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NEWS: TV Tokyo to Establish New Anime Department


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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:36 am Reply with quote
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a tentatively titled "Anime Department" in April to oversee its anime business, with an emphasis on overseas sales.

Quote:
By expanding the sales of anime with this new department, TV Tokyo aims to increase the percentage of revenues from sources besides broadcasting from the current 15% to 20%. In the end, the company hopes to raise the level to 30%.
Hm... this could means that as an anime licensee, TV Tokyo is now interested to deal with international licensing via online streaming, than just plain old domestic TV broadcasting with paid advertisements.
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samuelp
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:59 am Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:
Quote:
a tentatively titled "Anime Department" in April to oversee its anime business, with an emphasis on overseas sales.

Quote:
By expanding the sales of anime with this new department, TV Tokyo aims to increase the percentage of revenues from sources besides broadcasting from the current 15% to 20%. In the end, the company hopes to raise the level to 30%.
Hm... this could means that as an anime licensee, TV Tokyo is now interested to deal with international licensing via online streaming, than just plain old domestic TV broadcasting with paid advertisements.

Well they already were doing that, as the deal with Crunchyroll is evidence. This just makes it even more official that that is their strategy.
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Asrialys



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:27 am Reply with quote
Let's hope they don't go all Bandai Visual on us if they do plan on doing their own DVDs. Just license the production and distribution to the other companies and let them take care of it...
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Mohawk52



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 10:49 am Reply with quote
This is good news and I'm glad to see that Japan is starting to make all the right noises like this. There is talk that many of the independant studios are going to form a type of union to pool all their efforts, resources, and massive back catalogues into one entity just to deal with international incoming investment and sponsorship, and outgoing licencing and distribution. They could even merge into one hugh corporation just for Japans Intellectual Properties exports. This is being spurred on by the Japanese Government as well so look for more of this happening.
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sdhd



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:08 am Reply with quote
TV Toyko needs international sales revenue. Not enough people in Japan are buying anime to support the anime industry over there. The birth rate in Japan have slow down sigificantly over the last decade or so. There is very little revenue to be made in Japan due to the decline of birth rates. The anime companies are dependent on overseas sales in order for them to stay in business.
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Tyrenol



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:22 am Reply with quote
My vote goes to throwing Keisuke Iwata out of the building and putting him out on the streets so he can beg for change.

And TV Tokyo needs to create and promote anime that's less wussy. No more of these shows where guys just stand there and let women beat them up.
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DomFortress



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:12 pm Reply with quote
Asrialys wrote:
Let's hope they don't go all Bandai Visual on us if they do plan on doing their own DVDs. Just license the production and distribution to the other companies and let them take care of it...
sdhd wrote:
TV Toyko needs international sales revenue.
TV Tokyo is a broadcasting station first and foremost and not a media publishing company, so they won't be releasing anime in any other format other than direct release. And unless other companies are re releasing TV Tokyo's anime in other formats that's not DVD, they will have to deal with regional licensing issue.

And since TV Tokyo is a broadcasting station by nature, they don't rely on anything other than advertisement revenues from various companies instead.

Based on these assumptions, I'm guessing that TV Tokyo will soon be directly releasing anime sponsored by advertising revenues from international companies. And will be using a new platform that is not restricted by regional nor conventional broadcast limitation. In another word, they could use an existing online streaming channel like Crunchy Roll, or they could host their own anime streaming site in the near future.

Furthermore, I'm assuming that the reasons why TV Tokyo is forced to do this is because 1) a decrease in advertising revenues from domestic Japanese companies sponsoring anime, 2) not enough domestic Japanese audiences watching anime on Japanese national TV networks, and 3) the majority of those who are watching anime are doing so via illegal channels outside of Japan, which is discouraging the Japanese companies from sponsoring anime production with their ad venues.
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Dargonxtc



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:20 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
There is talk that many of the independant studios are going to form a type of union to pool all their efforts, resources, and massive back catalogues into one entity just to deal with international incoming investment and sponsorship, and outgoing licencing and distribution. They could even merge into one hugh corporation just for Japans Intellectual Properties exports. This is being spurred on by the Japanese Government as well so look for more of this happening.

With all the red tape Japanese firms, and Japanese contractual law that the industry is known for, I doubt what you describe will get much past the idea phase.

Hope I'm wrong though, but as a caveat I would rather see them do it on their own without governmental intervention.

I find this news interesting since that while some companies are moving away from shows that will have a broad appeal outside of Japan, it's possible TV Tokyo is taking an opposite approach.
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pparker



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:26 pm Reply with quote
Tyrenol wrote:
... And TV Tokyo needs to create and promote anime that's less wussy. No more of these shows where guys just stand there and let women beat them up.

I'm curious which shows you mean. The list of shows where they are producers, not just broadcasters, doesn't seem to fit that comment. But I also don't watch Japanese TV, so I don't know you if mean recent shows or what. Their credits include quite a few of my favorites as producers.

Aside from that, the news points out cleary that anime does rely on international distribution for market expansion, as opposed to not caring about it. That argument has been had many times on ANN forums.

DomFortress wrote:
they don't rely on anything other than advertisement revenues from various companies instead.

