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Old 2009-04-06, 19:03   Link #1
bigsocce
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Crunchyroll Has Nearly 200,000+ Paid Subscribers

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features...03TDY13003.htm

Anime's future not so glum: Despite economic woes, hope alive at Tokyo anime fair

Quote:
But endorsing beer is not the only way for animators to make money in tough times. Crunchyroll, an Internet company based in the United States, says it has a new way to convert cartoons into cash.

Japanese anime attract avid fans around the world, but much of the potential revenue is scooped up by pirates before the rights holders can get their products into overseas markets, according to Chase Wang, a publicist for Crunchyroll.

Wang said that Crunchyroll's legitimate distribution of anime online has significant advantages over the production of foreign-edition DVDs, which are expensive to manufacture and ship and are subject to potentially costly returns from brick-and-mortar retailers.

Online anime not only cost less to produce, but can be distributed much more swiftly, which Wang said is key to capturing profits. When something fresh appears online, whether pirated or legitimate, it will receive the greatest number of views in its earliest days. Rights holders who let pirates beat them to the market will lose out, Wang said.

Crunchyroll has announced deals with Aniplex, Pony Canyon, Shueisha, Yomiuri Telecasting Corp. and other firms to distribute anime outside Japan, as soon as one hour after the original Japanese broadcast.

In addition to big-name companies, Wang said the low overhead of the online service levels the playing field for indie anime such as Time of Eve, which has drawn a profitable online audience overseas.

Crunchyroll claims more than 1.5 million hours of viewing per month by 4.5 million visitors, most of whom are exposed to advertising. But the site has also sold nearly 15,000 paid memberships at 6.95 dollars a month to fans who are able to watch premium content, ad-free.

In the dark clouds looming over the economy, Japan's recent Oscar win may not be the only ray of light for the anime industry.
Is this the model for the future of anime outside Japan? Free high quality streaming of anime with ads or paid subscription for premium content, ad-free.

About 2 months ago, Crunchyroll have about 10,000 subscribers. It's gaining new subscribers in the past few months.

20,000 paying subscribers @ ~$6 a month = $1.44 mil a year.
Ads would generate even more money than that. A large part of this money will go to the anime companies in Japan. [hulu pays its content providers 70% of the ad revenue] While this is not a lot of money, it's better than the 0 dollars that they get from fansubs. More anime contents from Japan = more subscribers and more ad revenues = more anime contents. And the cycle goes on.

Last edited by bigsocce; 2009-04-06 at 19:15.
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Old 2009-04-06, 19:58   Link #2
Astrana
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lol... i have an account on CR

They seem to have a lot shows...but most of them are either licensed (no videos) or no video period
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Old 2009-04-06, 20:00   Link #3
KholdStare
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Well see, as long as there are cheaper ways to watch anime legally that's not $30 for a DVD with 4 episodes, people will pay. I don't pay because personally, they don't have much that interest me right now. But I cannot speak for mostly everyone.

Last edited by KholdStare; 2009-04-06 at 20:28. Reason: grammar
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Old 2009-04-06, 20:12   Link #4
idiffer
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Quote:
new way to convert cartoons into cash.
that made me laugh. its like a phrase from some book, that may be called for example "idiot's guide to profit".
good for CR, wonder how long it'll take them to catch up to millions of fansub watchers.
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Old 2009-04-06, 20:25   Link #5
Slice of Life
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The only show on cruchyroll I'm remotely interested in so far is region blocked for no apparent reason other than profit maximization. So I get the ripped torrent and put the subtitles onto a better raw.

"bigsocce's" rather, hmmm, monothematic history of posts makes it a fair assumption that this is actually CR's PR department speaking here. Animesuki was meant to be a fan forum where people are posting as fans of anime and not out of monetary interest. I find it a worrying trend that people like Quarkboy, Tofusensei, most likely bigsocce, and God knows who else misuse it as a dropping place for their undercover ads. If they had a clear conscience about it they wouldn't hide their role in this game. It poisons the atmosphere when you need to have second thoughts about the sincerity of people's contributions here.
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Old 2009-04-06, 21:13   Link #6
denice25
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hahaha!! that made me laugh!!
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Old 2009-04-06, 21:35   Link #7
oompa loompa
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I'm glad. Well, rather I hope I have reason to be glad. I'm not exactly sure how much crunchyroll will actually be able to help, but if it does, good for them, and good for the anime industry for taking this risk. ( not that i think they had many alternatives in the matter...)
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Old 2009-04-06, 21:48   Link #8
0utf0xZer0
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I'm still curious as to how Crunchyroll actually makes money off of free users. Seems like it would be quite difficult to make any sort of reasonable profit off of mere banner ads.
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Old 2009-04-06, 22:59   Link #9
npcomplete
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I thought the ads were in the video
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Old 2009-04-06, 23:03   Link #10
npcomplete
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Astrana View Post
lol... i have an account on CR

They seem to have a lot shows...but most of them are either licensed (no videos) or no video period
It doesn't matter if a show is licensed for R1 DVDs actually. If they have permission, they can show it or even sell downloads. So Gonzo's DVD titles are there for example.
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Old 2009-04-07, 02:52   Link #11
cyth
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Originally Posted by Slice of Life View Post
I find it a worrying trend that people like Quarkboy, Tofusensei, most likely bigsocce, and God knows who else misuse it as a dropping place for their undercover ads. If they had a clear conscience about it they wouldn't hide their role in this game. It poisons the atmosphere when you need to have second thoughts about the sincerity of people's contributions here.
Such allegations poison the atmosphere, really.
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:07   Link #12
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I will say its pretty entertaining to look through post histories and see just how monochoromatic the posts are

