Per reporter: Bi Yuanyuan Wen Menghua Per reporter: Dong Xingsheng
On the evening of October 25, a report of the arrest of Tencent video producer Zhang Meng went viral on the Internet, and the news also said that it involved the legacy drama "Qiannu Ghost" starring Zheng Shuang (now renamed "Only Ask About love in this life"). In addition, there are even news that the management of Tencent's video business is also involved.
Image source: Official poster
On the morning of the 26th, Tencent responded to every reporter saying: Recently, Tencent found in the anti-fraud investigation that Zhang Mou, the producer of Tencent Video Film and Television Project, violated the company's "high-voltage line" and was suspected of violating the law, and has now been handed over to the judicial organs for handling. At present, the police have opened an investigation into this case. The online rumor that we are involved in yin and yang contracts and other claims is based on false rumors.
In recent years, corruption has occurred frequently in the Internet field, and the Internet industry has already set off an "anti-corruption" storm. According to incomplete statistics of public data, in the five years before 2020, there were more than 200 anti-corruption cases in the Internet field, involving 16 Internet companies such as Tencent, JD.com, Alibaba, baidu, etc., with a total of nearly 500 people involved.
<h2>A report on "Ghost of a Woman</h2>"
Every time the reporter learned that Zhang Meng was reported for "Qiannu Ghost", Tencent found its illegal facts in the process of investigation.
It is reported that Zhang Meng is a senior producer of Tencent Video and works at Canopy Studio. Zhang Meng is one of the producers of the recent blockbuster drama "You Are My Glory" and Tencent Video's 2016 hit drama "The Essence of the Ghost Blowing Lights".
Zhang Meng's direct leader Fang Fang is the management of Tencent Video, responsible for the project development of film and television dramas, and Tencent Video's phenomenal web drama "Chen Qingling" is from Fang Fang's hand.
Every reporter learned that on October 25, Fang Fang, who was also rumored to be involved in the "Yin and Yang Contract" incident of "Qiannu Ghost", attended the launching ceremony of the web drama "Ru yue" produced by Tencent Video.
Speaking of "Ghost of Qiannu", this drama buried a series of thunder, the producer Beijing Culture falsified this performance, the actor Zheng Shuang recklessly used the "Yin and Yang Contract", and the platform party Tencent Video was eventually implicated.
Lou Xiaoxi, a former executive of Beijing Culture and the original head of the "Qiannu Ghost" project, once revealed to every reporter that in August 2020, "Qiannu Ghost" obtained a distribution license, and after several rounds of marketing publicity, it was scheduled to be broadcast around the Spring Festival in 2021.
Every reporter learned that as an absolute big female lead drama, the completion budget of "Qiannu Ghost" is about 360 million yuan, which was originally scheduled to be broadcast on Tencent Video, iQiyi, and Youku three major platforms, and after signing the contract, the producer got an advance payment of more than 50 million yuan.
"The budget of 212 million yuan is for actors (salaries)." Lou Xiaoxi said.
The Shanghai Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation said in August this year that after investigation, Zheng Shuang starred in the TV series "Ghost of Qiannu" in 2019, and agreed with the producer that the remuneration was 160 million yuan, and actually obtained 156 million yuan, of which 108 million yuan was paid in the form of "capital increase" to the company actually controlled by Zheng Shuang.
Image source: Maoyan Pro
According to the survey results, in the "Ghost of a Woman" project, according to Zheng Shuang's illegal facts, it was determined that 43.027 million yuan of tax evasion was determined, and other underpaid taxes were 16.1778 million yuan. Through the total, Zheng Shuang did not declare personal income of 191 million yuan according to law from 2019 to 2020, evaded taxes of 45.2696 million yuan, and other underpaid taxes of 26.5207 million yuan. According to the regulations, the First Inspection Bureau of the Shanghai Municipal Taxation Bureau pursued Zheng Shuang's tax payment, collected late fees and imposed a total fine of 299 million yuan.
The producer, Beijing Culture, has not escaped the illegal facts. It is understood that Beijing Culture's wholly-owned company Century Partners, because of the false transfer of the right to invest in the income of "Qiannu Ghost" and "Great Song Palace Words", resulted in Beijing Culture's inflated income totaling 460 million yuan in the 2018 annual report, accounting for 38.20% of the current operating income (before retrospective adjustment), and inflating the net profit of 191 million yuan, accounting for 58.94% of the net profit of the current period (before retrospective adjustment). Beijing Culture's 2018 annual report was judged by the CSRC to be falsely recorded.
<h2>In the past five years, there have been more than 200 Internet anti-corruption cases</h2>
In recent years, the Internet industry has set off an "anti-corruption" storm.
According to incomplete statistics of public data, in the five years up to 2020, there were more than 200 anti-corruption cases in the Internet field, involving a total of 16 Internet companies, including Tencent, JD.com, Alibaba, Baidu, LeTV, 360, Youku Tudou, 58.com, Qunar.com, Meituan, Xiaomi, ByteDance, etc., with a total of nearly 500 people involved.
Every reporter noted that with the fierce competition of domestic video websites in recent years, the production cost of a popular drama has often exceeded 100 million, and the copyright purchase budget has also risen, laying the groundwork for corruption in all links to a certain extent. Zhang Chaoyang, founder of Sohu, once said in a public interview: "The power of executives in the video industry is too great! ”
In recent years, only the Alibaba entertainment system Youku has erupted a number of incidents of corruption involving executives.
In 2015, Liu Chunning, former vice president of Alibaba and executive director of Alibaba Pictures, was taken away by the police on suspicion of commercial bribery. However, at that time, Ali Pictures issued an announcement in response: "Liu Chunning was investigated for accepting bribes during his tenure at Tencent, which has nothing to do with his current position in the company." Just a year later, Lu Fanxi, former vice president of Youku, was taken away for investigation for economic crimes.
In 2018, Yang Weidong, the former president of Youku and CEO of Ali Music, cooperated with the police investigation due to economic problems, causing great concern, and finally he was sentenced to seven years in prison and confiscated 2 million yuan of property, and 8.55 million yuan in his bank account was also recovered, becoming the sixth senior executive to be investigated since Ali established the "Integrity compliance Department" in 2012.
The Internet industry has developed rapidly, and there have been incidents of corruption involving executives in Sina Group, iQiyi, Kuaishou, etc., and the anti-corruption actions of Internet platforms have never stopped.
In 2018, Liu Zhou, the former music director of iQIYI's "China Has Hip Hop", was arrested for embezzling 15 million assets of investors. This year, Zhao Danyang, former vice president of Kuaishou and head of the Community Content Research Institute, was arrested after taking bribes, "the amount is particularly huge", and many subordinates were also involved; in August this year, Sina Group issued a notice saying that Mao Taotao, the former senior public relations director of Weibo's brand marketing department, was criminally detained by the public security organs according to law for suspected fraud, and Sina dismissed him and was no longer hired.
Image source: Sina Group Bulletin
In February this year, Tencent Group reported that from the fourth quarter of 2019 to February 2021, Tencent's anti-fraud investigation department found more than 60 cases of violations of the "Tencent high voltage line", more than 100 people were dismissed for violating the "Tencent high voltage line", and more than 40 people were transferred to the public security organs for handling for suspected crimes.
According to the notification at the time, among the 22 typical cases involving job embezzlement and bribery disclosed by Tencent this time, the largest number and personnel involved were PCG (platform and content business groups), a total of 14 cases, accounting for more than 60%, of which 26 employees were notified for "seeking benefits for suppliers/external companies/external personnel and collecting benefit fees".
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