>>13359773I think there are four sets of viewers we need to consider:
1) Oshi loyalists. These are people that usually have one oshi that they absolutely follow with maybe a couple of others that they like. They only really care about their oshi and will follow him/her to the ends of the earth (ex. tatsunoko). They like it when their oshi gets support/special events and don't like it when they perceive their oshi is not getting supported properly. They also are the main source of revenue.
2) Brand loyalists: These are people that like the ecosystem in general and usually have a number of different people in their org that they try to follow. They don't necessarily mind people branching out to other groups (tribalists are a subgroup of this type) but they are more interested in a brand or ecosystem. Some of these convert into Oshi loyalists over time.
3) Casual viewers: these are people that just watch whatever they're interested in, maybe they have a couple of favorites but as long as they're playing Minecraft/Apex/whatever they will watch. Some of these may convert into Oshi loyalists but very rarely will they convert to brand loyalists.
4) New viewers. These are people who may potentially be exposed to the overall concept now necessarily because they are interested but because they were exposed to it somehow. Usually this takes the form of some large event that just draws attention, whether it be a viral clip, the curse of the algorithm, or a large coordinated event. The type of content that tends to be the most interesting for them would be things that are relatively easy to connect with-namely concerts, music, variety/talk shows, human relationship drama, etc. "Basic" mainstream content, in other words. They would not necessarily be interested in things like game tournaments, which are more likely to draw casual viewers (3) instead. This is the main area for growth because the universe is less well defined and people are perennially bored.
The current market environment is that 4) is currently competing for content with a whole bunch of other media providers (ex. streaming services, movies, etc.). It requires large effort to reach out to these people directly other than benefitting from a viral clip. Partly due to the saturation of the market, clips are also less common as the algorithm is a bit more confused given the surplus of groups to favor any particular group as it did back in early 2020. I remember being recommended numerous Suisei clips before seeing anything vtuber related back then, and now I haven't seen one in the past year.
As a result, there are two dominant strategies for growth: either 1) wait until the market winds are blowing your way again, and focus on consolidating your type 1 and type 2 viewers (through either giving them big concerts or events), or 2) invest heavily in large scale productions to compete for type 4 viewers against the other media sources. I think that Cover's strategy at the moment is to consolidate resources for a big push for the type 4 viewers right now while simultaneously pleasing 1) and 2). Nijisanji on the other hand seems to be less certain with its footing as it seems to be trying to expand towards 1) and 3), which requires less capital investment but 3) viewers are not loyal and the heavy focus on 1) has resulted in a backlog of 3D, which only serves to piss off those fans whose oshi are behind on the queue. It's possible that Cover's strategy of 1) will not pay off either, but both companies are certainly trying to do something until market winds blow their way again. The likely cause for this I suspect will be due to a perpetuation of the supply-chain crisis we see in the global economy as digital services like streaming become "cheaper" compared to more extensive productions like film, anime and TV series.
