Daenerys Entertainment's long-prepared fashion television channel, Fashion TV, is set to launch on February 8th.
While the media was abuzz with Cisco and America Online's market values simultaneously breaking $20 billion, Simon arrived in New York on February 6th to personally oversee the final preparations for Fashion TV's launch.
The head of Fashion TV is Anna Coleman.
She is a black-haired woman who appears to be around 35 years old. That's right, Coleman, still Jewish.
Simon's choice was not due to ethnicity.
Of course, Simon also knew that Anna Coleman's ultimate success was certainly due in no small part to the promotion of Jewish executives like Amy Pascal and Robert Iger.
Most of the final candidates were Jewish.
Simon has never been overly sensitive to ethnic issues, nor does he have any aversion to them; he simply needs a qualified professional manager.
Anna Coleman previously held important positions at Condé Nast, which owns well-known fashion magazines like *Vogue*, *GQ*, and *Vanity Fair*, and at Viacom's MTV, where she launched the highly successful show *House of Style* during her tenure as Vice President of MTV's program production department.
In Simon's memory, *House of Style* continued to exist even twenty years later, and, coincidentally, the show's first host from 1990 to 1992 was Cindy Crawford, who resigned from her hosting position before last year's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show plan.
Fashion TV's positioning is largely equivalent to a 'dynamic fashion magazine' carried on a television platform.
Therefore, Anna Coleman's resume, having worked at both Condé Nast and MTV, made her perfectly suited for this job.
On the other hand, after several months of operation, Fashion TV is expected to achieve an access scale of 23 million users at launch, covering 60 million people, through major North American operators such as Comcast and Warner Cable.
At the same time, the revenue share between Daenerys Entertainment and the operators was set at 15 cents.
In other words, each operator will pay Daenerys Entertainment 15 cents per accessed user per month for content acquisition fees.
Based on an access user base of approximately 23 million, Fashion TV can secure an annual basic income of $40 million from operator revenue sharing at launch.
As a basic cable channel, Fashion TV can also insert advertisements into its programs. Typically, a basic cable channel's advertising revenue can match its operator revenue share. Considering that Fashion TV has just launched, Daenerys Entertainment is not in a hurry to place advertisements on the channel. Therefore, it is estimated that in the first two years after launch, advertising revenue will reach about 50% of the operator revenue share, which is roughly another $20 million.
An annual guaranteed revenue of around $60 million seems very substantial, yet, compared to the operating costs of a national cable television station, this amount is still negligible.
The North American operations team of approximately 200 people, which has already been assembled for the television station, is projected to incur no less than $30 million in annual expenses for basic salaries, office space, and other costs.
As a 24-hour fashion channel, even if the budget for fashion-related TV programs is not too high, the accumulation of various projects, plus the indispensable marketing and promotion expenses for a TV station, is expected to be an expenditure of no less than $50 million.
Therefore, Daenerys Entertainment has mentally prepared for an annual loss of at least $20 million for the first two years after launch.
And this is only in North America.
Simon's expectation for Fashion TV is to be a global fashion television network.
In the original plan, Simon very much hoped that Fashion TV could launch simultaneously in Europe and North America, but he underestimated the instinctive protectionist resistance of various European countries to the invasion of North American media companies. This is actually very normal, as the United States currently also does not allow foreign companies or individuals to own American television stations, a ban that will likely only be lifted in the next year or two.
Among European countries, the UK, with its most open market, does not have a ban on overseas companies investing in television stations. Therefore, the preparations for Fashion TV in the UK have been the smoothest, and it is expected to launch in the UK through News Corporation's Sky Broadcasting in April.
Clearly, this has already missed this year's spring fashion weeks.
Although Sky Broadcasting's television network covers most of Europe, related television stations still need to pass government reviews in each country to go live.
From the current approval situation, France, where the fashion industry is most developed, is the most difficult. Local fashion giants are quite resistant to Fashion TV, and companies like LVMH are already preparing their own fashion television networks. The approval progress in other countries like Italy, Spain, and Germany also varies.
