Forum - View topicToo much anime on the shelves?
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chicogrande
 Posts: 190 Location: Huntsville, Alabama |
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I was browsing The Right Stuf's online store and, as I perused, I noticed how many deeply discounted DVDs they have. Between the weekly specials, movie packs, the bargain bin and close out specials, they are trying to move a lot of product. It made me wonder if overall, not just at The Right Stuf, supply is way over demand. As I understand it, release houses like ADV and Media Blasters, contract with a Japanese producer to release their product here in the United States for a price. In order to recoup the money paid for the license, translation, English language dubbing and other production costs, the licensee will charge a premium price for each individual DVD of the series. Depending of fan expectations, initial sales of the DVD should be strong and if the company licensed a unknown property because it was inexpensive, then unit sales of the DVD are left to the whims of the customer. After the initial furor has passed and the next new thing hits the street, many DVDs of the previous new thing, are left in the shelves of vendors.
I ask, could it be possible, as part of the license agreement, to spell out how many DVDs are to be released to help reduce over-production? This would come with a clause to allow for additional runs if demand requires it. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16963 |
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After working retail and talking to a few idustry reps I think I have an answer. If I'm wrong someone let me know. I believe that the industry does not sign any sort of release agreement. As in they release on their own schedule when they see fit. Some release monthly, though most are bi-monthly. You gotta understand the 2 main reasons for this, as I see it.
1. Most VA's work a nomral job outside of their voice acting. This means they can't simply record everything in a week. Very few do VA as their main job 2. Most companies have so much product they don't wanna flood the market. They want each title to sell so they try and space stuff out to allow each time ample time to sell. Otherwise people would have to be even pickier about what they buy. I also think there is just so much to choose from. The shelves are always full and stores have limited space. So they gotta decide which anime to give a section to. This means some titles may not sell well without the promotion. To help re-coup some of these losses I would imagine they have companies do sales to help gain sales and also get more advertising out of titles theat may need a little help. These are all just my theories though. |
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indrik
 Posts: 365 Location: yonder |
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I think it would depend on how the licensee is to be paid: if they get a lump sum, then I doubt there would be any language in the contract about how many units are going to be produced. If they're being paid per unit sold, then I can see it. There's a precedent for that sort of thing that I thought of a minute ago, and then forgot. I'm not sure how things are done most often in anime, but I have heard that there are more Japanese companies asking for money up front rather than residuals lately, because they're afraid they won't actually get any money from sales. My understanding is that most of everything (dvds, cds, books) get a single pressing, sell almost all of their total units within a year, and are then forgotten. I get the impression that subsequent pressings or printings are rare things, and only happen with really popular items. But as long as a company owns a copyright and a license and etc., they can make as many copies of whatever as they want, as long as they've got the money to pay the people who actually make the dvds or books or whatever.
It seems to me that we're just on a general downswing in anime sales. Most of the stuff that Rightstuf and Best Buy are blowing out real cheap are a year or two (or more) old. At that point, the stores are well past terms, so they own the dvds outright. (Retail stock is usually bought on terms, so that the stores don't actually have to pay for them for a certain... term. Usually 90 days. So that they pay for something after they've got the money from selling it. After 90 days, they've typically got to pay up whether something is sold or not, but in some circumstances can return some or all of the unsold stock. So you set your order quantities based on how much you think you can sell in the time you've got to pay for it.) At that point, they need to get whatever capital they can back out of their investment, even if they're actually selling at cost or at a loss. (Keeping in mind that a particular dvd could still be profitable based on selling a bunch of stuff at full price and blowing out the last few below cost.) I think there is just some spare inventory on titles they thought would sell better than they did, and the general popularity of anime is declining and leveling off, so we're seeing a lot of effort to "normalize" stock levels. I think at the end of it we'll be better off than we were in 1998, but nowhere near what we were in 2005. But that's just my guess. Wait... did I actually answer the question in there? |
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