The ever so growing Crunchyroll and Video Streaming in general (+ Netflix & Amazon)

[bigsocce]

From QuarkBoy at another forum:

Just a bit of news from Tokyo Anime Fair: ANN will post it when they put up their full reports, later.

In a seminar yesterday, Kun Gao, CEO of Crunchyroll revealed (after announcing the investment) that CR has paid almost 1 million dollars in royalties to Japanese content providers over the past year.

So there's a public hard number for you curious folks.

(Note: To put that in some perspective, I'd estimate that CR streamed around 500 simulcast episodes over the past year. That'd be $2,000 an episode. Of course, what percentage of that was Naruto alone? ).

the investment he was talking about was the US$750,000 Investment by TV Tokyo .

The media-distribution website Crunchyroll has announced on Thursday that TV Tokyo made a US$750,000 strategic investment for a minority stake in Crunchyroll. The company made the announcement at its symposium on the opening day of Tokyo International Anime Fair.

---------------------------------------Crunchyroll Revenue from paid subscription and ad revenue----------------------

20,000 subscribers x $5 on average x $12 months = $1.2 mil a year from subscription revenue
AD revenue: maybe $10 CPM ($10 per 1000 views). Various news article put it as $30 CPM for hulu so I am guessing its $10 CPM for CR. Just a guess.

[seven|x_x]

it would take close to that much to make me watch streamed anime.

interesting though, that tv tokyo has bought a small stake in the company.

[Vexx]

Sooooo, they're saying that they gave $1,000,000 each year to Japanese firms and, in turn, a Japanese conglomerate invested $750,000 back, once ....

And assuming any veracity to (20,000 subscribers x $5 on average x $12 months = $1.2 mil a year from subscription revenue), that leaves $200K/yr after royalties.

The business math for staying in the black seems a bit shaky here, perhaps there's not enough data ...

What might make sense here is for the content providers to just *assume* that CR provides the same "advertising" of the franchises as do the Japanese broadcast conglomerates and pay CR accordingly as they do the Japanese broadcast companies. Then establish US branches to actually market/sell anime DVDs, swag, figures, and other merchandise.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The business math for staying in the black seems a bit shaky here, perhaps there's not enough data ...

Ad revenue isn't being revealed, I would assume. I see at least two ads on the main page alone, so we know they're getting revenue from that.

[wingdarkness]

Awesome, so streamed anime no longer has a bad name (*snickers*^^)...

I wonder what the next step will be, buying a fansub group...I've been pushing that for years...

[bayoab]

Everyone is doing the math in the wrong direction...
CR has... ~40 shows licensed direct from Japan with 13 or 26 eps... (I gave up counting since 40 was a nice number)
1000000/40 series = 25000/series, or 1000-2000/episode [Or the same as ~40-120 additional R2 DVD sales per disc or ~400 per series.]
And this assumes equal viewing among all series which is obviously not true.

[bigsocce]

Originally Posted by bayoab

Everyone is doing the math in the wrong direction...
CR has... ~40 shows licensed direct from Japan with 13 or 26 eps... (I gave up counting since 40 was a nice number)
1000000/40 series = 25000/series, or 1000-2000/episode [Or the same as ~40-120 additional R2 DVD sales per disc or ~400 per series.]
And this assumes equal viewing among all series which is obviously not true.

$1,000,000 / 40 series = $25,000 per series.

Any idea how much it cost to license an anime series?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...ad-to-survival

Even the Cartoon Network in America withdrew Japanese animation almost across-the-board during prime time. Cartoon Network
restored some anime on the Adult Swim programming block for otaku 14 years old or older, but reportedly no longer anticipates another hit on the level of Pokémon or Naruto. The DVD marketplace also became more difficult as some titles sold less than 400 copies nationwide.

[bigsocce]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pres...wth-in-q1-2010

Crunchyroll, Inc., reported today an over 40% compounded quarter on quarter revenue growth for the last five quarters. Q1 2010 revenue experienced over 250% growth, against the same quarter last year. Crunchyroll's revenue is driven by the ‘freemium’ business model made up of advertising-supported and subscription streaming as well as virtual goods, monetizing professionally produced content through direct relationships with Japanese licensors and broadcasters.

“With over 5.5 million unique visitors serving 21.8 million video views and over 100 million pageviews in the month of March, Crunchyroll is the most engaged community for anime in the world.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/indu...hyroll-metrics

As stated previously, we have developed a wide net of partners through the FUNimation Network which resides on such platforms as Hulu, YouTube, TV.com and Anime News Network – much like a television network being on multiple carriers such as DISH, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc. The numbers stated in Crunchyroll's press release do not acknowledge our wide distribution across these many platforms. In addition, as FUNimation owns and operates more than 180 sites rather than simply the one site they reference, their press release may be misleading. One other key difference between our two sites is the territories on which we concentrate. Funimation focuses on North American numbers only, while Crunchyroll.com receives the majority of its traffic from outside North America (source: Alexa, Quantcast). Lastly, as most industry experts will recognize, “video views” can be interpreted many different ways. We try to use a conservative approach, but if we were to account for all video views in March, there were more than 55 million views of FUNimation titles by North American viewers.

Together with Crunchyroll's 21.8 million worldwide views, this represents a major stride forward for anime in regards to the industry's ability to gain meaningful exposure for this exciting genre we both represent

Summary:

Crunchyroll 21.8 million views worldwide
Funimation: 55 million views for North America through various distribution platforms like funimation, youtube, hulu, etc....

