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Rakuten TV CEO Cedric Dufour is a relative newcomer to the leisure business, having beforehand labored as Rakuten’s e-commerce managing director for Europe. However Dufour has settled rapidly into his new submit since taking it up eighteen months in the past, ascertaining the lay of the land in addition to its inherent contradictions.
“What I seen is that, for instance, the studios, which was once our primary companions, [are] additionally our rivals,” he tells Selection. “As a result of all of them have their very own platforms. The producers additionally – Samsung, which is one among our massive associate, can be a competitor, particularly on Samsung TV Plus, as a result of our channels are competing in opposition to their channels. So we actually want to grasp on this world of frenemies what’s our place, what’s our added worth, and we have to anticipate what would be the evolution of the market to see how we have to place ourselves on this market.”
In contrast to most of the firm’s rivals, who’re chasing authentic and unique content material to lure in new subscribers, Dufour’s watchword is “high quality.” Rakuten TV already provides TVOD and AVOD and its newest enterprise, unveiled final month, is the launch of two new FAST channels, one for actuality/factual and the opposite for crime. “We need to construct a reliable model in order that when folks go to the Rakuten TV channel, they know that they’ll discover good content material, related content material,” he says of the brand new FAST channels. “It’s the case for our personal channel, but in addition with third social gathering channels that we’re distributing on our platform.”
Learn on for Dufour’s tackle the business pivot to FAST, Rakuten’s USP and the way forward for streaming.
Do you are feeling like the marketplace for FAST is getting saturated?
Not but. However clearly, there’s a profusion of content material, and there might be an enormous distinction between the platforms. In our case, our precedence is high quality of content material fairly than amount. So when it comes to channels, we’re distributing round 500 channels all through the 43 nations we’re working in. We may do 1500 however the thought is to pick the appropriate channels, the nice content material, and that’s our differentiation in comparison with different platforms.
Rakuten originated in Japan, the place it additionally operates a streaming service. Does it work intently with its European streaming operations or are they fairly separate?
It’s very totally different. We run [Rakuten TV] from Barcelona and we have now folks in several nations to make it possible for we have now the related content material for every nation. Rakuten TV additionally operates in Japan, however with a unique enterprise mannequin. So it’s fairly separate.
Why has Rakuten chosen this extra localized method, particularly when in comparison with somebody like Amazon, which additionally started life as an web retailer earlier than shifting into content material.
To start with, Rakuen doesn’t have this similar presence [across the world] as Amazon. In e-commerce, other than Japan, we have now additionally a market in France, Taiwan and that’s it. We don’t have the worldwide protection that Amazon has. We now have many different companies in different nations; we have now different digital content material, we have now the Kobo e-reader enterprise, Viber messaging, however we don’t have the e-commerce all over the place. In order that’s why we had a unique method. And we actually suppose that’s one among our differentiations in comparison with others is to have this localized method to make it possible for we have now related content material.
Do you suppose the marketplace for streaming platforms is overcrowded?
It’s a crowded market. And in addition one mission we have now – and it’s not solely our mission, however the one of many business, I feel – it’s to work on the discoverability. So even when our method, as I discussed, is extra high quality than amount, even with the standard we have now, on our platform we have now [a lot of] content material accessible. So we have to assist the customers to seek out the related content material. That’s an vital problem as a result of generally folks wrestle to find the appropriate content material they need to watch.
Does Rakuten do originals?
Sure, we do. We began six years in the past. Firstly, it was primarily sports activities documentaries, primarily as a result of sports activities is a part of the DNA of Rakuten. We have been sponsors of the FC Barcelona group, we’re nonetheless a sponsor of [San Francisco NBA team] the Golden State Warriors, of the Davis Cup, so it’s actually a part of our historical past. And the documentary is a format which is kind of related for this type of style, so we did sport documentary, and now we’ve expanded our Rakuten originals to different genres and to different codecs. The way in which we’ve been in a position to fund that is to have sponsors and to have manufacturers who need to affiliate their title with our productions.
Do you are feeling strain to make that one breakout sequence that’s going to get folks speaking about Rakuten, like Roku did with the Bizarre Al film?
I feel our mission is extra to pick the content material than having our personal content material and producing our personal content material. And given our dimension and our place out there, we’ll restrict manufacturing to seven or eight productions [per year]. In order that’s not an obsession for us. We do it if it is sensible, if we discover a good story to inform, however the best way we develop our promote it’s not by means of this type of funding. The way in which we have now grown within the final 5 years was primarily partnering with producers. We now have a branded button on nearly all of the distant controls from the producers and that’s allowed us to be current in 140 million households in Europe, with our button on the Samsung TV, the LG and many others.
Do you suppose there might be as many streaming platforms in 10 years’ time as there at the moment are?
That’s query. It’s evolving in a short time. I feel there’ll nonetheless be the giants on this market, however there will even be a spot for smaller platforms with area of interest choices, particularly on high quality of content material. That’s why we can not battle with others on quantity. That’s why we battle on content material.
Does Rakuten TV supply reside sports activities?
We don’t. We don’t have reside streaming.
Is it one thing you need to get into?
It’s a brilliant aggressive market. So proper now, we’re not contemplating it. And particularly given our dimension and our place, our primary goal is to see how this market has advanced sooner or later, and what’s our place on this market and what is sensible. The nice factor is that, due to our dimension, we’re fairly agile and versatile and we will react. For instance, the AVOD service launched in 2018; we launched it in like six months. It was tremendous fast due to our flexibility. We now have a small group of 200 folks in Barcelona and fairly reactive. So we have to hold this flexibility to see what might be our place out there within the coming years.
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