Hi, one key point I'm really concerned is that talent retention might be harder now due to the sucess of key affiliate talent transitioning to indie vtubers and maintaining same viewership, but keeping a bigger share of profits.
This trend began with Dokibird and her success last year, then with Mint. We had seen Amelia and Fauna (and in some way Minato Aqua) returning with indie models and keeping a great portion of their fanbase. It is widely known that Gura was well known in her past life in the internet and she can leverage her previous persona.
I fear that one key risk is talent turnaround can be quickier now, mainly because they can feel once they achieve certain levels of critical mass with subscribete, they can choose the indie path where there are less restrictions, less bureacracy and a bigger share of the money. I really don't blame the talent and think more of this is something Cover must work on. They need to change things so talent feel that being in the company is the best thing for the long-term.
If any of the talents wants to stream only, going indie or maybe with VShojo after gaining a significant fanbase is probably the right choice for them and I find it unlikely that anything Cover does will correct that. I don't think that is a problem Cover should focus on fixing, because I don't think they can win, as I mentioned here https://www.dungeoninvesting.com/p/is-cover-corp-the-next-anycolor
In my opinion, agencies have 3 choices:
- Be a lightweight structure for barebones support, taking a minimal part of earnings but limiting the range of support they can offer in merchandise, events and similar things (VShojo)
- Be a vehicle for gaining viewership with a focus on efficiency and not on musical careers on events, and focus on quantity to avoid the leavers overwhelming the structure (Anycolor)
- Focus on long-term monetization and help for events, IP management and merchandise to help with retention, rather than sreaming exclusives (what Cover is doing).
IMHO, Cover's structure will offer the better combination of retention and earnings power, but since they started as support for streaming, that will take time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for streamlining things, not adding bureaucracy and so on, and I hope Cover does as best as possible in that regard. But I don't think their strategic focus should be on keeping streaming-only (or mainly) talents. They just can't compete (and doing several strategies in a single agency is a problem, as contracts would vary too much, leading to more conflict)
That said, Fauna/Nimi is the only one that really has similar levels of success streaming as an independent as she did in Cover. Go beyond the subscriber numbers and check viewership. Dokibird/Ame is doing less viewership than she used to while streaming a lot more. Aqua has simply cut on streaming, she seems to want to take it easy and coast on a few streams a month (also understandable!). And that is only taking into account streaming from their accounts only. They will also lose merch (less distribution and help designing, although now they have a better margin) and events, and have more costs (typically they have to hire people to find sponsors, production stuff...). For fully streaming-focused talents, the balance is positive, but I don't think that's the case for all!
Hi, one key point I'm really concerned is that talent retention might be harder now due to the sucess of key affiliate talent transitioning to indie vtubers and maintaining same viewership, but keeping a bigger share of profits.
This trend began with Dokibird and her success last year, then with Mint. We had seen Amelia and Fauna (and in some way Minato Aqua) returning with indie models and keeping a great portion of their fanbase. It is widely known that Gura was well known in her past life in the internet and she can leverage her previous persona.
I fear that one key risk is talent turnaround can be quickier now, mainly because they can feel once they achieve certain levels of critical mass with subscribete, they can choose the indie path where there are less restrictions, less bureacracy and a bigger share of the money. I really don't blame the talent and think more of this is something Cover must work on. They need to change things so talent feel that being in the company is the best thing for the long-term.
Hi Andres.
If any of the talents wants to stream only, going indie or maybe with VShojo after gaining a significant fanbase is probably the right choice for them and I find it unlikely that anything Cover does will correct that. I don't think that is a problem Cover should focus on fixing, because I don't think they can win, as I mentioned here https://www.dungeoninvesting.com/p/is-cover-corp-the-next-anycolor
In my opinion, agencies have 3 choices:
- Be a lightweight structure for barebones support, taking a minimal part of earnings but limiting the range of support they can offer in merchandise, events and similar things (VShojo)
- Be a vehicle for gaining viewership with a focus on efficiency and not on musical careers on events, and focus on quantity to avoid the leavers overwhelming the structure (Anycolor)
- Focus on long-term monetization and help for events, IP management and merchandise to help with retention, rather than sreaming exclusives (what Cover is doing).
IMHO, Cover's structure will offer the better combination of retention and earnings power, but since they started as support for streaming, that will take time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for streamlining things, not adding bureaucracy and so on, and I hope Cover does as best as possible in that regard. But I don't think their strategic focus should be on keeping streaming-only (or mainly) talents. They just can't compete (and doing several strategies in a single agency is a problem, as contracts would vary too much, leading to more conflict)
That said, Fauna/Nimi is the only one that really has similar levels of success streaming as an independent as she did in Cover. Go beyond the subscriber numbers and check viewership. Dokibird/Ame is doing less viewership than she used to while streaming a lot more. Aqua has simply cut on streaming, she seems to want to take it easy and coast on a few streams a month (also understandable!). And that is only taking into account streaming from their accounts only. They will also lose merch (less distribution and help designing, although now they have a better margin) and events, and have more costs (typically they have to hire people to find sponsors, production stuff...). For fully streaming-focused talents, the balance is positive, but I don't think that's the case for all!
Thanks for the timely update,
Tried to be as timely as possible, hard on CET times!