Forum - View topicFree anime (not what you think).
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zhir
 Posts: 353 Location: Nampa, ID, USA |
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The writers strike thread got me thinking. Would the anime industry benefit if companies like ADV gave short (1 year) broadcasting licenses to networks (and cable if they agree to try putting it on in primetime for a month) for free; contingent on having some fairly prominent ads for the company (just going with ADV from now on) during the show?
The network wouldn't have to lose advertising time (could go over the credits); ADV would get free exposure; and there would be very little money lost through people watching or recording the show rather than buying it, as anyone in the audience who had heard of the show before and is the type of person who doesn't want to buy the DVD has access to fansubs. While I'll admit that the people in the writer's strike thread are correct in believing that it's a better bet for a network to just make a new reality show, rather than license anime, who knows, when they get ready to dump a show, they may stick the anime in to try it out. |
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samuraiwalt
Posts: 647 |
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The networks would lose money since ad revenues are based on a shows ratings and anime isn't going to pull in anywhere near the number of viewers as a reality show. |
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Porcupine
 Posts: 1033 |
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Yes, I don't think this plan will work. I do, however, think that getting large amounts of "free" anime on american TV is one of the best ways, maybe the only way, to get the anime industry healthy again. By "free" I don't mean free in the way you do, though. Anime studios should be paid for their show, same as before. It's just that the executives on both sides should really make a far better effort to get more anime on american TV, making some minor sacrifices if necessary.
Another idea I had was that retail stores selling anime should freely play their anime DVDs in the store, too. This is similar to what you want, it's free anime. But the reason this is okay to me is that I think people will still want to buy anime DVDs even if they can watch it for free in the store. Because it's inconvenient to watch for free in the store. You have to go to the store and probably there is nowhere to sit down, and you can't control what you are shown at any given time. This selling model is like the current (and well-established) bookstore model (in both Japan and America). People can read free books in the bookstore but they still buy books. And this works. People should be able to watch free DVDs in controlled amounts in the DVD store too, so they can make informed decisions on what to buy, and they WILL still buy the DVDs. Television is different. People can just sit on their couch and change to whatever anime they like best, record the show off their TV if they want to (and in better quality than the average fansub most likely), and there's less need to buy the DVDs. So for television, the anime companies MUST be paid by the networks. However, like I said before, I think that more television anime is crucial to the industry too. The networks need to find some way to make it work. |
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suchibu
Posts: 39 |
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getting anime on american network telivision is much harder then you might think.
fist off they are a very small but growing market and still considered somewhat of a novelty by most american viewers. secondly there are much stricter guidlines of what can be shown out here compaired to in japan. some fanservice would just not get by american censorship. and most anime right now are only on evening hours or when they can pass the content more easily. now on the bright side evey year more channels are airing anime. plus some of the distributors would be hard pressed into selling a lot of titles to the networks for various reasons. most shows that are of limited run (under 24 episodes) would not be that desirable. lets face it american viewers are not used to watching and getting into something that will last a few of weeks and end. thats why most of the very popular anime seen on television have much larger series runs. naruto (200+ episodes) dragon ball z (1million+ episodes, mostly just grunting)  , bleach (100+) , pokemon( dont even want to find out) , one piece (300+) , inu yasha (100+) just to name a few
these series have a much better appeal then say elfen leid just due to the fact of the length of the series. most western viewers would not understand them as well. the concept of a short run isnt that appealing. also you can only show the same 12 episodes just so many times before it gets old. some shows just would never see the light of day on american tv such as kodomo no jikan or rizlemine just as examples. the more controversial the subject the less likely it would sell. just some ramblings...getting tired ill give more reasons and post them tomorrow. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I don't think you'll see a growth of TV because it simply doesn't benefit Americans to promote Japanese media. Why should they sacrifice slots for lower ratings? Out of the goodness of their hearts? The only way I see that working is if they are fans of anime themselves, otherwise they simply have no reason to push for it.
Ss I've said before everyone is going to have the same amount of dollars to spend on media regardless of what kind of media it is. So if they buy more Japanese media they are almost certainly buying less American media. I personally prefer anime to most American media myself, and my DVD collection shows that. However, that probably isn't true of most TV executives. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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I do think that getting more anime, and a lot more, not just a little more, is VERY VERY VERY hard. It's super hard.
