Forum - View topicSurvey: Should ANN Review its own Simulcasts?
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Uh, yes, that is what a review is, it's one person's opinion designed to let the reader know what the show is about and whether or not the reviewer thought it was worth watching. Then those reviews become discussions about the show. I'm not even sure where the disconnect is happening for you here but you seem to have a very rigid set of rules in your head for this that I'm not familiar with and frankly have no interest in arguing about. Answering your last weird panicky question, YES, of course. The opinions of myself and my reviews team have nothing to do with what shows up in the streaming player. We've been showing giant piles of Funimation stuff in there for a year or more and plenty of that stuff has been trashed by our critics. It doesn't matter to me - nor should it - what shows up. If one of my critics trashes it, fine by me - that's never stopped anyone from watching anything else one of my writers didn't like. Me running to the video department and saying "Carl Kimlinger didn't like the show you're simulcasting! YANK IT DOWN" would.. I mean I can't even begin to tell you how unprofessional and silly that would be. I'd be completely overstepping my boundary as an employee of this company who has a well-defined role in a particular department - not only that, that would be so antithetical to how I approach this whole thing, the thought would never occur to me.
Thank you, I feel like I'm being asked to run the same lap over and over again in slightly different ways each time. |
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Sandstar
Posts: 196 |
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I guess my point was that, by simulcasting a program you are, in effect, saying "This is worth watching." Or are you saying "We'll put up any old piece of crap that we can get a contract for." If the latter's the case, then I feel that hurts your reputation. I believe your reviewers will be honest, but I think that if you're just gonna post whatever you can get your hands on, you shouldn't let your reviwers review the shows, because of the disconnect between ANN hosting it, and a review saying it's not worth watching. Do you see my point? If not, I'll let it go. |
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Mad_Scientist
Subscriber
Moderator Posts: 3013 |
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Ok, I at least understand what you're getting at now, but I don't really think there's an issue, and even if there was then ANN is already screwed. For one thing, ANN's reviewers disagree with each other all the time. Just because Carl likes a show doesn't mean Theron does as well. So in many cases, ANN has had different parts and/or formats of a particular show reviewed by several different staff members, and published drastically different opinions as a result. It's generally been ANN's view that this is a good thing, as giving readers a "second opinion" of sorts on a show (or in some cases, a third opinion, or forth, etc) is of benefit to the readers. But if you want to talk about a disconnect between different parts of the site, isn't this the biggest disconnect right there? To have one reviewer say she can't even understand how someone could enjoy a show, and have another say that in his B+ review of the same show he might not have actually given it the full credit it deserves? And what I just said isn't some hypothetical example, it's exactly what happened with Erin and Theron recently. (Casshern Sins is the anime in question) Also, ANN already streams a ton of stuff. Some of that stuff has been really thrashed by some of it's reviewers. Thus, even if you don't feel the previous example about different reviews represents a disconnect, the specific disconnect you were talking about already exists. (edited to improve clarity in a few cases) |
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Sandstar
Posts: 196 |
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I do know that they host stuff they get from say, Crunchyroll, or Hulu, but I guess in my mind there's a difference between hosting stuff, and specifically going out of your way to simulcast a series. But allright, I'll let it drop. |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I really don't see any reason it says that. Look, ANN is a business. They provide a service. One of these services is (or is going to be) providing access to anime via streaming. If they think there is a market for a show they may pick it up for streaming. There's no reason that is or should be a commentary on the quality of the show. All they are providing is access because they think this will be a useful service to people. If you're interested in judgments on quality then that is what reviews, another service ANN provides, are for. That doesn't by any means negate the value of providing the service of access to the show. I mean, if you've read ANNs forum at all it should be pretty clear that just because someone on the review staff says they think a show sucks, it by no means indicates there aren't still a legion of fans out there who disagree and will watch the show. This is why it is perfectly reasonable and not at all contradictory for a reviewer to pan a show and yet for ANN to stream it anyway. They provide two completely different services, both of which are useful to different groups of people. |
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Banden
Posts: 140 |
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Sandstar has a point though, however belabored it may be at this point. Zac may feel as though he's running the same lap over and over, but that maybe partially because reconfirming his philosophy to never censor reviews is not a direct confrontation of the core issue now being raised. (At least as I am understanding it.)
