![]() ![]() ![]() Apple removed RT from its app stores outside of Russia Tuesday.Twitter and Google also began limiting the visibility of RT content globally this week, and Google dropped RT from its respective revenue sharing programs.Meta, YouTube and TikTok did just that Tuesday, banning access to RT across the continent.The EU issued a ban of RT on Sunday, giving tech companies cover to restrict access to the channel in Europe as well.Microsoft was first among the big tech companies to sever ties with the network, removing the RT app from its app store earlier this week and deranking its search results.Accused by the West of spreading propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the network has been banned and restricted by a number of companies in recent days. It’s been a bad week for RT, the English-language TV network funded by the Russian government. In the end, Crunchyroll is not just a video library, but, first and foremost, it’s also a thriving community of millions of fans around the globe - something that is virtually impossible to recreate from scratch. The company kept that spirit alive over the years by engaging with fans on message boards, making collectibles for their favorite characters and even hosting fan conventions. But that’s not just a content issue: Crunchyroll began as a fan-focused site, with audience members supplying their own subtitles for their favorite Japanese anime shows. There may not be a whole lot of room for niche video subscription services outside of the anime world, as proven by the demise of VRV and continued success of Crunchyroll. A Crunchyroll spokesperson told me that there are no “current shutdown plans” for VRV, but that the company is “actively encouraging users to cancel and move to Crunchyroll.” VRV found its way to Sony as part of the Crunchyroll acquisition, but it’s clearly on its way out.VRV got further sidelined by AT&T’s focus on HBO Max, which launched with some Crunchyroll content in 2020.Those efforts quickly lost steam, in part because Funimation content left VRV in 2018.The company switched to an aggregator model instead, complete with a new brand: VRV.com was supposed to become a kind of hipster post-cable bundle, offering access to AT&T-owned and third-party streaming services for one monthly price.Crunchyroll sold its Korean drama business to Viki in 2015 and abandoned the idea of launching other niche services.As Netflix was adding millions of subscribers every quarter, and aggressively spending for content from around the world, a bunch of niche streamers were forced to throw in the towel. Otter Media even acquired a craft video site, Creativebug, to branch out beyond its anime-obsessed core audience.īuilding niche subscription services turned out to be a lot more complicated, and less popular, than expected.There were also plans for a Vietnamese-content-centric service. Crunchyroll launched for Korean dramas in 2014, and it briefly experimented with a Chinese content service as well.The idea at the time was to take Crunchyroll’s niche-centric approach and adapt it to other genres with passionate audiences, signing up millions of paying subscribers in the process.Those plans got turbocharged when The Chernin Group acquired Crunchyroll in 2013, and AT&T entered a joint venture with Chernin called Otter Media in 2014.Soon after its launch in 2006, Crunchyroll was looking to expand into other content genres.Crunchyroll also has a growing game and merchandise business and has been hosting in-person events since 2017.The service surpassed 5 million subscribers and 120 million registered users last year, with subscription fees ranging from $7.99 to $14.99 per month. But it’s also an admission that niche-centric video subscription services have largely failed, with anime being the sole exception to the rule.Ĭrunchyroll has long been a niche success story. Uniting the two services under the Crunchyroll banner is a logical next step for Sony, which spent close to $1.2 billion last summer to buy Crunchyroll from WarnerMedia. Crunchyroll and Funimation will coexist as separate services for the time being, but Sony is nudging subscribers to switch to Crunchyroll by making new shows exclusive to the service. This week brought some welcome news for anime fans looking for a distraction from an otherwise bleak news cycle: Sony is merging the libraries of its two anime services, Crunchyroll and Funimation, under the Crunchyroll brand, giving paying subscribers access to more than 40,000 episodes of anime content. ![]()
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