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I'd like to preface this as someone who has a rather deep autistic enjoyment of business history, especially the rise of East Asian hegemonies, chaebols and keiretsu in particular.
"Pioneer Syndrome" is the general pattern or an arc of a Japanese business that hits mainstream saturation and undertaking a transformative effect on the industry, that then starts losing corporate power and standing because of the factors I will be explaining shortly. Pioneer in this case, is not a reference to being the first in the business, but rather the company - Pioneer had a humble origin as developing speakers in early part of the 20th century. However, it did something most other corporations were struggling to do rather easily - it attracted high level talent early on in its history that was instrumental to its success. In fact, what made it a supremely popular household name in Japan was the fact that they made the first true stereo system for the home market. By the 1980s, they were on top of the world. Pioneer was an established name alongside other giants like Sony, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and so on. Their diversification and many angles of focus made it tenable to dabble in many different industries at once.
This would come to a close at the turn of the 90s, in which Warner Bros bought back their shares in Pioneer and self-established themselves as Warner Music Japan. Pioneer, reeling from the loss of this lucrative partnership, turned to making a whole slew of investments, most notably in Carolco pictures which had huge box office hits like Terminator 2, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, etc. - pure 90s schlock. However, it was poorly run and Pioneer didn't know that their very hefty funding of the company was making them lose even more money. In their panic, they quickly begin establishing a US branch of the company and write off their losses, deciding to self-fund entertainment efforts. In the midst of all this, they were still making impressive strides - the first DVD/CD player, actual Dolby Digital support for home AV purposes, DVD recording, and experiments with flat screen technology, but their talents were getting poached due to poor working conditions, even for Japan. Using their reach, they started publishing US releases of Japanese products, most notably anime, in the form of series like Lain and Tenchi Muyo. Seeing their market share decreasing, especially with the death of LaserDisc in the advent of DVD, they rebranded as Geneon after selling themselves out to investors, after which, they chased a dragon in car stereos and other features, believing it to be the future - the very same thing they started as, while continuously losing ground to its competitors. To this day, it's not a shadow of its former self, still alive, still around, but barely.
Now, the similarities (Pioneer in parentheses).
>starts off as an idol (acoustic) company
>due to changing and evolving markets in COVID (Japanese economic miracle), attract high level talent to stream (innovate audio systems)
>start getting a lot of hype and attention, get listed in stock exchange
>strikes a huge deal with another company that is primarily focused on music, SONY (Warner Bros)
>said partner wants to focus and put pressure, along with shareholders, on more music deals instead of what made them famous, streaming (Karaoke machines / LaserDisc instead of audio systems)
>this leads to further investments from the company into other venues to achieve saturation such as Dodgers night, concerts, card games, convenience stores, pop-up shops (rights to Warner Bros music catalogue, movies, merch, and other entertainment)
>US office is announced somewhere in all of this
>>>>>WE ARE HERE
>company begins losing sight of what made them popular, begin demanding more innovations and a rigorous schedule for talent. Talents begin to depart, including some of the bigger names like Aqua and Ame, amidst some controversial terminations (Sony, Toshiba, etc. began to recruit heavily from Pioneer in this time)
>big investor in the company pulls out, seeing it no longer profitable and buys back its shares, giving a glut of money
>instead of focusing on what made them big in the first place in streaming (AV systems), they instead double down on their newer path in idol entertainment (media rights)
>US base goes live but due to a number of financial losses and bad decisions, they rebrand and hope people will still be along for the ride (at this point, Pioneer has been delisted from the primary Tokyo Stock Exchange due to terrible performance)
>poor performance of numbers and returns, along with growing investor anger, forces the president and chairman to both resign out of disgrace
>company then undergoes a hostile takeover by another company (Dentsu) and is now only a brand as it continues its slow decline
tl;dr: Cover is experiencing the classic Japanese corporation failure due to stubbornness and unwillingness to take note of their talents' needs.