But I say it needs to be done. Slots must indeed be sacrificed for lower ratings. Or more slots/channels need to be made available (technologically this could be possible as soon as the plug is pulled on analog cable broadcasts, which was originally supposed to occur years ago but is always being pushed back, thus making more bandwidth available to digital cable broadcasts). And why must this be done? I agree, not out of the goodness of executive's hearts. It must be done, and people must realize this, for the good of the industry as a whole, as possibly being the most effective way of stopping rampant piracy in the DVD markets. Right now people either don't realize this solution or don't accept it, or aren't willing to pay the costs (show lower-rated shows) to make it happen. My logic may not be clear on this, I've actually not explained it before. But the logic is this: You show lots of novelty stuff on TV, you increase awareness of that stuff, and you lessen people's desire to pirate that stuff. You sacrifice your TV ratings and TV profits to keep the DVD market alive. This may sound nuts, but I think this is really the key strategy to fixing the entertainment industry's problems in the digital Internet golden age of piracy. Of course, like I said earlier, being able to see stuff for free on TV will itself lessen many people's desires to purchase the same thing on DVD. So that is why I said the anime studios (whoever makes the shows) still need to be paid by the networks. It can't be totally free like zhir suggested. But then how do the networks survive? They need to be subsidized somehow, perhaps by the government, or perhaps the anime studios themselves in a sense (they could ask for less money...or they could ask for more money but give money back if their DVDs sell well afterwards, to acknowledge that the network's broadcasts probably reduced piracy). Everyone should understand that if you show stuff on TV that greatly helps to control piracy, and re-adjust the terms of all business deals to take this into account. But anyways, my other idea which might be even better is for DVD stores to show their DVDs for free in the store. But both ideas can be done simultaneously.
Hard to say right now. Some channels are showing more anime and some are showing less. Maybe overall it's about the same as it was a few years back. Cartoon Network is showing slightly less anime these days. Sci-Fi channel is really helping the cause. But regular non-cable channels/networks like Kids WB and 4Kids are hardly showing any anime nowdays and they used to show a ton. Anime Network just shut down their 24/7 service. Funimation Channel has been losing subscribers I think (my cable provider canceled it), not gaining. I agree, a few shows like Kodomo no Jikan can never see the light of day here. But that's irrelevant. 95% of anime that is shown on Japanese TV can be shown here as well. The 5% like Kodomo no Jikan won't matter. Right now only 0.1% of anime is shown on American TV. We have thousands of titles to choose from before we need Kodomo no Jikan. I disagree that limited-run shows are not desirable in America. People watch American movies here. Limited-run shows are just like movies. 24-episode series are like trilogies (like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars) or short TV series. People will happily watch such stuff if they like anime. However, the big barrier is that probably people in America don't like anime as much as in Japan. I think that will never fully change. I'm not suggesting that it is necessary to change that. It's just that we should show anime on TV in America largely for the sake of preventing piracy. Networks and Studios should no longer only take into account direct profitability when making deals. Both sides must make sacrifices and understand that it's necessary to work together to get these shows on the air worldwide, to lessen people's desire to pirate DVDs. Profits may appear to go down in the short-term on both sides, but in the long-term the industry might be saved and profits will be better than they will be if things go on as they are now. Both my ideas might sound ridiculous but they are more practical than my other 2 ideas (which I think would work better except they are impractical) which were -- Destroy the Internet, or Shoot anyone caught Downloading dead on the spot. 
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I guess I would be doing the industry more good if I could watch the anime I like (but wouldn't want to keep) without relying on streaming fansubs.
But even if I did own a TV, the only stuff you can get where I live is the occasional Ghibli film.
As much as we should all agree with this, if major TV networks did start trial runs of some anime series, how would they appeal to both those who prefer subtitles and to those who prefer dubbing? Sorry if this issue has been brought up before. |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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I don't know. Do it either way or both ways is what I would suggest. I am against the idea of 'trial runs'. Just commit to it regardless of the ratings you get. Right now the goal should be to make the industry healthy again by reducing piracy levels, not to make a direct short-term profit.
I believe that if the executives were smart, they would just get massive quantities of anime onto TV by force. Everyone will suffer losses for showing relatively undesirable material, but this shouldn't stop them, because in the long run this strategy will start to pay off as piracy finally comes under control again. That's my crazy idea anyway. When analog broadcasts stop due to governmental regulations in 20XX, we should be able to show like 3000 simultaneous 24/7 digital channels or something due to all the increased bandwidth. That's so many channels I don't even see why ratings would be an issue. Just show everything, especially niche material (like anime) that needs exposure. Hm, as a side note, isn't it possible to have simultaneous dual-audio tracks for broadcast digital cable, just like it is possible for DVD? Even stone-age analog cable broadcasts support optional, selectable subtitles. |
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omnistry
 Posts: 1019 |
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Yeah, just have the second audio track that's usually used for Spanish be the Japanese dub, and then set the Closed-Captioning for either CC2 or CC3 for the English subtitles for said dub. |
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CommunistHamster
Posts: 51 |
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Perhaps, if that channel also has a +1 channel (the exact same lineup repeated as they were an hour earlier), the +1 channel could have the subs and the "main" channel could have the dubs. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I think you focus too much on controlling piracy levels. Yes, you're right that there would probably be less piracy of anime, but they would lose more money on lost ratings than would ever be made up for it. Not to mention this, but I also doubt most executives are really interested in promotion of niche programming.