However, by the end of this year at the latest, Fashion TV can be launched in most European countries.
As for the reason, in Simon's memory, the European Union would be officially established in November 1993. At that time, the markets of the major European countries would open to each other, and Fashion TV's launch in the UK would essentially allow it to broadcast to the entire EU.
Since Fashion TV cannot be rolled out in Europe in the short term, Daenerys Entertainment's main focus is on North America.
In terms of content, Fashion TV successfully acquired the broadcast rights for the past five years of runway content from major luxury brands worldwide. Even European luxury brands like LVMH, which had many concerns about the relationship between Daenerys Entertainment and Melisandre Company, did not refuse to provide content to Fashion TV.
These companies clearly understood that abandoning this important television platform for expanding brand awareness would only allow other brands to gain more exposure. With one gaining and the other losing, the outcome was predictable.
Not only that, LVMH also became one of Fashion TV's first advertising clients, signing a two-year, $6 million advertising contract with Fashion TV.
By leveraging its dual identity as a content provider and advertiser, the LVMH Group successfully added clauses related to corporate reputation protection in a series of cooperation agreements with Fashion TV, explicitly stating that Fashion TV must not publish content that damages the reputation of LVMH Group's brands.
When Simon learned of this, he couldn't help but admire the shrewdness and boldness of Bernard Arnault, the head of the LVMH Group.
Fashion TV's total projected advertising revenue in North America for the next two years is only $40 million, yet LVMH Group alone placed $6 million in advertising. Moving forward, after Fashion TV expands in Europe, both parties will certainly engage in similar collaborations.
Most critically, through a combination of vested interests and contractual restrictions, Bernard Arnault preemptively circumvented Daenerys Entertainment's potential use of the Fashion TV platform to discredit and suppress the LVMH Group.
Simon's intention when he did not agree to make Fashion TV a subsidiary of Melisandre was to build a global fashion television network.
For a media network to grow and thrive, it must maintain its neutrality as much as possible. Therefore, Simon never intended to use Fashion TV to discredit or suppress other luxury brands from the outset; that would only lead to the television station's self-destruction.
However, not suppressing other luxury brands does not mean that Fashion TV cannot, in turn, strengthen the promotion of fashion brands within the Westeros system.
With 24 hours of programming each year, if brands under Melisandre occupy eight hours, but brands under LVMH only get two hours of exposure, this would also be a very strong case of one gaining at the expense of the other.
Of course, this is just an example.
For Fashion TV to develop and expand long-term, its bias towards Melisandre will not be small, but the inclination cannot be too obvious.
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New York, Manhattan.
Fashion TV in North America officially launched at 6:00 PM Eastern Time on February 8th.
Starting at 4:00 PM, celebrities from various fields began to gather outside the Gramercy Park Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where Fashion TV's launch ceremony was being held, followed by a celebratory reception.
At 5:00 PM, media and guests gathered in a conference hall inside the Gramercy Park Hotel, and the launch ceremony began.
To promote the television station as quickly as possible, although it couldn't secure time slots on major public television networks, Daenerys Entertainment still contacted USA and some other important local television stations on the East and West Coasts to broadcast the hour-long press conference live. The Ygritte portal website would also provide real-time online coverage.
Simon, Amy Pascal, Robert Iger, and other core executives from Daenerys Entertainment attended the launch ceremony. In addition, a large number of stars and supermodels from both the entertainment and fashion circles were present. The conference hall seated over a hundred people, looking dazzling with stars. Lesser-known celebrities and models simply did not qualify to attend this press conference.
The ceremony was personally hosted by Anna Coleman, President of Fashion TV.
For the first half hour, this female executive who had just joined Daenerys Entertainment Group clearly introduced Fashion TV's operating philosophy, content setup, development goals, and other basic information. From 5:30 PM to 5:50 PM, she continuously fielded questions from various media for 20 minutes in a live Q&A session.