Viral adverting, market fishing -- not too hard to spot but it would be nicer if the underlying commercial interest were simply stated up front. Otherwise, it starts feeling a bit like the stock pumpers that haunt supposedly independent finance forums pretending to be independent. Not to mention skirting forum rules a bit about commercial advert posts.
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:25   Link #13
bayoab
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This isn't really astroturfing or viral marketing because all of the posts are "See, online streaming is profitable" not "Crunchyroll is the place to go". And it usually results in a "Your numbers don't add up" flood... which I see in this threads future too. Speaking of which...

Quote:
20,000 paying subscribers @ ~$6 a month = $1.44 mil a year.
It's 1.26mil with 15k @ $7/mo assuming that they pay all year round.
Let's assume they are paying 70/30. That leaves 378k/yr before overhead. That's maybe enough to cover maybe 10 staff and a full set of servers and leaves you nothing to spare.

Also, 4.5 million visitors watching 1.5 million hours? Meaning the average visitor watches <20 minutes of video. i.e. The average user doesn't even watch 1 full video. i.e. You get less than 1 video ad impression per visitor. This is making absolutely nothing in ad revenue.* (45k max per ad set maybe per month.)
*Which would also explain why they basically put ads on every single page you click on now.

Edit: My database lists over 1000 videos on CR which means that they paid over $50k out in translation alone.

Last edited by bayoab; 2009-04-07 at 03:39. Reason: More expenses:
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:35   Link #14
0utf0xZer0
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Quote:
Originally Posted by npcomplete View Post
I thought the ads were in the video
Quote:
Originally Posted by bayoab View Post
Also, 4.5 million visitors watching 1.5 million hours? Meaning the average visitor watches <20 minutes of video. i.e. The average user doesn't even watch 1 full video. i.e. You get less than 1 video ad impression per visitor. This is making absolutely nothing in ad revenue.* (45k max per ad set maybe.)
*Which would also explain why they basically put ads on every single page you click on now.
I keep hearing about video ads in Crunchyroll stuff, yet I've never encountered one. Hell, I watched through Natsu no Arashi episode one on their site up to the ED and can't remember encountering anything...
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:40   Link #15
Quarkboy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
I keep hearing about video ads in Crunchyroll stuff, yet I've never encountered one. Hell, I watched through Natsu no Arashi episode one on their site up to the ED and can't remember encountering anything...
They had some earlier... But not lately. I think they are having issues selling ad space, which is not surprising in this economy.
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Old 2009-04-07, 03:52   Link #16
cyth
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bayoab View Post
Edit: My database lists over 1000 videos on CR which means that they paid over $50k out in translation alone.
Wouldn't it be possible that some of those translations were produced by content providers?
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Old 2009-04-07, 04:36   Link #17
npcomplete
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I can understand not wanting to expose identities simply because of the broohaha it'll create (not here, but elsewhere). Similar to MediaBlasters not publicizing their use of former fansubbers AFAIK, and whomever Dattebayo has contracted with before.

Now I have no associations with CR other than being a member but despite their flaws--which can be overcome, mostly from those they deal with--it comes down to picking your poison: Funi or CR. For reasons I don't want to rant about here, I'll simply say that I'd rather go with CR. I'll also say that I feel that there's a chance.. some impetus for change in the way the industry works overall by going with CR, provided that CR also change a bit.
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Old 2009-04-07, 05:02   Link #18
bayoab
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Originally Posted by Toua View Post
Wouldn't it be possible that some of those translations were produced by content providers?
I had originally posted a number based on another post that was 8x that. I decided that maybe 1/2 the content they paid for and their pay rate was probably lower.
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Old 2009-04-07, 05:04   Link #19
Ash Falls Town
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Originally Posted by Quarkboy View Post
They had some earlier... But not lately. I think they are having issues selling ad space, which is not surprising in this economy.
Actually I just finished watching an episode just then and it had a video ad right at the end. Whether you get an ad or not is basically just luck.

Anyway I personally see the number of paying subscribers going down soon. If Shugo Chara doesn't end this season it's going to really muss up the time line and I think that's one of their big draws. Also I believe there are quite a few people on Crunchyroll who go to other illegal streaming sites to watch stuff and only use Crunchyroll for the forums and such.

BTW I personally am glad I'm able to watch a lot of stuff on Crunchyroll. However I still tend towards unimpressed on their translations.
Erenfried's name isn't Elenfriet.He has to go through enough without you all screwing up his name. Also the translations tend to sound like dub scripts. Plus there are typos. (In the episode I just watched there was a "The" which should have been "Them".)
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Last edited by Ash Falls Town; 2009-04-07 at 05:29. Reason: Was interupted.
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Old 2009-04-07, 06:18   Link #20
jsieczkar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
I keep hearing about video ads in Crunchyroll stuff, yet I've never encountered one. Hell, I watched through Natsu no Arashi episode one on their site up to the ED and can't remember encountering anything...
They are streaming the first episode of this seasons simulcasts free for everyone. So starting on the 12th there will be no free episode only a members one, then on the 19th it goes back to normal.
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