Hasbro animated series are coming to Vimeo!
As reported yesterday by Wired.com, Hasbro Inc announced yesterday that they were partnering with video sharing site Vimeo to be the exclusive online host for many of the toy-maker’s animated series. Currently available are Transformers (Generation 1) and Jem & the Holograms with other series including G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and My Little Pony to follow later this year.
Per the announcement, episodes of the Hasbro series will be $.99 to rent for 24 hours or $1.99 to purchase individually. Entire series may be purchased for $40.00.
Is this a good move for the Pawtucket-based Hasbro, Inc? By the numbers, it means that Hasbro’s animated properties will be delivered to a significantly smaller audience. As of Q1 2015, subscription-based Netflix had an audience of just over 60 million global subscribers. As of December 2013, Vimeo was sitting at 22 million subscribers. It’s not a strict apples-to-apples comparison as far as the dates go but it indicates that Vimeo doesn’t quite have the reach that content posted on Netflix does.
There’s also the issue of the the pricing model. Increasingly, more and more digital content has gone “pay-to-play” requiring viewers to either rent or purchase episodes on a platform-to-platform basis. Vimeo follows that model meaning that fans will have to pay around $40 to own a full season of their favorite nostalgic series. This puts it on par with the cost of owning the content on DVD and Blu-Ray from retailers such as Amazon.com but it leaves casual fans a bit out-of-the-loop. Rather than being able to randomly browse through a few episodes of a series before getting hooked, viewers will be have to pay to rent or view episodes on an series-by-series basis. This could limit the Hasbro content’s overall reach when it comes to new viewers rather than diehard fans who most likely already own the content in tangible form anyway.
What do you think? Is the move to Vimeo better for Hasbro? Will is help grow the audiences for their animated properties? Will you be making the jump to the new video-sharing service in order to follow the adventures of your favorite characters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
