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NEWS: Newspaper: Funimation Sales Down More Than Half Since 2004

After reading about geneon in the above posts, what does this mean for funimation? Will it still be around for the years to come? Or is this the year it closes it's doors forever?
There have been a few titles I've been looking forward to and to see them canceled so close to release would suck like you wouldn't believe.

Videogame30 wrote:

After reading about geneon in the above posts, what does this mean for funimation? Will it still be around for the years to come? Or is this the year it closes it's doors forever? There have been a few titles I've been looking forward to and to see them canceled so close to release would suck like you wouldn't believe.

It means that as long as revenue is down, Narrave will continue weighing the option of seeking a potentional buyer for Funimation. It also puts a hold on any new licenses. What were probably going to see if lots of ADV license rescues from them until the matter is settled. Even if the revenue does go up and Funimation does do something with all those licenses they aqcuired last year, the license pool will remain closed for Funimation for the rest of the year.

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote:

Videogame30 wrote: After reading about geneon in the above posts, what does this mean for funimation? Will it still be around for the years to come? Or is this the year it closes it's doors forever? There have been a few titles I've been looking forward to and to see them canceled so close to release would suck like you wouldn't believe. It means that as long as revenue is down, Narrave will continue weighing the option of seeking a potentional buyer for Funimation. It also puts a hold on any new licenses. What were probably going to see if lots of ADV license rescues from them until the matter is settled. Even if the revenue does go up and Funimation does do something with all those licenses they aqcuired last year, the license pool will remain closed for Funimation for the rest of the year.

If they are making profits on their licenses, why would Navarre put a hold on more licenses to profit from?

It does seem likely that they can't be as aggressive, so license decisions like House of Five Leaves that are on the edge for a dub at best would seem unlikely to get picked up.

GrilledEelHamatsu wrote:

agila61 wrote: _V_ wrote: ....I just use "crash of 2007" as a convenient monicker because the collapse of Geneon in September 2007 was like a nuke going off which no one could ignore. Yes, the ANNcast giving some of the inside info on what was going on within Geneon shows that they were doing things to "make budget" in the short term that they knew full well were unsustainable, but were mostly hanging on hoping for another smash hit to rescue them before it was too late. The demands of headquarters back in Japan made it impossible to taper down in response to the decline in the market, and the need to have title to put down with unrealistic sales expectations to "make budget" helped maintain the overpriced licenses which was one of the things making basically every deal they signed into a money loser. The damage over the G4 fallout had already been done. Denstu could only save face by continuing to invest in big name big budget titles for Geneon USA, it was a life support situation and Denstu had already been weighing the option of either pulling the plug or keeping the ventilator going by clearing the way for bankrupcy. Remember, Pioneer had no structured marketing arm like ADV did. Cable TV,retail and internet advertising was thier best bet. They had no sampling,no VOD, no streaming e.t.c I think Denstu knew it was vital to just pulling the plug on the whole thing. They couldn't get the returns and assets owed to them by Musicland and the backlash over G4's BAD business move to throw anime fans under the bus wasn't large enough for them to force Viacom's hand at reconsidering or putting together another lineup. Bit Torrenting was also something that Geneon didn't take seriously enough and it bit them hard.

First of all, you obviously know nothing about G4. The company has never been owned in part or in whole by Viacom. Viacom doesn't even supply any programming to the channel, as most of it's previous Paramount TV library is now owned by CBS. G4TV is a division of Comcast.

Also, while the demise of G4 likely hurt Geneon and ADV from a marketing stand point, it probably did little financially to them. Its been stated again and again and again that TV networks pay next to nothing for anime episodes. The cancellation of the block would have had little financial effect on the companies, let alone play a major role in the company's demise.

If you would have listened to the Geneon podcast several months back, you would know that Geneon had a multitude of problems dating back long before G4 pulled the plug on their lineup. Not to mention that G4's anime block never pulled anywhere near the numbers or had the impact of Toonami or Adult Swim. It was one of the lowest rate programming blocks on one of the lowest rated networks on cable. If that was enough to destroy Geneon, then they were in terrible shape regardless.