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Answerman - Why Do Companies Buy Rights For Territories They Don't Service?


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Show



Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:02 pm Reply with quote
think you have a mistype on the main page blurb:

"Netflix is getting into the anime simulcast game, but their Prime service is available in a limited number of countries."

Should read Amazon
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:10 pm Reply with quote
The content wars are going to replace the old ratings wars in determining network values.

And the big loser will likely be Toonami.
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1135
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:12 pm Reply with quote
The fuji amazon line is a bit confusing, the cost to stream all future anime from them is equivalent to the production cost of [1] anime, or is the cost to stream one fuji anime the production cost of one anime?
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:13 pm Reply with quote
We also speak English, thankyouverymuch.

Justin wrote:
Amazon has more money than God, and the amount they were rumored to be offering for exclusive worldwide streaming rights was by far the highest price I've ever heard of being paid for anime -- enough to pay for the entire production and then some.


Well then, why didn't Amazon pay for the entire production from the start? Would have been cheaper and they get all the rights and all of the profit on the show.
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samuelp
Industry Insider


Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 2228
Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:17 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
We also speak English, thankyouverymuch.

Justin wrote:
Amazon has more money than God, and the amount they were rumored to be offering for exclusive worldwide streaming rights was by far the highest price I've ever heard of being paid for anime -- enough to pay for the entire production and then some.


Well then, why didn't Amazon pay for the entire production from the start? Would have been cheaper and they get all the rights and all of the profit on the show.

Just because you can pay for it doesn't mean you have the structure in your business to actually produce it.

There aren't like "your friendly anime producing corner store" kiosks on every corner in Japan with a slot that say "please insert $5 million for 12 episodes".

And even if you did fund it and make it yourself, it'll take ~2+ years to come out. Easier to take a show that's closer to being finished and just buy out all global rights.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:21 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
You bring up the topic of Viz not finding a good way to stream to Canada. (With a serious lack of high paying video ads in Canada, nearly every company that streams there for free does so at a loss.)


... Uh, why does a way even need to be found? They stream the videos anyways, all they'd need to do is not block Canadian IPs. They can just run the same ads because, news flash! Pretty much anything Americans have access to, Canadians do as well.
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AbZeroNow



Joined: 14 Jan 2013
Posts: 519
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:23 pm Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
Quote:
You bring up the topic of Viz not finding a good way to stream to Canada. (With a serious lack of high paying video ads in Canada, nearly every company that streams there for free does so at a loss.)


... Uh, why does a way even need to be found? They stream the videos anyways, all they'd need to do is not block Canadian IPs. They can just run the same ads because, news flash! Pretty much anything Americans have access to, Canadians do as well.


Royalties and broadcast rights and you know what? I think I may have to email Justin to get a more comprehesive answer.
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:25 pm Reply with quote
Яeverse wrote:
The fuji amazon line is a bit confusing, the cost to stream all future anime from them is equivalent to the production cost of [1] anime, or is the cost to stream one fuji anime the production cost of one anime?


I found teh sentence confusing as well, so applyingsome common sense, I assume they paid around 2 millions per series which is enough to cover production costs.
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samuelp
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:26 pm Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:

... Uh, why does a way even need to be found? They stream the videos anyways, all they'd need to do is not block Canadian IPs. They can just run the same ads because, news flash! Pretty much anything Americans have access to, Canadians do as well.

That's not how video-ads work on the internet.

(Warning! Gross Oversimplification Ahead!)
When your video pauses itself to show you an ad, it goes and contacts the ad-server and tells it some things like what ip address you're connecting from, what video you are watching, maybe some other information stored in cookies about the kinds of websites you like to visit, etc...
It then tries to find a matching ad that advertisers have paid to have served to you. Advertisers only pay to serve ads in countries they want to, obviously. So if you are watching the video from canada, chances are that no advertiser has bought any "ads" for canada and that request to the ad-server will probably fail or maybe you'll get some generic ad that pays almost no money at all (like a PSA or something).
The streaming service pays for the bandwidth to stream you that video and will get nothing from no ads, hence the loss.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:34 pm Reply with quote
AbZeroNow wrote:
Royalties and broadcast rights and you know what? I think I may have to email Justin to get a more comprehesive answer.


Right, but if the already have North American rights...

samuelp wrote:
That's not how video-ads work on the internet.

(Warning! Gross Oversimplification Ahead!)
When your video pauses itself to show you an ad, it goes and contacts the ad-server and tells it some things like what ip address you're connecting from, what video you are watching, maybe some other information stored in cookies about the kinds of websites you like to visit, etc...
It then tries to find a matching ad that advertisers have paid to have served to you. Advertisers only pay to serve ads in countries they want to, obviously. So if you are watching the video from canada, chances are that no advertiser has bought any "ads" for canada and that request to the ad-server will probably fail or maybe you'll get some generic ad that pays almost no money at all (like a PSA or something).
The streaming service pays for the bandwidth to stream you that video and will get nothing from no ads, hence the loss.


