

When Tudou.com was spending money everywhere to buy out the online copyrights of TV dramas and movies, many TV station managers were very tempted, but were afraid of making mistakes by accident, so they would rather let the resources lie idle in the warehouse for a long time than take them out for recycling.

For other Internet companies, it is not easy to get financing from the government. Even Jifubao, Alibaba Group, and Penguin Group have not succeeded in raising funds.

For now, we can only say that there is an intention to cooperate. After the report is written, we still have to wait for approval. Not only is the procedure particularly cumbersome, but it may not be released smoothly in the end. If we can complete the process before the Spring Festival, it will be considered as fast.

The meal lasted until nearly 9 o’clock. When it was over, Fan Wumian took the initiative to ask for a chance for Gangzi to appear on the Spring Festival Gala stage. (End of this chapter)