Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei
Ratings can give some insight into question, but their applicability is limited. First let's start with what a 1% rating means in Japan; that would work out to about 480,000 households. The data we get isn't national, though; it comes from larger markets like the Kantou region. Still let's assume for argument that a show that draws a one percent rating is watched in half-a-million homes.
However you're asking a different question, one that's measured by what marketers call "reach." That's the fraction of the audience that views at least one program of a given sort in a week or a month. We can't just add up the individual program ratings to get a reach figure, since many of the households being counted are likely to be watching multiple shows. Leaving out the Sazae-san's and concentrating on late-night shows, it's probably likely that the total audience for late-night anime is somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the total households, or some 2-8 million homes. The lower figure assumes a lot of overlap in viewing within the "otaku" audience; the higher figure would reflect a more diverse audience with many people watching only a couple of shows.
I've posted on ratings methodologies earlier in this thread. Here's a good starting point. |
Interesting, so would I be correct in saying that that would imply that there are approximately 2-8 million Otaku who watch late night Anime regularly? That seems like an interesting figure considering that the best selling anime rarely climb above the 50,000/volume mark. If we assume, for simplicity, there are 5 million Otaku, who might all have watched this "very popular" show, something along the lines of Haruhi or Bakemonogatari, that means that only 1% of those who viewed actually bought. And when we consider that it actually costs them money to broadcast an anime, it makes for a pretty bad revenue model to solely depend on DVD sales, which may explain why so few original Anime get produced.
Does the above look correct to you?
This would also indicate to me that if the Anime producers pursued an online route with heavy advertising (for appropriate products...), they might do better financially rather then depend on paying cable companies for their distribution, which they usually lose money on. Considering the average Otaku is pretty tech savvy, I wonder why they don't do it already (barring inertia)....