In the conference room of Ray Media’s office.
Compared with the full house the previous day, the number of people showing up to the meeting today was obviously less than half.
Hans was not there yet and the management of all the departments looked at each other in dismay.
“Did Trond have too much to drink last night? Why hasn’t he arrived at the company yet?”
“Kiel is not here yet either. Why is he late?”
“Bill, go to their departments and ask why their managers are not here yet.”
“There is no need…”
The cold voice was loud and clear. The noisy conference room suddenly quieted down and all discussion stopped.
Everyone turned around and saw Hans in a black suit, his look was chilling. He walked to the conference table. Compared with the humility and politeness of the day before, he had an inexplicable sense of coldness today.
The beautiful secretary behind him held a stack of documents in her hands. As soon as she entered the door, she began to hand the documents to the managers. She looked soft-spoken, but she was Hans’s personal assistant after all. When she handed out the documents, she was calm and collected.
“Mr. Hans… I saw that the managers in charge of artists management didn’t come in today, I was just going to send Bill to figure out what was going on. This is…”
The one who spoke was Jerry Bomer, he used to own Ray Media. He was in his early fifties and was the executive director of the company. When Hans was not around, he was basically in charge of Ray Media as the acting president. He was ready to retire but he stayed at Hans’s request.
“As you can see, in today’s meeting, there are a few absent managers and staff. The HR department has been busy handling their resignation procedures. As of last night, they are no longer working for Ray Media.”
As soon as Hans said that, the conference room exploded in chatters.
There were four department managers, six deputy managers, and a few staff who were being groomed to join management that was absent today.
According to Hans, the company had just fired half of the upper management of the company.
“Mr. Hans, this wouldn’t work. Trond and a few other department managers have to keep an eye on the artists every day to make sure everything runs smoothly. If something happened after they were dismissed, the company can’t operate normally…”
“Mr. Bomer.” Hans interrupted him coldly. “The company is not operating normally when these people are around. You personally gave me your words when I gave Ray Media full control to manage the live streaming artists. So, have you come up with a good excuse for the live streamer who got arrested recently?”
Jerry’s face stiffened.
In the meeting yesterday, Hans did not mention the previous uproar about the live streamer’s arrest. After all, the Joy Group was rich. With a little money, they could make the story go away.
In fact, when Jerry first learnt that Hans was coming to Ray Media for an inspection, he was so anxious that he didn’t sleep all night. Yesterday, when Hans didn’t mention the matter, he finally felt relieved. But today, he brought it up again, together with the new scandal, he could barely take it anymore.
“Mr. Hans, I… I will give you an explanation regarding the arrest. However, we definitely did not arrange for the female streamer to stream pornographic content. She wasn’t even part of our main focus for training.”
He broke out in a cold sweat. Although he was in a panic, he had to think about the company, so he forced himself to explain to Hans.
“But we still have to be careful about firing the managers. Mr. Hans, this is not a child’s play…”
“Child’s play?” The corners of Hans’s lips curled into a cold smile. He abruptly raised his voice and threw the document in his hand onto the table.
“Not your main focus? It’s because all the artists you are focusing on have been sleeping with all these managers, so these other female streamers are forced to take risks. Mr. Bomer, why don’t you take a look yourself?”
Jerry was stunned and looked down at the unopened document.
When he opened it, his eyes were blank. After he flipped through a few pages, he fell on his chair and he looked stunned.
Jennifer stood behind Hans with pity in her eyes.
After all, Jerry was old. He had handed over most of the company matter to the managers. This was a matter of his trusted staff doing shady business under his nose.
The female streamer involved in the pornography scandal was not an internet celebrity, and she only had an average amount of fans.
After the accident, Jennifer had been involved in this case. She was surprised to find that this female streamer was very good-looking. She was different compared with the other popular streamers. Her dancing and singing skills were pretty good. Although she often talked dirty jokes in her live stream, she had never crossed the line before.
If she hadn’t been taken away by the police during the live stream, they probably wouldn’t have heard about her in Joy Group.
In the conference room, many people opened the documents. Hans glanced at Jennifer. She understood and took out the voice recorder and played it for the conference room.
“Anyway, I won’t do live streaming anymore after today’s stream. I don’t make much money anyway and I have to listen to those shameless b*stards in the company. I would rather benefit my male fans who always supported me. I have a clear conscience.”
It was the first time that Jennifer had heard this recording, and it was also the first time that she had heard someone being so proud of selling themselves on live streams. She was shocked.
But it was true when the female streamer said she didn’t make much money in the recording.
The company and the streamers shared their earnings. The company took seventy percent, and another ten percent for the platform management fee. The streamers only got twenty percent. In addition, that didn’t include publicity which meant the streamers had to pay for that too. After all these expenses, the monthly income of the top ten live streamers on the major live streaming platforms would be about one hundred thousand dollars.
There were more than a thousand live streamers in Ray Media, and only one-tenth of them could be that popular. Even the most popular one could only earn that much money, let alone those unknown streamers.
“Company’s subsidisation? Is there such a thing? I’ve been in the company for almost a year and I have heard nothing about it except that you could get some perks if you sleep with Trond and all those b*stards. I haven’t heard of any other streamers who got any subsidisation. We are all paid with twenty percent of our earnings, and that was barely enough for the basic living expenses.”
“What about the company’s public broadcast room?” Although the voice had been changed, Jennifer still recognized that it was James’s voice.
It seemed that James did not come to Seattle with them because he had his mission elsewhere.
“We have that in the company, but we didn’t get to use it. We just set up something at home. The company’s well-decorated broadcast rooms are specially for those other streamers.”
The conference room was silent. Everyone lowered their heads and listened to the recording silently. They had been in the company for a long time, so they knew about such things. Most people thought that it was better to avoid any trouble, so they just turned a blind eye. Anyway, those were deals between consenting adults.
Jennifer put away the digital voice recorder and said in a low voice,
“This is the recording from the live streamer involved.”