At the beginning of the year, projects were scouted and pilot episodes prepared. They were pitched to television networks during the May upfronts and aired in the fall. This was the project operation process for most American television programs.
Simon had used his spare time to complete only the first season story outline and rough script for Desperate Housewives. Many details still needed reworking, which also conveniently allowed the writing credit to be transferred elsewhere.
For a women's television series like this, Simon personally taking the screenwriter credit would actually seem rather strange. He no longer needed to accumulate anything through a television show.
Of course, that did not prevent the news from quickly spreading through Hollywood that Simon Westeros was personally creating a new project.
Although it was a television series, the still popular reality shows of recent years had already proven that Simon could create the same kind of miracles in television as he had in film.
After all, the hit reality shows Survivor and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire had not only generated billions in industry value but had also made a large batch of television reality stars famous.
Take Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, for example. Although its popularity had already begun to decline after the initial boom, the host Regis Philbin's annual salary had still reached ten million dollars, matching the income level of Hollywood A-list superstars.
Of the original four reality shows launched in 1988, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills had the lowest ratings, yet all the housewives had become household television stars.
Even though the income from appearing in the reality show itself was not high, through other television programs, advertising endorsements, and personal careers developed outside television, they had all achieved both fame and fortune. This was also why Kris Jenner was so obedient in front of Simon.
The deeper one was inside the circle, the more clearly one could feel the true power and influence of those at the top of the pyramid. Therefore, the easier it was to feel awe and submission.
Now that Simon was personally creating a television project, even if it would only air on a cable network like USA, once some of the project details became known, it was enough to make many Hollywood actresses who were already nearing the end of their careers flock to it.
In the Hollywood circle, especially for actresses, if one could not make a name before thirty, after thirty one either married and became a housewife or lingered on the fringes of the circle. The number who could truly break through after thirty could be counted on one hand.
It was now February 1992. The spring schedule had already begun, so the slot for Desperate Housewives would definitely be the prime fall schedule. There was still plenty of preparation and production time.
Simon had taken out the brief story and script and handed the early project preparations over to Robert Iger. He still had many more important matters to handle.
On February 18, after more than a month of financial auditing, Daenerys Entertainment Group's 1991 annual financial report was finally released.
In the entire year of 1991, Daenerys Entertainment, which had completed the acquisition of MCA, achieved total revenue of 9.3 billion dollars. Because large amounts of cash flow had to be allocated to repay the debt from the MCA acquisition as well as various expenditures such as company layoffs and asset write downs, the company's full year net profit ultimately came to 270 million dollars.
However, because of continued large scale debt repayment, even after completing the full acquisition of EA for more than 800 million dollars, Daenerys Entertainment Group's overall debt amount had been reduced to only 7.8 billion dollars.
Because of the huge success of Toy Story, the industry's valuation of Daenerys Entertainment Group had generally reached 20 billion dollars.
According to this valuation level, the 7.8 billion dollars in debt roughly equated to only a 39 percent debt ratio.
After completing a merger on the scale of tens of billions of dollars, Daenerys Entertainment's debt ratio had been kept under 40 percent. This was already a groundbreaking achievement.
After Time Warner Group had taken a series of measures to reduce debt over the past two years, and with more than a year of continuous rebound in the American stock market, the company's current debt ratio still exceeded 70 percent.
The reason media tycoons like Redstone and Murdoch had seen their assets shrink rapidly in recent years was mainly the drag from the high debt of the companies under their names after the American bond crisis erupted.
Such a comparison made Daenerys Entertainment's operating condition look even more outstanding.
In addition, Daenerys Entertainment's full year revenue of 9.3 billion dollars also meant that this media company, founded only six years earlier, had already squeezed into the top 50 of the Fortune 500 list for American companies. Its revenue scale was comparable to those of old line industry giants like Lockheed Martin and Coca Cola.
Within the entire media industry, Daenerys Entertainment's revenue scale was second only to Time Warner Group.
However, because of the completely out of control merger two years earlier and the prolonged intense internal struggles within management, although Time Warner had revenue exceeding 10 billion dollars, its actual operating condition was far inferior to Daenerys Entertainment, which was still rising steadily.