The only caveat being that "ad revenue" for televised anime comes from the participants in the production normally, unlike in the U.S. Most anime is broadcast on a pay-for-play basis, and is itself an advertisement for merchandise and DVD sales, where the profit is made. TV Tokyo's credits include a lot of "production" where they did not make any material contribution to actually creating the anime. That means they paid for part of it, and the ad revenue is coming back to them from themselves plus others who participated. I assume by that participation, they also get some share of other revenue streams.

That said, by selling rights or by streaming shows via traditionally ad supported channels outside Japan, they then are able to monetize the anime broadcast itself.
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DomFortress



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:39 pm Reply with quote
Dargonxtc wrote:
Hope I'm wrong though, but as a caveat I would rather see them do it on their own without governmental intervention.
That will be for the best, otherwise the anime industry won't learn anything from this experience, if they ended up following governmental intervention. It'll be no different than before, when they were forced to be led by Japanese corporate media publishers.
Dargonxtc wrote:
I find this news interesting since that while some companies are moving away from shows that will have a broad appeal outside of Japan, it's possible TV Tokyo is taking an opposite approach.
And by this approach, TV Tokyo will be actively seeking international companies to sponsor them with advertising revenues, that will be used to produce anime that's now having a greater appeal outside of Japan. By orienting themselves towards an international collaboration, this could be a groundbreaking concept.


Last edited by DomFortress on Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Mohawk52



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:40 pm Reply with quote
pparker wrote:
The only caveat being that "ad revenue" for televised anime comes from the participants in the production normally, unlike in the U.S. Most anime is broadcast on a pay-for-play basis, and is itself an advertisement for merchandise and DVD sales, where the profit is made. TV Tokyo's credits include a lot of "production" where they did not make any material contribution to actually creating the anime. That means they paid for part of it, and the ad revenue is coming back to them from themselves plus others who participated. I assume by that participation, they also get some share of other revenue streams.

That said, by selling rights or by streaming shows via traditionally ad supported channels outside Japan, they then are able to monetize the anime broadcast itself.
This shouldn't be a problem for TV Tokyo, or any of the TV broadcasters as traditionally it's common for them to get their anime rather cheaply from the studios what made it. So they will have made back any investment rather quickly then the rest is pure profit which they rarely share with the creators, and that comes from the merchandice and video games sold if it's a hit. Selling the anime on its own is just them jumping on to the "new way ahead" of actually making money from an "idea" without a physical product it sells.
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Mohawk52



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:56 pm Reply with quote
Dargonxtc wrote:
With all the red tape Japanese firms, and Japanese contractual law that the industry is known for, I doubt what you describe will get much past the idea phase.

Hope I'm wrong though, but as a caveat I would rather see them do it on their own without governmental intervention.
You'll be surprise how quick red tape desolves when a country gets hungry for new products to export when the traditonal ones start failing. No ones buying Japanese cars, microwaves, and electronic equipment, but they have finally noticed that their culture is a commodity with a viable market. Now they're tripping over themselves to captalise on it, and making it up as they go as it's never been done before. All sturred on by PM Aso who still has the terms "Gross National Cool" ringing in his ears. Animes' future looks bright, but only if they can get it right. Pray to who ever your god is that they do. Wink
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DomFortress



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:05 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
Animes' future looks bright, but only if they can get it right. Pray to who ever your god is that they do. Wink
And that's just it. Because I'm getting this nagging feeling that localization on anime will be very tricky at best. Just how in the world can the Japanese anime industry to produce anime that's aiming for the first time an international audiences, with an international appeal and an internationally oriented localization? Is the current Japanese anime industry as they are, ready to take on such challenging task all by themselves?
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samuelp
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:10 pm Reply with quote
The problem I see with the concept laid out here is that TV Tokyo has zero ability to attract international sponsers/commercials for its programming overseas. There are literally 2-3 companies that handle all TV advertising in Japan so it's like a cartel that the TV stations use for advertising in Japan (one of them is dentsu), so unlike US local stations or cable stations TV tokyo doesn't have the expertise in selling advertising that you might expect a TV broadcaster to have in the US. Furthermore their ability to sell to overseas companies is probably zero. So at least in the short term TV Tokyo will still be entirely dependent on outside broadcasters like Crunchyroll or hulu or even real TV stations like cartoon network to sell advertising on their shows.
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Mohawk52



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:31 pm Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:
Mohawk52 wrote:
Animes' future looks bright, but only if they can get it right. Pray to who ever your god is that they do. Wink
And that's just it. Because I'm getting this nagging feeling that localization on anime will be very tricky at best. Just how in the world can the Japanese anime industry to produce anime that's aiming for the first time an international audiences, with an international appeal and an internationally oriented localization? Is the current Japanese anime industry as they are, ready to take on such challenging task all by themselves?
Not by themselves but when they pool together they will be able to then do that. You see they wouldn't have to localise it so much because it the fact of its Japanese-ness that is its selling point. The studio have already had propositions from US and other foreign media companies with offers of investment for content, but the Japanese studios just don't how to accept it and didn't feel compitent enough to even try and so usually declined, not taking into concideration that they are sitting on a treasure chest of gold in their dusty back catalogue and achives. It's a work in progress. The green shoots of a new spring. I wouldn't be surprised if TV Tokyo has a marketing consultant, who is from the US, and somewhere behind this.
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