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 The girls, sporting a range of trendy styles, are the stars of "Popteen
Cover Girl War," a hit show from internet upstart AbemaTV that
may signal a new direction for Japanese television.
Eschewing the pricy serials and star-studded films that have
helped companies like Netflix upend the traditional TV business
in the U.S., AbemaTV is betting on low-budget, reality-based
fare with colorful graphics, relatable young faces and a
relentless focus on generating social media buzz.
The approach has pulled in millions of young viewers, convincing
some advertisers and industry analysts that AbemaTV has found a
lucrative new model.
"It's a generation used to rapidly processing information,"
Tatsuhiko Taniguchi, head of AbemaTV, said of his young viewers.
Dramas are put together "as if we are stuffing in twice the
amount of screenplay," he added.
Japan's traditional broadcasters, boxed in by government
regulations and concerned about upsetting their regional
stations, have mostly left the internet field clear for upstarts
like AbemaTV and foreign players like Netflix and Amazon.com.
Yet AbemaTV remains an unproven bet for its biggest backer,
online ad agency CyberAgent, which launched the network three
years ago with TV Asahi. CyberAgent spent 20 billion yen
($179.73 million) on the venture in the fiscal year that ended
in September, much of that on programming, against revenues of
just 6 billion yen.
CyberAgent's stock price is down 40 percent from last July's all
time high at a time when its advertising and gaming units are
also under pressure.
And the overseas players continue to make inroads: In addition
to subtitling their large back catalogues, they are offering a
growing library of local-language content such as Netflix's
"Terrace House."
But CyberAgent founder and CEO Susumu Fujita, who at age 26
became the youngest CEO ever to take a company public in Japan,
remains confident.
"We are not rushing to reach profitability," said Fujita, 45,
who estimates that revenue will double this year on the same
amount of spending.
AbemaTV has around 8 million viewers each week. Goldman Sachs
analyst Masaru Sugiyama sees the venture turning profitable next
year and hitting 164 billion yen in revenue in 2024.
With big consumer brands looking for online advertising
opportunities, "there's a huge need for professional content on
the internet, but there is a scarcity of that, especially in
Japan," Sugiyama said.
HIT MACHINE
AbemaTV viewers can watch about 25 ad-supported channels showing
everything from 24-hour news to anime to Korean dramas to
fishing via an app or in a browser.
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Along with an ad-supported catch-up service for recently aired
shows, for more hardcore fans there is also a 960-yen-per-month
service providing access to every show AbemaTV has aired.
Japanese TV shows use lots of explanatory on-screen text, designed
to capture viewers zapping between channels, along with wide shots
of terraced rows of entertainers.
By contrast, AbemaTV's smartphone-focused approach features a
cleaner look with frequent close-ups.
AbemaTV hits include a variety show featuring former members of
Japan's once-biggest boy band, SMAP, and a dating show in which the
female contestants and viewers try to identify which of the male
contestants is a "wolf" lying to gain their affections.
During the run of "Popteen," its stars inspired fierce loyalties
among fans on social media as they completed tasks like been
photographed while being splattered with goo, with their final
ranking partly determined by viewer votes.
"In the end those who revealed their weak side got cheered on more
than the girls who were perfectly cute," said Airi Tsukioka, a
producer on the show. Social media reaction informed the direction
the show took, she said.
DIGITAL INTERFERENCE
AbemaTV traces its roots to Fujita's participation from 2013 in
discussions on the future of TV Asahi's programming. One central
question was how to meet the threat from foreign players like
Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Fujita's answer was AbemaTV.
TV Asahi holds a 37 percent stake, helping reduce the burden on
CyberAgent. AbemaTV gained another vote of confidence in October
when it won the backing of two of Cyberagent's rivals, Dentsu and
Hakuhodo DY Holdings, which have taken 5 percent and 3 percent
stakes respectively.
The investment brings on board two players who between them control
a big chunk of Japan's ad market and could help drive big brands to
the platform.
Dentsu figures released last month showed that in 2018 internet
spending grew 17 percent compared to a year earlier. TV spending
shrank by almost 2 percent.
"We want to support the growth of new media," said Arinobu Soga,
Dentsu's chief financial officer.
($1 = 111.2800 yen)
(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Gerry Doyle)
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