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Answerman - Why Doesn't Netflix Simulcast?


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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5312
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 11:39 am Reply with quote
Before looking at the answer, my guess is because Netflix was built around shows like House of Cards(US), which is designed to be binged watch. And Netflx users don't use the service for weekly episodes.
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Farewell Days of Youth



Joined: 07 Jul 2017
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 11:44 am Reply with quote
I get it, I really do, but with the amount of stuff out now, its so easy to just forget about a title (you know, strike while the iron is hot and such). I know in my case, I was really stoked about Little Witch Academia, and I didn't want to pirate it or watch it on some shady streaming site. So now, its officially on Netflix, and I honestly don't care, since the hype is gone.
I wonder what made Amazon change their mind? Could it be response to customer feedback?
Personally, I am bummed Netflix got Fate/Apocrypha, because another site that simulcasts would totally have picked that up if Netflix didn't. So now, I have to wait until what, November to watch it? The original rights owners obviously want to make $ from merchandise sales (and yes, I know US and EU sales are a drop in the bucket, but they are $ nonetheless), and this model kind of kills hype. I mean, I am not going to buy merchandise from a show I can't watch for six months or whatever..
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2231
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 11:58 am Reply with quote
But that doesn't explain why Netflix simulcasts anime in Japan.

It has a ton of series streaming weekly this season even. So why is it simulcast locally but binge in the US?

I bet netflix is actually struggling somewhat internally about this, especially if they start to see Anime Strike as a threat.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1555
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:02 pm Reply with quote
Farewell Days of Youth wrote:
, I was really stoked about Little Witch Academia, and I didn't want to pirate it or watch it on some shady streaming site. So now, its officially on Netflix, and I honestly don't care, since the hype is gone.


That's a fair impression, but I think the problem is that your reaction is in the minority. The huge majority of Netflix's millions of subscribers won't have heard about LWA until they saw it on the service, and that's the audience Netflix wants.

Incidentally, I've seen a lot of positive hype for LWA in the last week or so, because the series finale seems to have been very well received and drove up interest in the show all over again. And then a few days after it airs, the show pops up on Netflix. That's good timing. Though I don't think Netflix can count on that happening with every series, it worked for them in this case.
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Yttrbio



Joined: 09 Jun 2011
Posts: 3652
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:05 pm Reply with quote
Unfortunately, the way Netflix hands out information (i.e. it doesn't) means we'll never really know how things pan out. I personally have a hard time imagining the Netflix user who isn't into anime seeing one of these shows and checking it out. Maybe with LWA, but Kuromukuro? Fate/Apocrypha? The Netflix subscription model supports it being the wholesale replacement of TV, a one-stop shop for video content. Who is the person for whom the occasional anime like this moves them from the nonsubscriber to subscriber category?
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:08 pm Reply with quote
Netflix is more than familiar with simulcasts, as Netflix Canada simulcast Riverdale week-to-week while it was airing in the U.S. Their inability to simulcast anime is ridiculous.
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Panoptican



Joined: 03 Oct 2005
Posts: 160
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:11 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
But that doesn't explain why Netflix simulcasts anime in Japan.

It has a ton of series streaming weekly this season even. So why is it simulcast locally but binge in the US?



I think the answer was pretty much stated in the article, dubbing. A Japanese simulcast is fine because it is in Japanese. For everywhere else, Netflix isn't in the business of simuldubbing and I doubt they ever will be. Not to mention it would be a much more difficult process compared to Funi since they dub in multiple languages (LWA has four dubs).

So what's the problem with doing subs first and then dubs later? For a Netflix Original (which these anime are considered to be) I bet Netflix does not want to put out what might be considered an incomplete product. They probably want to cultivate the image of Netflix Original anime being a place for the more infrequent, casual anime viewers to get their anime fix. That means they need dubs. When one of those viewers goes to watch something and there isn't a dub in their language they will click away and may never come back. That is not a look Netflix wants.