As a business, ANN has several business objectives. Clearly the business objective Zac is accustomed to working toward are the reviews and editorial content that have been ANN's premium products for a long time. ANN's new foray into streaming only had a marginal impact on that objective so long as the property owner was a third party company to whom ANN was just another consumer. The new simulcasting business, far from being mere semantics, changes that equation a great deal. In addition to the news objective and the editorial/review objective, ANN has now also assumed the responsibility to promote and market the site's own properties to the readers and the community. I don't believe that can be overstated. For a business that has positioned itself over many years as a hub of news and opinion, ANN is in an extremely convenient position to exploit the conflict of interest in any number of ways editorially, and without any hard barriers whatever to bar the way (as other users have pointed out e.g. Time-Warner) there is no clear way for the general public to distinguish whether a given posting they read here about OreImo or other simulcast properties are sincere and fully-formed critique, or whether they may have been influenced by marketing concerns at any step in the process, the way they have been able to place trust in ANN's DVD reviews in the past. (Unless and until ANN management institutes some new system.) Whether the individual writer-reviewers can be trusted to be stalwartly unshaken by the lure of the profit motive for the benefit of the business isn't the only concern. There are numerous levers that can be pulled, intentionally or unintentionally out of "respect for viewers/readers", by any writer, editor, or manager/administrator who would like to see coverage play out a certain way. That is a problem, and looking beyond poll-responders to the public at large, that is a potentially enormous threat to that Trust thing mentioned in ANN's motto. I ought to thank Zac for his responsive, if somewhat narrow, reply to my last post. I'd still love to hear what Tempest has to say about it from a more big-picture perspective if he's still hanging around reading this thread and would be kind enough to oblige me. I also have a semi-rhetorical followup question for Zac in re: reviewer impartiality, related to the particular reviews I posted on the last page. I didn't realize at the time of posting that the Mao-Chan review was your own, wasn't it? If, through an irregularity of time and space, ANN had gotten into the simulcasting business in 2002 and for reasons known only to higher powers, licensed Mao-Chan for exclusive North American simulcast, can you tell us without hesitation that you would have written every last word of that review the same, in complete disregard of your organization's financial circumstances? Penny for your thoughts. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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An objective reason for refusing to host a stream would include something like the source cannot get a master to ANN that is of suitable quality. But that's the kind of thing the New Media department (which seems to consist of Justin) can judge for themselves, and are probably best able to judge. |
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agila61
Posts: 3213 Location: NE Ohio |
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If anyone is watching it, of course it is worthwhile to the industry in general for them to be watching it on a legit stream Edit: verbose Last edited by agila61 on Thu Oct 07, 2010 11:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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rti9
Posts: 1241 |
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Sorry, but regarding the quality part. If I recall correctly, on a previous ANNCast Justin Sevakis commented that he was offered a fanservice show to stream on ANN and he declined. Was that a commentary on the quality of the show or was it due to ANN wanting to be more... family friendly? |
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ikillchicken
Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I don't know. I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to. I'm not saying that their opinion on the quality of a show won't be involved in their decision. The point is though that ultimately, the point of them streaming a series is not to tell fans: This is a good show, you should watch it.* The point is to provide people who do want to watch it with the legal means to do so. You should also keep in mind that ANN has often posted multiple reviews that contradict each other. So even regardless of the above, I don't see the problem. *There may be a couple exceptions to this. I think Justin has put up a couple of old hidden gems because he wants to make them available to people. This is sort of different from getting into actual simulcasts and streaming of recent shows though. |
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Sunday Silence
Posts: 2047 |
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Not to mention admitting they were wrong despite steadfastly claiming they were right. |
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rti9
Posts: 1241 |
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Sounds like a logical step to go from DVDs to streams. Just seems really strange that ANN wants to publicize their simulcasts through reviews hoping that it will generate discussion. Why not just flat out advertise on the website? Why risk a counter productive negative review of something you want to be watched? Seems like they opted for reviews because reviewers is what they got. I don't think they need to hire Don Draper and Sterling Cooper. Just someone to succinctly point out the strengths and who would enjoy title X with no criticism. Let the forums/audience point out their dislikes (as they usually do). Don't trash your own product.
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poonk
Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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Though I was too late for the survey I just wanted to say: If following this site for 2 years has taught me anything it's that ANN reviewers won't be pulling punches, even if they're simulcasting something. Let's be honest-- not to stereotype his views too much but if, for example, Zac suddenly started blindly praising the latest LCD* crap-fest ANN happened to be simulcasting it'd be incredibly obvious, y'know? I think nowadays, with all the preliminary info available, a lot of people form preconceptions of a series based on that (I'm completely guilty as well) and reviews either just confirm that view or provide some spark of a reason to reconsider the series. As evidenced by the feedback to almost any strongly pro/con review, people are going to form their own (often vocal) opinions regardless of "official" reviews anyway.
*Uh, just to be clear by LCD I mean "lowest common denominator," not "liquid crystal display" |
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