So how did ADV go out of business?

I

Invisible Crane

Adventurer
I've been confused about this for a while now (and it sucks too because I've been trying to catch up on titles from them that I missed out on from the mid to late 2000s and some are just impossible to find), all I know about why they went under is something to do with a deal with a Japanese company that got screwed up and ADV got screwed over and suffered for it. Another thing I've heard is that many of the shows they licensed just were not good enough (though that might be just detractors badmouthing for the sake of it), can someone clear all this up please?, just how exactly did ADV go out of business because I just think it sucks since they were my favorite anime company (which btw is now Funimation)
 
You've pretty much got the right information there. Between them licensing a lot of mediocre shows that didn't sell, and that deal you mentioned (I remember it being mentioned, but also don't remember the details, though I imagine they are around AUKN somewhere), the core business just lost a lot of money.

Which is a shame, cos a lot of their side projects were doing well financially, i.e. The Anime Network (US and UK) and Newtype US.
 
King Jimmeh said:
You've pretty much got the right information there. Between them licensing a lot of mediocre shows that didn't sell, and that deal you mentioned (I remember it being mentioned, but also don't remember the details, though I imagine they are around AUKN somewhere), the core business just lost a lot of money.

Which is a shame, cos a lot of their side projects were doing well financially, i.e. The Anime Network (US and UK) and Newtype US.
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Oh I see...just out of curiosity what shows that ADV licensed are considered mediocre (Pani Poni Dash better not be one of them, I really liked that one)
 
As far as I ever understood the situation, the best way of summing it up is they made the mistake of thinking that anime would become truly mainstream in the US a la videogames.
 
They also tended to dub pretty much everything by the end, even mediocre shows which couldn't make back their money. Dubbing is expensive, and unlike Funimation who have some big hits like Dragonball Z to lean on, ADV didn't really have anything huge after the age of Evangelion etc. Some of the titles they brought to the UK cannot have sold more than a couple of copies; they were just too niche.

I used to quite like their taste in titles, so it's a shame. Their new US-only company is more hit and miss but has some real gems.

R
 
Invisible Crane said:
King Jimmeh said:
You've pretty much got the right information there. Between them licensing a lot of mediocre shows that didn't sell, and that deal you mentioned (I remember it being mentioned, but also don't remember the details, though I imagine they are around AUKN somewhere), the core business just lost a lot of money.

Which is a shame, cos a lot of their side projects were doing well financially, i.e. The Anime Network (US and UK) and Newtype US.
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Oh I see...just out of curiosity what shows that ADV licensed are considered mediocre (Pani Poni Dash better not be one of them, I really liked that one)
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Not many actualy, most are good, which is more the problem. They also picked up sequels prety much regardless.
Good anime needs to sell a lot more to break even, same problem as Geneon USA.

They did what FUNi are doing but don't have Dragon Ball to offset any losses if anything flops.

They also ended up in a bad mess with Sojitz, which is why everything finaly colapsed.
 
Yup, they licensed too much, the market was flooded with too many titles but the money wasn't there to support it as much as they needed to break even.

There were times when 20+releases a month were happening from ADV alone. How many fans can support that? I used to pick and choose about 10 titles a month at most when importing.
 
Basically, ADV were a company/couple of guys that made DVDs for themselves, with the off-chance a couple of other people might want to throw the their shows into their collections. The guys realised after a few years this was making them a loss, so they vanished and opened as a few smaller, separate companies.
 
From what I understand, the boom years of the early 2000s had US distributors and Japanese licensors believing that the market would continue to grow at a fast rate, and licensing costs spiralled out of control. But then DVD sales started to dramatically decline across the board, leading to bricks & mortar chains to close down, and leaving ADV (and Geneon) in a spot of bovva.

In this episode of ANN's podcast Chad Kime, formerly of Geneon USA, talks about what happened back in 2007. The situation was worse than anyone could have imagined.
 
Reaper gI said:
Not many actualy, most are good
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The math of how many actually good shows there are compared to how many ADV licensed, in the context of how many good shows other people licences, make this unlikely in all but the most personally biased of assessments.

fabricatedlunatic said:
The situation was worse than anyone could have imagined.
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And I imagine the same could probably be said now, just in a more stable condition.
 
Stuart-says-yes said:
King Jimmeh said:
I just listened to that podcast, and it was definitely interesting. Would love to hear something similar about the UK industry.
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Indeed, I would like to hear something more about the UK industry too, I rather enjoyed the ANNcast, t'was eyeopening anyway, I think I'll have to listen to more ANNcast's now.
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I listened to them for the first time a couple of days ago. It was an NIS America interview, and since then i've been trying to listen to as many as I can. They really are pretty cool.
 
Rui said:
unlike Funimation who have some big hits like Dragonball Z to lean on, ADV didn't really have anything huge
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What they did have to lean on was the Sojitz money - and they fell over when that crutch was yanked from under them.
 
It's a shame the [US] ADV guys are so tight-lipped on certain topics, it would be fun to get a really candid interview with them one day about how everything went so wrong with that very promising deal.

R
 
Stuart-says-yes said:
King Jimmeh said:
I just listened to that podcast, and it was definitely interesting. Would love to hear something similar about the UK industry.
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Indeed, I would like to hear something more about the UK industry too, I rather enjoyed the ANNcast, t'was eyeopening anyway, I think I'll have to listen to more ANNcast's now.
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Zac and Justin seem hugely well-informed when it comes to most things anime related, so I'd highly recommend them: there's some insightful stuff with regards to the industry in there. It's also interesting to compare styles between, say, ANN, UKAN and Anime World Order podcasts.

fab's beaten me to linking the exact podcast I was thinking of, and my, were there some sobering figures bandied around in that little chat. One of the big problems was the sheer number of returns that ADV and others had from retailers, from what I remember. And the internal company issues.
 
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