At a recent conference, Ravi Ahuja, president and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, spoke about the company’s long-term plans for streaming service Crunchyroll. We summarize.
Crunchyroll is confident
Sony wants to continue to invest heavily in the growth of Crunchyroll, as the demand for anime content is enormous, especially in the Alpha and Z generations. Although Millennials and Generation X are currently less present, there is also great growth potential in these target groups.
Another crucial factor is the connection to the anime producer Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony. Thanks to the close cooperation within the group, the company is deeply involved in anime production in Japan and can tailor content specifically to the preferences of its own subscribers.
When asked if Crunchyroll was the biggest anime provider, Ahuja answered without hesitation and with complete conviction:
»Yes, by far. Of course, anime is also available on other streaming services. Hulu has anime, Netflix has anime, and that’s great because in our experience, people learn about anime there and then come to Crunchyroll.”
Other providers as a starting point
It’s not the first time that executives from Sony or Crunchyroll have made this statement, describing other VoD platforms as a go-to for casual fans because of their reach – and those who want a more in-depth experience usually end up at Crunchyroll.
Based on this belief, Crunchyroll continues to sublicense to competitors like Netflix, but that could change in the near future.
After all, Netflix recently announced that it wants to become the world’s largest anime streaming service – and recent surveys have also shown that many anime viewers around the world perceive Netflix as such.
Will Netflix catch up soon?
Although Crunchyroll still has a significantly larger anime selection, it doesn’t seem unrealistic that Netflix will soon catch up – especially in view of the recent statements by Netflix’s former head anime producer, which we reported on a few days ago.
He explained that the company’s numerous in-house productions had hardly paid off – in contrast to licensed titles. It would therefore be quite possible that Netflix will increasingly rely on extensive license purchases in the future and thus become an even more direct competitor to Crunchyroll.
The coming years will show whether Crunchyroll can maintain its dominance in anime streaming – or whether Netflix will take over the top spot with a more aggressive licensing strategy.
