Jan 9, 2024

Analysis shows that Netflix gives more to Netflix than it gives back to animation

In a recent report for the Anime News Network, anime expert Miles Thomas Atherton provided readers with an industry insider's perspective on Netflix's massive 2023 audience data dump, which was announced last December.

Atherton is a true authority when it comes to analyzing anime audience data. He is the founder of White Box Entertainment, an animation promotion consulting firm, and the former chief marketing officer of European animation distributor Anime Ltd. and prior to that worked for Crunchyroll for nearly a decade.

Following are five key takeaways from Atherton's article. The article is worth a read for anyone interested in anime and how viewers consume it.

In examining the viewership numbers shared by Netflix last month, Atherton notes that while this is the most detailed data ever shared by Netflix, it is still vague enough to make it harder to draw definitive conclusions than with more accurate data He admits. In particular, they are frustrated by the lack of data by region. In other words, one would have to do a lot of math to know that the most watched anime franchises on Netflix are Pokemon, One Piece, and Naruto. That said, there was still much to be gained from what Netflix offered.

One of the most compelling arguments in Atherton's article is that Netflix is riding on the success of anime, not the other way around. Atherton suggests that Netflix's relationship with anime is largely one-sided, with the streamer reaping huge rewards from both acquired and original anime content without much marketing or promotion in return. [The reason Netflix's relationship with anime is unbalanced is that other anime platforms do the heavy lifting when it comes to promoting the medium. Huge anime IPs spend years and hundreds of episodes building up their art forms and building an audience for their anime content, while Netflix is available without having to build on that foundation.

To support his point, Netflix does not promote its animated titles as enthusiastically as it does other animated and live-action content, despite the phenomenal popularity of anime on the platform. Atherton notes that when Netflix's main social media page posted about "Scott Pilgrim Takeoff" last year, it was the first time since 2021 that the company had posted about an animated series from these channels. 5 Most Watched on Netflix of the five animated franchises were not mentioned on any of Netflix's major social media channels last year.

While anime numbers are impressive in the West, they are underwhelming in regions of Asia where Netflix penetration is still low; if Netflix is to continue to grow, it will have to do so in Asia, where the company's popularity has been on the rise in recent years. Because of the competition, Netflix's subscriber base has stagnated and even declined in some of its traditional markets. However, by early 2023, subscriber growth was strong worldwide, with 80% of that growth coming from Asia-Pacific countries. Atherton took a deep dive into Netflix's top 10 sites in Asia, concluding that two categories, anime and Harry Potter, are attracting more viewers than any other. Given this trend, it is clear that Netflix will continue to focus on acquiring and producing animation as it expands its Asian operations.