Btw, I definitely would prefer a simulcast structure on Netflix, but I understand why they don't do it. It sucks, but I just don't see them changing.
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Morry



Joined: 26 Jun 2016
Posts: 756
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:25 pm Reply with quote
I have no interest in subbing to netflix with their current policy. I'm not their desired customer and I'm ticked off enough by amazon's price model.
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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2758
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Netflix did a test with a French show called Marseille. They gave part of the audience a default language selection of French and the other a default language of the English dub. The people who got the dub were more likely to watch the entire thing. That was the case with a live action show, where there's always going to be a disconnect with a dub. Imagine how it must be for animation, where ADR can be seamless.
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chronos02



Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 267
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:57 pm Reply with quote
I'm clearly not their target audience. I want to watch the shows on simulcast so that I can keep up with the trends and be able to comment with other people about various things related to current cour series, waiting three to four months (more than a full cour) to watch a show is a bad idea for anyone that likes and follows anime, manga and related media.

In my personal opinion, Netflix is doing what is believed normies did back in the 90s and early 2000s to anyone that liked anime: isolate them, translating that into their policy of waiting to add the full cour, they don't care about the "real target audience" for anime, and only care to market that product to the general market.

Now comes the big question: Are they trying to target Fate/Apocrypha to a general audience? Have they gone that mad? Fate fans will tear through reinforced steel walls if necessary in order to watch their weekly dose of Servant infused madness, so they won't think twice before torrenting, streaming, or even contract international satellite TV in order to watch the next episode. On the other hand, I don't see that many normies watching Fate/Apocrypha, and even if some showed interest, they'd be clueless as to what's happening a lot of the time, since the series references the other shows...

Then again, I'm not sure if that Netflix announcement was corrected and actually only included Japan in the deal, meaning the above loses all meaning.


Last edited by chronos02 on Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 12:58 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
is the few thousand eyeballs lost to piracy worth giving up the far higher number of people Netflix will be able to introduce to the show by marketing it properly? .... the people engaging in fansubbing or distributing these episodes are really running a much higher risk of getting into legal trouble than with other anime titles.


You can't have it both ways. Either the hardcore community (those that do not mind reading subtitles or have even learned japanese) is sizeable enough to be a treat to Neflix business model (and therefore target of legal prosecution) or they are a "few thousand eyeballs" not even on the radar of a multinational corporation.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4420
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:15 pm Reply with quote
Farewell Days of Youth wrote:
I get it, I really do, but with the amount of stuff out now, its so easy to just forget about a title (you know, strike while the iron is hot and such). I know in my case, I was really stoked about Little Witch Academia, and I didn't want to pirate it or watch it on some shady streaming site. So now, its officially on Netflix, and I honestly don't care, since the hype is gone.
.


I'm in a similar situation. I watched the LWA movie, and immediately looked for the series since I knew that Netflix licensed it, but it wasn't available yet. Now that it has been several months, it is basically in my backlog which never seems to shrink by much.
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TasteyCookie



Joined: 19 Jan 2017
Posts: 421
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:16 pm Reply with quote
"A few thousand eyeballs" ... Meanwhile looking at Little Witch Academia on MAL showing over 30,000 people rating it (which requires viewing) before the series was available on Netflix. Which is going to be an even smaller amount than the people who actually watched it, since everyone who watched it isn't going to give it a rating.

It's just poor business. Anime on Netflix obviously doesn't get even close to the amount of views as their other shows. Since Netflix doesn't give viewing info, we can only use anecdotal evidence such as looking at how many people have rated the other Netflix originals compared to their anime. Which you can't even do anymore since they changed their rating system to the new "Matching" system. Needless to say before, the amount of Netflix users who rated a show like Magi, Sinbad's adventures, was less than .0005% of the people who had rated House of Cards.

Basically Netflix and Amazon are just throwing money at Anime and there's now way in hell they are making even close to that money back.
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aiem



Joined: 02 Aug 2013
Posts: 44
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:16 pm Reply with quote
At this point I don't care. They should do Simulcasts for anime. Otherwise, screw them.

Them bunching them up doesn't equate quality anyway so I see no reason why I should wait for their release.
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brynhild



Joined: 02 Feb 2017
Posts: 130
PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 1:22 pm Reply with quote
TasteyCookie wrote:
"A few thousand eyeballs" ... Meanwhile looking at Little Witch Academia on MAL showing over 30,000 people rating it (which requires viewing) before the series was available on Netflix. Which is going to be an even smaller amount than the people who actually watched it, since everyone who watched it isn't going to give it a rating.


Idk man, its not hard to simply add a series to your currently watching list and give it a 1 or a 10 without actually checking it out yet. Which people do. For some god forsaken reason.

MAL is just a joke really when it comes to ratings and reviews.
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