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NEWS: Crunchyroll to Halt Ad-Supported Streaming Starting With Spring 2022 Season

If CR is going to do anything at the moment they need to make an app so you can stream. I don't mind switching from Funimation to CR but one of the reasons I pay, instead of pirating, is because I can load up a Funimation app on my TV and just stream it from there.

Eh, Honestly the way CR did there ads are one of the main reasons I refused to use CR in the first place. If I remember right they'd slot like 3 or 4 of the same 5 seconds ads right in the middle of an episode.

Which, honestly, is annoying as shit, especially because they'd do it in parts where there was no intended ad break and it was jarring.

If CR is going to do anything at the moment they need to make an app so you can stream. I don't mind switching from Funimation to CR but one of the reasons I pay, instead of pirating, is because I can load up a Funimation app on my TV and just stream it from there.

Based on anecdotal evidence, I think the doomsayers in this thread are vastly overestimating the impact this will have.

For those who don't already know, I am a high school teacher. A significant number of my students (at least a quarter, maybe as many as a third) watch anime to some degree; I see it all the time in study halls, and catch students trying to watch it in regular classes on a regular basis. A lot of them are from poor backgrounds, too, so these are the up-and-coming anime fans that people seem most concerned about. However, absolutely none of them use legal ad-supported free services like Crunchyroll. CR's move on dropping ad-supported free service for new titles won't affect them one bit.

I got into digitally-distributed fansubbing relatively early, so was around for its heyday. That scene was never more than a fraction as vibrant as illegal streaming is these days, and that despite sites like CR having free ad-supported offerings. Between that and my observations on my students, I would bet that a large percentage of CR's free ad-supported viewers probably aren't watching new series on CR anyway. They do have a very substantial anime catalog at this point, after all.

Will be interesting to see what CR's viewership numbers look like after a full season of this change, but honestly, I'll be surprised if they change drastically. As others have said, it's a correct financial move for CR, and it will not shake up the streaming viewership scene anywhere near as much as some are fearing.

The last couple of headphones I've bought are from Sony and I must say, I'm quite displeased with them!

Mune wrote:

If you think waiting 3 months to watch something for free is too long, I'm calling you entitled. As a child, I had to wait years from the initial air date and months between episodes, (oh, the dark ages of anime or as some call them, the age of great anime).

Yes, clearly things should never get better, because they weren't good when you were a child. What a smart and totally not psychotic viewpoint on things.

Quite the decision being made. As of last year, Crunchyroll had 120 million users, and of those, only 5 million were paying subscribers.

The difference between those numbers is enormous. A significant portion of Crunchyroll's revenue as a result is that ad revenue.

This is interesting as I keep hearing that other streaming services like Disney+ are considering adding a streaming-with-ads option, so to see Crunchy do the opposite is a choice for sure. Charging for something that has been free for ages rarely feels like a great move.

I guess ad revenue wasn't that great (which has reportedly been down in recent years) + absorbing a major competitor led to this.

The difference between those two number is huge, but that doesn't mean that it still represents a significant portion of their revenue. If each user's ad revenue was only 1/100th of a subscriber's revenue, then the story is different. Also remember that registered users does not equal active users.

Sony's a business, if they were making $90 million on ads and $10 million on subscribers, they (most likely), wouldn't throw away such a huge difference in revenue in an attempt to push people to pay. It's certainly possible of course, but Sony is going to do whatever will make the most sense financially to them in both the short and long term.

It could also be that they see enough revenue from non-current content that the loss of revenue from those users who just watch the new content is worth it. Though that seems less likely, perhaps the costs to support all those free users hammering the servers when a new episode drops isn't worth it either.

No one said their back catalogue would be subscription only. Free users will still have access to it with ads. Likewise, there was no indication that after the spring season that they wouldn't just make this only for the current season. So, at most viewers would be behind is 3 months, not forever.

If you think waiting 3 months to watch something for free is too long, I'm calling you entitled. As a child, I had to wait years from the initial air date and months between episodes, (oh, the dark ages of anime or as some call them, the age of great anime).

Based on anecdotal evidence, I think the doomsayers in this thread are vastly overestimating the impact this will have.

For those who don't already know, I am a high school teacher. A significant number of my students (at least a quarter, maybe as many as a third) watch anime to some degree; I see it all the time in study halls, and catch students trying to watch it in regular classes on a regular basis. A lot of them are from poor backgrounds, too, so these are the up-and-coming anime fans that people seem most concerned about. However, absolutely none of them use legal ad-supported free services like Crunchyroll. CR's move on dropping ad-supported free service for new titles won't affect them one bit.

Crunchyroll is sending "F-ck you" to non-subscriber users, including those who are low income. Watch free with ads after one week model is dead. Won't be surprised if CR will raising prices like Netflix.

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Quote:

If CR is going to do anything at the moment they need to make an app so you can stream. I don't mind switching from Funimation to CR but one of the reasons I pay, instead of pirating, is because I can load up a Funimation app on my TV and just stream it from there.

Really curious to know how you do that, as I thought Funi had stopped support for the Smart TV-friendly app they had years ago.

AntiKuro wrote:

Eh, Honestly the way CR did there ads are one of the main reasons I refused to use CR in the first place. If I remember right they'd slot like 3 or 4 of the same 5 seconds ads right in the middle of an episode. Which, honestly, is annoying as shit, especially because they'd do it in parts where there was no intended ad break and it was jarring. If CR is going to do anything at the moment they need to make an app so you can stream. I don't mind switching from Funimation to CR but one of the reasons I pay, instead of pirating, is because I can load up a Funimation app on my TV and just stream it from there.

They do have apps though?

Yuvelir wrote:

The last couple of headphones I've bought are from Sony and I must say, I'm quite displeased with them!

What model were they?

No matter how I look at this, it doesn't make sense. The only conceivable reason I could see for CR doing this is because they decided the expense/hassle of supporting the ad-based version is not worth the extra revenue--but if that's the case, then why are they still offering the ad-based version for pre-Spring 2022 shows? It's not like that's a sunk, one-time cost. It should be just as much of an ongoing concern with the back catalogue as it would be with the new simulcasts.

The difference between those two number is huge, but that doesn't mean that it still represents a significant portion of their revenue. If each user's ad revenue was only 1/100th of a subscriber's revenue, then the story is different. Also remember that registered users does not equal active users.

Sony's a business, if they were making $90 million on ads and $10 million on subscribers, they (most likely), wouldn't throw away such a huge difference in revenue in an attempt to push people to pay. It's certainly possible of course, but Sony is going to do whatever will make the most sense financially to them in both the short and long term.