Now in the future I do think you are probably right about having a lot of niche channels, and this may increase the overall market share of anime (assuming that it's got growth potential, there is always the possibility that anime really is at it's peak and isn't going to go up by much). The problem of all this is the costs. It costs money to broadcast something. Yes you can say "it takes money to make money" but if it makes less money than something else (or worse, loses you money overall) why should executives show anime. They have little reason to care about piracy of anime because it's in competition with what they are releasing. |
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AncientLaws
 Posts: 4 Location: New York |
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Where i live, Time Warner has an On-Demand channel called "Cutting Edge" which is where they group G4TV, Anime Network, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, etc. But not very many good/popular series
I would love to see more anime movies on TV. I think it would spark interest in the...genre(?). I just ordered Appleseed Ex Machina and i loved the original but it doesn't seem it got much exposure. They have a site where people can make a trailer and the most votes wins and it's that level of interaction that helps i think. (Mine's "Launch Trailer" by syngamer if anyone wants to vote  )
Does anyone know if there is an actual Talk Show/Review show, something that is just for Anime? |
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Porcupine
Posts: 1033 |
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If piracy continues to grow totally unchecked at the current rates, at some point in the future the whole DVD market will crash. All DVD/HD-DVD retailers will go out of business and there will be no more DVDs made in the world. Then the world will only have broadcast TV to watch. But there will be far less stuff to show on broadcast TV because everyone stopped making shows. There will only be reality TV, news, and sports....and if people get tired of only those crap to watch, people will stop subscribing to cable TV at all and that will kill the entire TV industry. This might take 50 years to happen but eventually it could happen at the current rates. If TV networks do what I say, then they may indeed lose profits. Maybe not only short-term but perhaps even long-term as well, compared to what they were making before. But their long-term profits might be higher than what their long-term profits would have been in the future, if they allow the mass piracy to continue unchecked. It is a bit like amputating a critically damaged arm to keep yourself alive, rather than bleeding to death slowly but still having your arm for a little while longer. It's something you don't want to do but if you are smart and have the foresight, you will realize it's the right thing to do. You are right maybe network executives directly might not care as much. If that's the case, then since it's the anime studios that care to prevent piracy, the burden is upon them to license their shows to TV networks for less money (or keep current prices but provide DVD sale kickbacks to the TV station). In the future, there should be no costs to broadcast niche material. Because as I've already explained technology will soon allow for around 3000 digital channels. When you have that many channels, the greatest difficulty will be in finding new material to fill it all, and niche material is perfect for that. Other shows might have higher ratings but if another network already bought it then you have to buy something else. Ratings won't matter as much if there are 3000 channels because there should be practically no costs to broadcast an additional 24/7 channel. As long as a super tiny few people watch you can still profit under future conditions. |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I think you believe DVD sales are more important to the American industry than it really is. DVD will eventually die as a format due to superior formats. It may also be true that physical media is going to die eventually, but this doesn't mean support will die because the companies can find other methods for people to support them, by selling things like subscription services. DVD sales is the primary way anime is supported, but it's not the way TV is supported. TV is supported primarily by advertising.
Copying/sharing will continue to rise as more people are capable of getting on the internet, but I don't think that this will change the overall amount of money that goes to media (if the companies are good about finding services/products that people are interested in). Even "pirates" realize that you have to support what you want to continue, and that's why if you ever download many sites or nfo files, etc. request that the users do buy what they like. I do think you and others would be right to point out that some people aren't doing that, but I don't think that is true of most. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I can see that working. If a company owned a small handful of channels -perhaps dedicating each one to a different genre to appeal to individuals- and advertised them sufficiently then money would start flowing back to the animation studios. Then again, more broadcasted anime could mean a high risk of casual viewers (instead of just dedicated fansubbers) sharing material they've recorded off the TV online, something which only the wealthy Family Guy manatees can cope with.
"Buying what I like" is one principle I try to abide to when watching fansubs myself, but there are a few shows which I enjoy watching regularly, but not to the extent that I wish to buy the DVDs. If they were available on ad-supported TV I could continue watching them without denying their respective creators the money to make something I'd want to buy. |
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