Expert talk: ‘I want to hear what this person has to say now’ - Motoyuki Oi.

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.

In my second year at Nittele, I started a new internal business and became the representative director in my fifth year.

--At that time, it was still in the form of a new business within a department within the company, but was the nature of the business almost the same as the current ClaN?

Oi: Yes, it was. We did a lot of different things, but the first project was actually to ‘create our own VTuber’. Our first project was to create a VTuber for Tatsunoko Productions' Yatterman.

It was a great experience for me to be able to do everything from AD to producer, from sales to promotion marketing, all in the process of creating the characters for the Yatterman Channel.

--Was there a turning point in the establishment of ClaN from an in-house project?

Oi: From the very first business plan, we had always talked about wanting to incorporate, and from the third year, the plan was to retire, grow the business and do it as a company. I didn't have the experience or track record to propose a business and then suddenly set up a company, so my first mission was to grow it as an in-house business.

There were several points, but the major turning point was the creation of a VTuber network called ‘V-Clan’. The Yatterman channel wasn't a big hit, but the number of subscribers grew and we were able to produce videos with over a million views. However, on the other hand, I also started to see the limits of the revenue I could get from running one channel.

Then, if you talk about training and managing 100 VTubers, that's a lot of work too. But I thought it would be possible to connect 100 VTubers through a network. At that time, around 2018, the number of people setting up VTubers was sensibly around 100. So after being active for a while, you get to know a significant proportion of people.

At that time, I felt that everyone was good at making videos and increasing the number of subscribers and views, but not good enough at scaling it up as a business, partly due to a lack of staff. To begin with, there were no VTuber planners, marketers or eventers anywhere in the world yet.

I felt that there might be a need for both sides for NTV to start a new VTuber network as a business. As a result, sales increased more than tenfold as a business. This was the biggest turning point.

ClaN has the potential to see how it can produce content in a media mix, with ‘TV x Internet’ at the forefront.

--Is ClaN a separate company rather than an in-house venture of NTV?

Oi: It is positioned as a so-called NTV group company. However, even within that group, it is an extremely special company, or rather, it is very independent compared to other NTV group companies.

This is because it is a new challenge for NTV and was created based on the concept of being ‘NTV's first start-up company’, which is different from previous group companies. V', and in 2021 we will have a slot in a terrestrial programme called “Project V”.

For some reason, I left TV and started the VTuber business, but then I ended up doing my own TV show. It was like suddenly being a start-up producer with no TV production experience at all. It was also a very difficult but enjoyable experience.

As we rapidly expanded our business, there were two major problems: we didn't have enough people and we didn't have enough capital. That was the lack of people and the lack of capital. In-house businesses could not employ people, so they had to work with five or so people. Money was also limited in the in-house business, and the direction of the business was completely different from that of NTV, so we couldn't make such bold investments.

On the other hand, the VTuber market was exploding and some companies, including ANYCOLOR and COVER, were going public. There was an atmosphere that it would be a waste not to invest here. We talked about it, including with the management of NTV, and decided to go independent.

It was agreed that if we were going to do this, we should maintain our credibility as a company, while at the same time speeding up the process, increasing the number of people and investing capital, and that it would be better to do it as a start-up from NTV, rather than a subsidiary of an existing so-called large company.

The discussion progressed to the conclusion that Oi was the right company to do this, and this is how the company was formed, including the fact that I am the representative.

--What is the current size of the company and the nature of its business?

Oi: We have about 30 employees. We have four departments: one is the Business Management Department, another is the Content Business Department, which produces our own content such as programmes, events and music, etc. The third is the Sales and Marketing Department, which we call the Solutions Business. This department solves problems for companies through VTubers and influencers. The last is the Network Business Department.

We have been authorised by Google to use a formal system for networking channels called ‘YouTube MCN’, and we use it to run a creator network called ‘C+’.

This is not limited to VTubers. The reason why we don't limit ourselves to VTubers is that when you get down to it, it becomes a question of ‘what is a VTuber’.

For example, how do the character ‘UTA’ from the anime ‘ONEPIECE’ and the singer Ado differ from VTubers?