Since listing was already planned, Daenerys Entertainment did not continue to keep the company's financial data low key this time. It proactively contacted some financial media and released the figures.
Most corporate giants experienced huge losses in the first few years after completing mergers. Although Daenerys Entertainment's net profit margin for the past year was only 3 percent, anyone could see that such financial data clearly proved Daenerys Entertainment's ample room to maneuver financially.
After the initial turbulence following the merger, once operations stabilized, as long as it was willing, Daenerys Entertainment could continue to rapidly reduce its debt ratio relying on its own abundant cash flow.
As the media discussed Daenerys Entertainment's new annual financial report, Simon's twenty fourth birthday arrived without anyone noticing.
February 22 this year happened to be a Saturday.
Although he did not plan to make a big fuss like he had for his twentieth birthday, with Simon's current status, even wanting a low key birthday was not easy.
From January onward, many people had already been constantly inquiring about Simon's twenty fourth birthday party. Janet wished everyone would forget her own birthday, yet she placed considerable importance on Simon's and had begun preparations a full month in advance.
The party location was still inside the mansion halfway up the Palisades.
After spending so much time together, most people around them could sense the primitive territorial awareness in Simon. He disliked others touching his private space.
Therefore, many people had not held much expectation for a birthday party at Dume Point Manor. Perhaps in the future, very few people would ever be able to enter the uppermost floors of Westeros Tower.
Of course, even a birthday party inside the Palisades mansion was not something just anyone could participate in.
Although the threshold was very high, compared with the somewhat dull business parties of the past, under Janet's arrangements Simon's birthday party was very lively, with singing, dancing, fine wine, and beautiful women all present.
The party ran from seven o'clock Saturday evening until two in the morning. If not for the worry that guests staying overnight at the Palisades mansion might lead to some unpredictable incidents, an all night event would have been inevitable.
Once they left the party, however wild things became, it would no longer have anything to do with the Westeros family.
Simon and his wife did not leave the Palisades until midnight that evening. They flew overnight to Panama. The little one was temporarily left in Kathryn's care. Kathryn obviously had no experience looking after children, but what the woman needed to do was simply watch him. The A, B, and D girls had all stayed at Dume Point Manor. They were the nannies Janet had personally trained.
They played in Panama for three days. The couple did not return to Los Angeles until Wednesday of the new week.
Simon dropped Janet off at the airport, then flew straight to San Francisco.
After investing in the graphics card chip company ATI at the beginning of last year, ATI had finally completed development of its first consumer grade graphics card chip targeted at the PC market.
Westeros Company had originally bought 25 percent of ATI's shares for 50 million dollars. Simon had later suggested that Intel fully acquire ATI and pour all its efforts into promoting graphics cards.
However, although Intel had accepted Simon's suggestion, ATI had not agreed to Intel's acquisition offer.
This was obvious.
Having latched onto the big leg of Westeros Company, ATI already had a sufficiently strong backer. There was no need to sell itself to Intel, at least not for the time being.
Anyone who was not a fool understood the principle of waiting for the right price.
However, ATI also understood Intel's powerful influence in the semiconductor industry. Although it had rejected the full acquisition offer, it had still accepted Intel's investment and transferred out 10 percent of its shares.
The semiconductor industry was extremely capital intensive. Therefore, from the moment of its founding, ATI, which had been continuously raising funds, could not possibly have shareholders with too large a stake.
Westeros Company and Intel together held 35 percent of ATI's total shares, which basically gave them control of the company.
With ATI's graphics card chip completed, the next step was naturally promotion.
Many years later, most PC users would find it hard to truly appreciate the usefulness of graphics cards, because by then ordinary users had already become accustomed to the convenience graphics cards provided. Unless one was a professional image processing technician or a gaming enthusiast, integrated graphics cards were already sufficient to meet most users' daily needs.
Of course, in the subsequent smartphone era, the role of GPUs became obvious.
Smartphones at different price points could support different mobile games. The differences were largely due to the GPUs in the smartphones.
At this stage, the launch of specialized graphics cards for image processing replaced the corresponding computations previously handled by CPUs. The display effect was immediate.