Simon sat below, watching the female executive's fluent presentation and Q&A session, which lasted 50 minutes, and felt increasingly satisfied.
At 5:50 PM, there were 10 minutes left until the television station went live.
Representatives from major operators such as Comcast and Warner Cable, along with supermodels like Jerry Hall and Cindy Crawford, who were about to collaborate with Fashion TV, all came on stage. After the final remarks, everyone started a countdown and collectively pressed a symbolic button on the stage.
Immediately, the screen of Fashion TV appeared on the projection screen in front of the conference hall.
First up was a two-hour special program, personally hosted by Cindy Crawford, primarily to introduce Fashion TV's content and program setup to the audience in a more intuitive way.
To keep the program engaging, the entire hour-long show was filmed on location, even utilizing some simple special effects. Cindy Crawford moved through different studios, fashion show venues, design workshops, and other iconic fashion industry settings, introducing Fashion TV's programs such as "Fashion Personalities," "Top Models," and "Runway Live" in a relaxed and humorous manner. During the promotion, a large number of fashion industry bigwigs also made cameo appearances, offering their blessings for Fashion TV's launch.
Fashion TV's television signal began to enter American households, and the press conference at the Gramercy Park Hotel officially concluded.
The celebratory reception started at 7 PM, and many guests temporarily left.
Some rested, while others changed clothes.
Especially the supermodels and actresses, who needed two different outfits for the reception and the press conference.
Simon also returned to his Fifth Avenue apartment. After a short rest, close to 7 PM, he brought Janet, who had also been busy all day at Cersei Capital, back to the Gramercy Park Hotel.
The reception was ultimately for publicity.
Upon arrival, after some photos were taken, Simon and his wife walked into the reception hall together.
After spending more than ten minutes socializing with the evening's guests, Simon joined the small circle where several Daenerys Entertainment executives had gathered.
Anna Coleman had already obtained Fashion TV's initial launch data.
According to viewership sampling statistics from the East Coast, Cindy Crawford's Fashion TV introductory segment was estimated to have around 6.5 million viewers. This was a very good start, exceeding 10% of Fashion TV's 60 million covered population. For a specialized and niche fashion television station, attracting 6.5 million viewers at launch is quite remarkable.
It's important to note that, unlike traditional television stations that rely on hit programs to gain attention, it's impossible for Fashion TV to become an overnight sensation.
Just like established fashion magazines such as *Vogue* and *GQ*, Fashion TV needs to build its reputation and influence and achieve a stable audience through long-term and professional operation.
Moreover, the 6.5 million viewers at launch carried a more symbolic meaning.
Once the television station stabilizes, having two to three million viewers during prime time each day would meet viewership expectations.
In Simon's memory, many years later, basic cable channels often had only hundreds of thousands of viewers during prime time. However, that was decades later, when the internet and streaming media had already severely impacted the traditional cable television industry, and many people might not even watch TV once a week.
Currently, the internet is just emerging, and due to present-day speed limitations, it cannot yet threaten the cable television industry.
The key to Fashion TV's commercial success still lies in cultivating a core audience and achieving economies of scale globally. After all, much of Fashion TV's content is universally applicable, and anyone interested in fashion will be interested in Fashion TV's programs. Therefore, the wider Fashion TV's reach and the greater its popularity, the lower its average program production costs will be.
The Fashion TV in Simon's memory was just like that.
As the world's largest fashion television station, Fashion TV's reputation was even comparable to top cable channels like CNN and ESPN. Even though its revenue and profits were far from those of channels like CNN, relying on its global fashion media network, Fashion TV always had a very comfortable 'small life.'
Simon, of course, also knew that simply having the same name did not guarantee that the new Fashion TV would grow and thrive as it did in his memory.
Daenerys Entertainment is already an industry behemoth, and large companies are often less aggressive in exploring new areas than small companies.
However, even in a less-than-ideal scenario, as long as Fashion TV can achieve self-sufficiency, it can continue to operate and provide an effective advertising and marketing channel for the fashion brands of the Westeros system.