Maximising the talents of VTubers, influencers and creators and connecting them to a new era of business.
Can you tell us about the events leading up to the launch of ClaN Entertain ment (‘ClaN’), of which you are currently the representative director?
Oi: I joined NTV as a new graduate in 2017, and in about October of my first year, I submitted a proposal for a new business. Initially, I submitted it as a YouTube business, but that was too broad a scope to handle even back then, so I needed to narrow down the scope more.
While looking at various videos on YouTube, I happened to see Kizuna Eye and was struck by it. It was neither an animation nor an existing realistic one. It was a virtual character appearing in a virtual space, and a lot of people were really into it.
Moreover, the comments show that people not only from Japan but also from all over the world are enjoying it. I thought it could be a new genre of entertainment, and I intuitively decided to give it a shot.
At the time, VTuber was something that the public and NTV didn't really understand, but it was content that had momentum and would grow in the future. In June of my second year with the company, the VTuber business proposal was approved, and it was launched as an in-house business in August of the same year.
Did you have the idea of starting a new business before you joined the company?
Oi: Yes, I did. From the time I joined the company, I was a little different and had a vague idea that I wanted to do some kind of ‘entertainment business’. If you ask me why I chose a TV station as a career path, it is because I myself was always a TV kid and I love TV. But in recent years, people don't watch much TV, and to be honest, I don't watch much TV myself anymore. I was very frustrated by that.
At that time, I thought that although it might be difficult to apply television in the sense of radio broadcasting, if you look at it in a broader sense, including content production, planning and transmission, there are still many possibilities and developments for television.
Within NTV, there was of course a sense of crisis within the company, that the future of television could not be based solely on the current business, and that something new had to be done. Since I was a student, I have always had a desire to make proposals on what to do.