Before coming to San Francisco, Simon had already experienced the effectiveness of discrete graphics cards. Under otherwise identical configurations, personal computers with installed graphics cards showed noticeably smoother performance whether browsing the web or playing electronic games compared with the same type of computer without a graphics card.
After comprehensive evaluation, everyone also discovered one thing.
Once graphics cards were promoted, they would not increase the burden on consumers. Instead they could lower the overall cost of PCs.
Before this, to obtain better internet surfing and gaming experiences, users had no choice but to select very expensive models. Now, by adding only a few hundred dollars for a graphics card, it might be possible to save one or two thousand dollars on the overall budget.
Moreover, this shift would undoubtedly further accelerate the personal computers.
Traditional PC manufacturers were certainly inclined to maintain higher prices for personal computers. However, once the trend formed, no one could stop it. One either adapted to the tide or was eliminated.
On the other hand, the further personal computers would naturally drive the explosion of the internet industry.
In this era, assembled computers had not yet risen. When users purchased personal computers, they basically bought a complete set, including the monitor.
Therefore, the promotion of graphics cards required the cooperation of OEM manufacturers like IBM and Compaq.
ATI had originally been one of IBM's professional graphics card chip suppliers for graphics workstations. This time, after personally witnessing the effect of ATI's developed consumer grade graphics cards, IBM, which had always been the hardest bone in the industry, no longer stubbornly held its ground. It quickly decided to launch corresponding models.
Of course, pricing was still decided by IBM itself.
With IBM taking the lead, companies like Compaq and Hewlett Packard also joined in.
As for Microsoft, under the push from Westeros Company, it had already begun developing support programs for graphics cards last year. The Windows 3.1 system to be released in March would achieve support for graphics card chips. The previous 3.0 system would also receive corresponding function upgrades.
The changes driven by the Wintel alliance naturally did not consider Apple.
Silicon Valley had always been a place where secrets were hard to keep. However, Apple had shown sufficient sluggishness in this matter. After its market value broke through 7 billion dollars and set a new high last year, Apple's self perception had clearly become overly optimistic.
After Simon rushed to Intel's headquarters to attend a meeting related to graphics card promotion, he stayed there until Friday, mainly to make arrangements for EA Company.
The promotion of graphics cards would undoubtedly benefit the gaming industry the most.
Current computer games were still generally 2D, but with the promotion of graphics cards, 3D games would not be far away.
The technical accumulation Daenerys Effects had in 3D animation could also provide considerable support for 3D game development. At the same time, EA had positioned itself as a PC game publisher from the beginning and already possessed sufficient experience in game development.
With so many advantages, if EA could not seize this opportunity, it would be a huge failure on the part of management.
Simon would definitely not allow such a situation to occur.
After personally finalizing some of EA's layout in 3D games, Simon returned to Los Angeles. The time was already February 28.
During the two months of 1992 that were about to pass, Daenerys Entertainment's series of film projects had been operating at full speed in their various production stages. The same was true for film distribution.
In two months, Daenerys Entertainment's three labels had cumulatively released seven films during this slow movie season. At this release frequency, the full year would easily reach forty films.
An expected full year release scale of forty films would exceed that of any major Hollywood studio. However, with Daenerys Entertainment's current strength, it was not excessive.
In the original timeline, Disney after acquiring Miramax and Time Warner after acquiring New Line had, at their peak, combined main and sub label releases that probably also reached around forty films.
However, the current Miramax was like many third tier small production companies in Hollywood with nothing particularly special about it. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series had been taken by Simon, the A Nightmare on Elm Street series' popularity had declined, and New Line had also fallen into a similar slump to many second tier companies of the 1980s.
Daenerys Entertainment's two labels, Highgate Pictures and New World Pictures, had essentially taken the places originally held by New Line and Miramax in Hollywood.
If calculated this way, the combined forty film release volume from the three labels was actually somewhat low.
Highgate Pictures and New World Pictures had already proven their strength in their respective fields. Naturally, other Hollywood studios would not let go of these two markets.
However, in recent years, under Daenerys Pictures' strong expansion, the main labels of other studios had performed poorly. In the short term, the possibility of competing with Highgate Pictures and New World Pictures in fields like art films and horror films was not great.