Just to put things into perspective, here's the USA videos views from Comscore:

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events...Video_Rankings



Total Internet : Total Audience 31,241,101 100.0
Google Sites 13,056,042 41.8
Hulu 1,070,460 3.4
Microsoft Sites 655,068 2.1
Yahoo! Sites 477,887 1.5
CBS Interactive 457,261 1.5
Viacom Digital 370,179 1.2
Vevo 331,144 1.1
Turner Network 302,626 1.0
Fox Interactive Media 300,392 1.0
AOL LLC 280,328 0.9

#1 is youtube with 13 billion views (42% of the US video markets)
#2 is hulu with 1 billion views (3.4% of the US video markets)

[Vexx]

From the referenced article, quoting Iwata who heads up the animation for TV Tokyo:
"as it stands, we may have to go back to the way it was in the past — back to selling Japanese animation only to the Japanese marketplace."

I'm not sure that would be a bad thing (for the japanese anime industry). One of the problems is that part of the appeal of anime is the cultural component. Anime "made for the global market" is probably going to be as questionable as the OEL pseudo-manga crap Tokyopop is spewing.

The article itself highlights some of the problem: the distributors themselves who only want to play with "big hits" (e.g. Naruto, Pokemon) instead of understanding the niche nature of the market.

The DVD marketplace also became more difficult as some titles sold less than 400 copies nationwide.

Now there's an uninformative bit of news. Did the titles suck? Were they series with very small numbers but ardent fans? How many is "some"?

Again, its a question of understanding the market in regard to collectibles and how that is different. Public television seems to do nicely selling extremely low volume DVD sets, eh?

I think Funimation is closer to being on the right track by 'broadcasting' works it plans on selling via DVD (or to check the buy potential based on views). With CR, it depends on which Japanese content creators want to play with them since there's no followup of merchandise to be had. Companies with US presence might be interested in partnering with CR... at least until they get their feet grounded. However, its also just as likely that the anime industry in Japan will decide the "overseas" market isn't worth the trouble and return to serving just the domestic audience as they used to.

[StudioJC]

Sometimes it's better to discover anime (or fansubs for that matter) on your own. I'm just afraid that there will be a large scale fansub regulation if Crunchyroll gets featured on the mainstream news. I wouldn't add the copyright infringement stuff since it's a given. However, there are various groups (censorship, feminists, etc.) that will definitely go down on anime like starving pigs on a corpse.

[Nightbat®]

I'm telling ya: No future in online screenings

[fertygo]

Originally Posted by Nightbat®

I'm telling ya: No future in online screenings

believe me, media-streaming is the future of entertainment business.

15-20 year from now, traditional TV Broadcast will death.

[Master_Yoma]

Well it seems that Funi and Crunchroll need to license more anime at a faster I say Funi jumps the gun and get Strike Witch season 2 and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu season 2 an license them now before they play on the air

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by fertygo

believe me, media-streaming is the future of entertainment business.

15-20 year from now, traditional TV Broadcast will death.

You might not know this.. but that line has been used repeatedly ("death of ....") for the last century for technologies that nonetheless stuck around.

Get back to me when we have 100% *REAL* broadband penetration

(frankly, I'd argue that conventional passive "tv viewing" is ALREADY marginalized anyway by interactive entertainment and a return to more traditional live entertainment ... one reason the Big Content Providers are desperate to turn the Internet into a 'passive consumer experience'... can't have all You Little Peasants creating entertainment for yourselves after all).

[fertygo]

Originally Posted by Vexx

You might not know this.. but that line has been used repeatedly ("death of ....") for the last century for technologies that nonetheless stuck around.

Get back to me when we have 100% *REAL* broadband penetration

well, Newspaper already on the verge of the edge... so Traditional TV will be next "victim"

For the topic itself I hope Crunchy and Funi can keep this good trend and make west market profiting for Japan's Anime Industry, and for the user itself its always nice to have easy way to support the industries.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by fertygo

well, Newspaper already on the verge of the edge... so Traditional TV will be next "victim"

For the topic itself I hope Crunchy and Funi can keep this good trend and make west market profiting for Japan's Anime Industry, and for the user itself its always nice to have easy way to support the industries.

As long as people recognize that CR and Funi are only going to hit the "sweet spots" (maximal parts of the bell curve) and there will always be "low volume" anime they ignore - I suspect they'll get along unless the Japanese anime industry just decides the 'overseas' market just isn't worth the hassle to have official partnering with.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Now there's an uninformative bit of news. Did the titles suck? Were they series with very smal numbers but ardent fans? How many is "some"?

Also, were these titles part of bundle deals? From what I hear, selling shows in bundles isn't exactly an uncommon practice in anime.

[kyosak]

Amazes me that people actually pay for a subscription on that website ...

[Marcus H.]

Originally Posted by Master_Yoma

Well it seems that Funi and Crunchroll need to license more anime at a faster I say Funi jumps the gun and get Strike Witch season 2 and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu season 2 an license them now before they play on the air

I have bad feelings on this one. I hope it wouldn't end up that they suspend the dubbed viewing before the series ends. And plus, ain't Strike Witches that anime with main characters wearing no pants (not pantsu)?

[Vexx]

They wear sleek battle shorts, yes that's what I call the Strike Witch clothing. (rofl)


"A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader..."