On the other hand, how are they strictly different from ‘VLiver’, who does not distribute on YouTube? I think they are the same, or rather, they are all virtual talents and virtual characters.

So the existing concept of VTubers is a part of it in my mind. We want to support such a wide range of creators in a larger interpretation. This is what we do in our network business.

The overall image is that we do all the peripheral projects in the process of a person who is a gem of talent becoming a global star. That is my goal. These gemstones of talent will not only be in Japan in a virtual form, but will also go out into the world.

For this to happen, we need media exposure, support from creators and networking. Of course, collaboration with companies and content production are also necessary. I have a consistent image of a company that does all of these things.

We are doing all the peripheral businesses in the process of a person who is like a gem of talent becoming a global star. That's the goal.

--ClaN is also involved in the Metaverse programme and live performance business, what do you think of the future potential of the Metaverse?

Oi: This all depends on how you define ‘metaverse’. There are many theories on how to define it, and I don't deny those with different opinions, but personally, I think that the metaverse is a generic term for entertainment in virtual space and content that makes use of it, without requiring HMDs.

Inevitably, with HMDs, it is all about the spread of the device. On the other hand, if we consider the metaverse to include a wide range of things such as creating and controlling one's own alter ego in a so-called virtual space and enjoying virtual celebrity characters there, I think it will continue to expand even within the genre of entertainment, and VTuber is one of those things. I think VTubers are one of them.

--Do you think that so-called ‘IP’ is central to ClaN's business?

Oi: Well, in a nutshell, it's the IP business - IP doesn't just refer to characters, I think programmes and events are also IP. For example, there are people who go to the summer festival ‘Summer Sonic’ no matter who is on it, and there are people who watch the programme ‘Itte Q to the end of the world!

So I think the content business is the IP business, and we are a company that creates a lot of IP in a broad sense, not just characters, and makes it work as a business.

--What are the most distinctive features and strengths of the company ClaN?

Oi: I always talk about this in various places, but I think ‘TV x Net’ is important. In the current situation, there is no longer any boundary when you think about whether ‘TVer’ is essentially TV or the internet, and what about ‘Downtown no Gaki no Tsukasa ya Aahende! which is distributed on Hulu, there is no borderline anymore.

So, for example, the idol group NiziU has succeeded as the culmination of the cross-fertilisation of TV and the internet, and the best example of this. So I think it's important how to expose content through a media mix, which is more complex, more combined and more all-encompassing in today's marketing and promotion.

That's why ClaN is between TV and the internet. It's the same with people and culture, and we want to combine the best of both, how to make something good and how to reach the most people, and I think we are a company that can do that.

ClaN may be a bit more start-up-oriented, but in that sense, I think ClaN is also a company that sits in between.

I love start-ups. There are many talented people in big companies, but I think it's a shame that they don't utilise their resources.

If I may be a bit cheeky, over the last 30 years, most of the Japanese companies that used to occupy the top of the market capitalisation rankings have disappeared. The reason for this is, of course, that no unicorns have been born, but I also feel that the lack of innovation in large companies is a major factor.

However, I think I understand the reasons for this lack of innovation because I have been there myself.

It's the same with my career, and I don't think it's a choice between being a company employee or a start-up manager.

I personally think that it would be meaningful if we could combine the best of both worlds and create a model case for a new form of career, company or business.

Profile.

Motoyuki Oi

Profile│Graduated from Keio University, joined Nippon Television Network Corporation in 2017, launched the VTuber business ‘V-Clan’ as an in-house venture in 2018, and is responsible for running the business as well as producing numerous programmes and events, including ‘Project V’. 2022 On 1 April 2022, he established ClaN Entertainment as a new NTV company and became the youngest person in the history of the NTV Group to hold the position of representative director.

◉ ClaN Entertainment Inc.

An entertainment company specialising in VTubers and other influencers, established in April 2022 as a new company of the NTV Group under the slogan ‘Changing lives, bringing entertainment’, utilising various means with high affinity to Web 3.0, such as VTuver and Metaverse. The company creates new entertainment that is not bound by existing frameworks such as ‘TV x Internet’ and ‘virtual x real’.

https://clan-entertainment.com/

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