So few Projects

General Discussion
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Do you know why has so few new Projects? Every day I go take a look at the Projects Finder and there is still the same one or two since ages… Such a pity…

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Viki is just a small subsidiary of Rakuten, the Japanese corporation. If you look at revenue in 2023, Rakuten’s total revenue from all of it’s businesses was $14.58 billion USD and viki generated only $55 million US of that revenue. In the US, vik’s major competitors for streaming K drama are Nfx, H , and A P V. In comparison, Nfx primary business is streaming video and its revenue in 2023 was $16 billionUSD, H, another streaming video business’s revenue was $11billionUSD, APV was $40 billion. Consider that viki is only a small part of rakuten. You can see that the amount available for buying licenses or for producing kdrama at viki is a small fraction of the amount available at the competitors. The cost of a drama license can vary from hundreds of thousands per episode to millions. Thus, viki is probably being outbid all the time for new content licenses and that is why often for months, there are one or no new dramas in any language available as new projects in the project finder.

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that is something I really didn’t know about, but it explain everything. thanks a lot for the details ^^

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Hello, the same thing happens to me. What I do is to look at the dis***rd community where it is easier to see what projects there are.

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Interesting that we have to now access the other platform to get more information… it’s a pity it couldn’t be contained in one place like before… I noticed for a while something is off with finding it, as if people know about projects that aren’t really yet posted on Viki… I wonder if there is a selective happening too…

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Exactly! Many people only post there and not here in Discussions. It’s weird. I would understand if they at least posted in both.

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I think the same, it’s not easy to know why they don’t UPDATE the PF.

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I don’t know if this can be done here, but if it is possible I would like to do it since VIKI doesn’t upload anything.

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What is “it”? Posting here on Discussions? There is the Project Board for this.

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The other platform ? Which platform should you join? This is the first time I’ve heard this.

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Discord. There’s an unofficial channel there, where a lot of contributors stay in touch. Allegedly, there is also some Viki staff there. It’s not mandatory by any means, but any Viki contributor can join: VIKI Contributor Community

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Yea, most recruiters do not post here because discussions is not really suitable for job postings. Mostly because we can not update our posts here after 7 days. Like a team is filled and CLOSED.

Viki’s project board needs a lot of work and is often out of date. It still advertises for shows long finished.

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Ι find it fine. Most people will have already applied within a week and then you can “close” the language from the Manage page, and also reply to the initial post saying which positions have already been filled.
Of course, applicants should also have the minimum IQ to read the date. If it’s six months ago, obviously the main languages will have been already covered and the drama long finished. In that case, should go to the drama page and check whether your language is also available or not. I realize that there are always clueless people who won’t bother looking at the date, though, and reply years after. But that will happen anywhere anyway.
This is no excuse to take most Viki work on other platforms. At the very least, post both here and there.

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Yup, and most of new projects are not available to the translation anymore. I mean, no CM are chosen, but it does appear to belong to “vikicommunity”. Since they use more and more bots for translation, imho they wish eventually to get rid of volunteers for good.
Just saying, I might be wrong.

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There are no new dramas and no new channels for volunteers. Everything seems to be going to other streaming services. Now, Viki mostly licenses Chinese short dramas and a few Korean ones.

Where is “Generation to Generation”? Where is the second season of “The Imperial Coroner”? And did they end their cooperation with GMMTV? I can’t see anything new from them on Viki.

I’ve been desperately waiting for new channels to appear, but… I see nothing.

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Right? Pursuit of Jade is coming on 6th march and still there aren’t any sign of it coming to Viki. Unveil: Jadewind didn’t streamed on viki as well. That’s so sad!!

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Indeed for historical cdrama, nothing about expected cdrama like Vendetta of An, Unveil Jadewind, Generation to Generation, same for less expected The Imperial Coroner 2 (1st available on viki) or the blood of youth the quest of heroic(all other drama based on Juvenile Songs available on viki)
Only Rebirth is announced but without official release date.
For modern drama the release are more up-to-date, like love story in the 70’, Affinity

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I wonder why? I mean, the Chinese historical projects are more popular here on Viki than the modern ones, just see the numbers of viewers.

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I think there are several reason:

  • Maybe the end of contract with studio or platform like 1qiyi, the last historical cdrama available on it(for France) and viki must be Feud. On viki we have basically cdrama produced in 2023 by 1q since it’s a lot of another production
  • The cost of licensing, if historical cdrama are more popular the cost of their license will be higher than modern drama or chinese anime.
  • The competition between Chinese platform, all major are available in europa now, some countries have cdrama on american plateform or youtube. It’s not in their interest to sell the rights now or the cost is too expensive. Each plateform want it’s own exclusive content.

Without any communication from viki on their strategy for this year this is just my own analysis of the situation.

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