Chapter 745： I see the hidden problems under the economic boom

Jayden Bryan is very happy, and has not stopped smiling since he received the broadcast of the first episode of "Stranger Things".

What's more, the show seems to have a lot of screen potential among teenage audiences, and there's a lot of room to be tapped.

As an executive of HBO's marketing department, I can talk about such a drama and it's a success. I think the credit I can get is natural and beautiful.

After all, is it a surprise?

He actually didn't expect "Stranger Things" to be so retro, and the protagonist is a group of actors between the ages of 12 and 14 so popular.

Thinking of this, Brian picked up the phone.

When it's time to make friends, be more eager.

......

After the Lyman-Jayden Bryan call ended, the Firefly compiled more detailed viewership data.

During the program period around 8 o'clock last night, the highest viewership of "Stranger Things" reached 9.57 million, with an average viewership rating of 4.5 for the first episode.

Of course, "Stranger Things" is doing well, and it may not be easy to beat some reality shows or old-fashioned TV series such as "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" in terms of ratings.

However, HBO mainly relies on paying audiences to eat, and it can please its own basic plate.

And through research, they were pleasantly surprised.

HBO may attract a large number of teens paying for the show "Stranger Things."

Because such young audiences are not financially strong, but usually parents are willing to give something for their children, not to mention that "Stranger Things" does not have many explicit scenes, and is generally more heroic and focuses on character growth. .

This means that in the next few weeks, HBO's March earnings report will usher in a wave of small gains.

All of this speaks to the goodness of the show, and the fact that HBO has done a good job of exceeding their expectations.

In other words, HBO has thought about accepting "mediocre", because Firefly can't always make good dramas, and "Breaking Bad" almost overturned.

But the reality is that Firefly once again accurately captured the market crowd and achieved success.

Moreover, this is the first episode, and good episodes need a fermentation period.

Even if the follow-up audience growth is not much, the ratings of "Stranger Things" broke 5 with ease and no pressure.

Seeing such numbers, and possibly the predicted broadcast potential, HBO quickly finalized all terms of cooperation with Firefly, including a sequel.

HBO is very much looking forward to establishing a relatively stable cooperative relationship with Firefly. Before the "Dark Knight" negotiation, a TV broadcast agreement was formulated. When the results passed the threshold, it proved that "Stranger Things" has the capital to stand in prime time. , of course not procrastinating.

After signing the contract, Lehmann saw that HBO has delivered 40 million US dollars (including the purchase deposit of 8 million for the sequel) very quickly, and also felt how much profit the TV station can make from running a good drama.

Firefly can earn 32 million US dollars in copyright broadcasting revenue from "Stranger Things", and HBO can earn at least 2 times the amount of money from users, and it does not count the overseas broadcasting, offline markets and other channel profits.

It is a pity that it is easy to make a drama, but it is difficult to build a platform, which is much more difficult than the film field.

Start-up capital must not be less.

If he only bought local TV stations, Lehmann could easily do it, but he was reluctant to do something that was meaningless and troublesome without much improvement.

You must know that there are at least 300 local TV stations in each state in the United States, so what's the use of squeezing them in?

If we can't build a broad enough viewing framework, we can't cover more than half of the United States, not to mention the surrounding British, Australian, Canadian and other TV markets, and we will not be able to form a combat force at all.

This will take time to plan.

......

"Did you find anything over there?"

Lyman looked at Johnson across from him.

Some time ago, Johnson received a call from Lehman, and after listening to his instructions, he began to pay attention to the surrounding financial markets, and reported any findings in a timely manner.

However, Johnson is a little puzzled, because the two have been together for so long, he knows that Lehman does not invest much in financial products, which is quite conservative, but he still dutifully collects relevant market news.

At this moment, he replied: "What is worth noting in the recent financial market is only the quarterly financial report released by Golden Century Financial. The bad debts in it increased by 1.8 billion compared with the previous month, and then many investment banks on Wall Street pressed Golden Century for debts. , the debt is as high as 17.4 billion US dollars. Golden Century can't pay it back, and has already applied for assistance..."

Johnson Barbara said, not knowing that he had missed a big melon unknowingly, he thought that Golden Century was just a small incident in the lending business, and it would be over soon.

But Lyman was very excited to hear it.

He hadn't thought about shorting anything.

After all, as a Frenchman, he dares to end up making money at this time. I am afraid that he has not been beaten by capitalism. rather.

The US government has never been unreasonable, let alone the beginning of this sensitive period.

You know, at this time, 99% of people in the industry did not find any danger. They were all advocating how prosperous and strong the United States was. When the economy took off, they encouraged people to buy houses and various financial products.

If you look closely, the overall U.S. economy looks very good at this stage. The economic growth rate has remained at 3% to 4%, the unemployment rate is lower than the average of previous years, between 4% and 5%, and the inflation is between 2% and 3.5%.

The Fed is more concerned with growth and inflation than debt growth, and the federal interest rate has been raised from 1% in 2004 to 5% in 2006.

Even so, people are willing to take out loans, even if home prices are up 30% from 2004 and 80% from 2000.

This has been the biggest increase in housing prices since World War II in the United States, but real estate is still hot, and this is not just **** by investors.

for example.

Suppose a family paid $50,000 for a down payment on a house worth $250,000 in 2005, and then the house price rose from $250,000 to $350,000 in 2007. Then this family is doubled only from the perspective of investment effect.

In other words, the homeowner does nothing, borrows to buy a suite, sells it after two years, and makes a net profit of 100,000. How can such a profitable business be missed?

As a result, in the lending business of major investment banks, the proportion of household debt has risen from 85% in 2000 to 120% in 2006, and the credit standard has been reduced year by year, mainly because investment banks are willing to lend money to people to buy houses, and income groups at all levels have increased their debt ratios.

Among them, the debt ratio of the lowest income group is increasing the fastest. With the wealth effect brought by buying a house, more and more people are starting to refinance real estate and increase leverage to speculate.

In 2005, when the economy took off, the amount of housing loans and housing refinancing amounted to around 500 billion yuan, a five-fold increase over 1998.

As a result, the US debt ratio has reached 300% of GDP.

In this self-looping game, both borrowers and lenders are rewarded with benefits.

And the better everyone's life is, the more they think they have enjoyed the benefits brought by social development. The lower the credit standards, the faster the house price rises.

The Fed continues to develop a series of programs to promote "economic" growth.

In the office, as Lehman listened to news from the financial markets, Treasury Secretary Paulson, who took office in 2006, also saw the problem.

He was previously at Goldman Sachs very sensitive to overheating in financial markets.

After careful analysis of the financial markets of recent years, the brows were quickly furrowed.

Paulson immediately went to Fed Chairman Bernanke, and New York Fed President Geithner expressed his concerns.

Because a lot of borrowing has not brought about an increase in income, deposit rates cannot fall indefinitely, and the number of loans cannot grow indefinitely. Once the debt is due, a large number of loans cannot be collected, but are mortgaged with fixed assets. Once the amount is too large, the debt will definitely be squeezed.

This is the subprime problem Paulson discovered.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke attaches great importance to it, but he does not attach much importance to it. Because U.S. inflation is stable, other aspects are not a big problem, but he also decided to convene a team to solve it.

And when Golden Century Financial, the second-largest subprime mortgage lender in the United States, started laying off staff, they thought it was a small problem.

Paulson walked slowly out of the Treasury, frowning again, still worried...