Well I still get plenty of ads when I browse Youtube or other sites, so I find it hard to believe there's a lack of ads to show Canadian users.

If not, the ad companies should wise up and realize they have tons of potential customers up north.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:39 pm Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
Just because you can pay for it doesn't mean you have the structure in your business to actually produce it.

There aren't like "your friendly anime producing corner store" kiosks on every corner in Japan with a slot that say "please insert $5 million for 12 episodes".

And even if you did fund it and make it yourself, it'll take ~2+ years to come out. Easier to take a show that's closer to being finished and just buy out all global rights.


Who said anything about producing it? The minimum Amazon has to do is write a cheque, which isn't hard. If they want creative input well they can have as much or as little as they want since they own the whole thing.

As for two years being too long to wait, well that's up for debate. It's more profitable to own a show outright than just have the streaming rights (especially in this case, in which the rights are ore expensive than the show was). Plus owning titles gives you more influence with creators and producers in Japan. So paying crazy amounts just for the streaming rights seems weird.

On the other hand Amazon does have a lot of money; not unlimited, but on another plane of existence when compared to the usual anime crowd such as FUNi. So they could be using both strategies, i.e. funding their own shows to maximise profit and influence, and - during the time it takes for said shows to be made - paying big bucks to gain market share in the current streaming sector.
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:43 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
all "English speaking territories" (which would cover North America, UK and Australia)


which TBT means "Angloamerica (which excludes Quebec), UK, Australia, New Zealand, Liberia and South Africa".

About amazon prime video, my hunch is that they do will diversify into other markets just like netflix did, they already have some amazon prime exclusive series, but they KNOW they need to dub those series into other languages, it took Netflix one $%&ing year to dub The Seven Deadly sins into other languages, so Amazon must be having the very same problem (and they are behind the queue).

Netflix will no doubt get in bed with Bones soon.

So the only real problem for us non english speakers continues to be whatever series Funimation gets to license. Now if only crunchyroll got into the spanish dubbing (Jojo deserves a spanish dub, dammit) it would be dandy.

Quote:
Anime streaming is going global.


... and this confirms that anime has gone mainstream; Amazon, Netflix, etc. do not pay good money for a TV series that is going to be seen by a niche audience.


Last edited by mangamuscle on Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:56 pm; edited 4 times in total
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:45 pm Reply with quote
Fixed the front-page blurb (I didn't write that) and modified that one sentence that people found confusing.

Seems like this one raises more questions than answers, so if you want more info on something I encourage you to send in a question.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
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Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 12:54 pm Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
Well I still get plenty of ads when I browse Youtube or other sites, so I find it hard to believe there's a lack of ads to show Canadian users.

If not, the ad companies should wise up and realize they have tons of potential customers up north.

Quote:
(With a serious lack of high paying video ads in Canada, nearly every company that streams there for free does so at a loss.)

Emphasis mine. Yes, Canada gets ads, but the amount of money returned on those ads compared to the cost of bandwidth results in a net loss, or at least that's how I interpreted it.

Consider also that the population of the US is about 10x that of Canada. It could simply be that advert companies in the US simply don't think it's worth their time to try breaking a deal in Canada when they can get ~10x the audience by completing another deal in the US. Likely the same, if not more, amount of work has to go in to doing the research and planning to propose a deal for a Canada audience... except that you're reaching 10% as many people.

Obviously this only hurts anime streaming services, since their goal is typically to reach as many people as possible, but they also have to remain profitable in order to provide their services.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
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Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:03 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:

Who said anything about producing it? The minimum Amazon has to do is write a cheque, which isn't hard. If they want creative input well they can have as much or as little as they want since they own the whole thing.


Fronting the money IS producing it, right? Whether they have creative input isn't really relevant. If they are giving the Production committee money before hand, or are giving the animation production studio money upfront, isn't that, by definition, producing the project? In this case, it seems like they sort of are producing it, since it sounds like they just gave Fuji TV a heck of a lot of money for these shows while several of them are still in production, or maybe not even begun.

I agree that having more control would probably be much better for them, but I don't think it really is as simple as writing a check. I wouldn't be surprised if that was their plan to begin with, but Netflix and Crunchyroll made moves quicker than they expected and rather than doing that, this was the fastest way for them to get into the market and make a splash. It might be more expensive for them, and they might lose money, based on what Justin has said, but it's better for them long term not to hold off any longer considering how quickly the landscape is changing.
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