From the Big Funi Hustlas episode (2015 Jan 16)

• At about 5 minutes, the following titles are doing very well for Funimation:
  • DBZ Battle of the Gods
  • Attack on Titan
  • Cowboy Bebop
  • Bayonetta
  • Fairy Tail
• Disappointments include:
  • Production IG’s movie Hal (mentioned around minutes 9-10), apparently because there was basically no awareness of it, good or bad.
  • The live-action feature Let Me Out (around 12 minutes in)
  • Also, the Magical Index/Scientific Railgun shows seem to do better on streaming than on disc
  • Around 15 minutes they mention that Future Diary on DVD didn’t do very well; they’re guessing home media collectors are holding out for the Blu-Ray
• 16 minutes: the standard limited-edition releases (discs + chipboard box) didn’t see a drop-off from the prior year – they grew.
• 19 min: Special editions are driven by availability of assets as well as projections (these are case-by-case decision). Kamisama Kiss’s special edition was diven by streaming numbers and a desire to see if those would translate into physical media sales. They did pretty well…
• 21 min: Ideas for extras tend to come from fan requests
• 26-27: the Funimation subscriber sub-only option caused a jump on without a corresponding jump-off from all-access subscribers.
• 29-30: Space Battleship Yamato has been great for Funi
• 36-38: Funi attempt to get all the rights they can. They aren’t especially focused on global streaming rights, if only because those are frontloaded (in terms of having to pay without Funi being able to gauage demand); they’re more focused on North America (???and on mobile sites?)
• 42: According to Japanese industry, streaming successes are driving further production (the large number of shows each season). This “success” may not be short-term financial gains so much as access to a borader audience.
• 56: Funi saw an immediate jump in subscribers after announcing the first broadcast dubs
• 64: Funi’s online store has been doing very well.
• 65: They’re looking at doing more retailer exclusives, for various retailers (not necessarily just Amazon- and Walmart-size ones)
• 68: The 35+ demographic is big for Funi in both sales and streaming, despite conventional wisdom
• At 70 they make a point of refuting (from data) the “girls don’t buy [whatever]” BS
• 72: They’re finalizing plans to expand to South and Central America
• 78: Download-to-own has been examined before and they look at it again periodically
• 93: Funi has a pre-order-heavy audience

From the Meat Popsicles episode (2015 May 1)

• 9: Hulu contracts are at-will
• 10: Individual TV networks want to go on their own individual platforms rather than a shared platform like Hulu; that’s the big risk that may tank Hulu (apparently a major revenue sources for anime companies these days)
• 15: Shirobako tanked in streaming
• 31: There were long-standing issues licensing Robot Carnival due to APPP being burned on their prior attempt to enter the US market (presumably this is a reference to the Jojo OVAs)
• 48: Discussing differences between ANN users and Crunchyroll users
• 49: Discussiong of “solving the discovery problem” for catalog material “for casuals” (that is, introducing older material to folks other than hardcore fans)
• There seems to have also been a discussion of anime members of the creative team who are revenue (not profit) participants?