In the previous Video Addict (https://www.brightcove.com/ja/resources/blog/video-addict-vol1-ntv-1), Mr. Kawagoe talked about the early days of catch-up (missed) distribution. He is currently no longer in charge of catch-up distribution. He talked about his current work and initiatives.
Goro Kawagoe
Nippon Television Network Corporation
ICT Strategy Headquarters, Data Strategy Division, Division Manager
After working in development, design and management at an IT company, he joined Nippon Television Network Corporation in October 2013. After joining the company, he was involved in the development and technical management of free distribution with advertising, such as Nittele Free and TVer, as well as the construction of the group’s distribution infrastructure. He then launched the Data Strategy Division in October 2018 and is currently promoting the use of data throughout the company.
## Making everything easier with data
**Tsuchiya of Brightcove (hereafter BC)** Could you briefly tell us about the work you are currently in charge of?
**Nippon Television Network (NTV) Kawagoe** I work in the Data Strategy Division, where we collect data from the Internet and try to monetize it. In simple terms, we’re making use of DMPs. We collect things like catch-up distribution logs, and we also get demographic information from catch-up surveys, so we use that data to do things like targeting. I’m not directly involved in AVOD, but I do feel like I’m supporting it with the data I’m working with.
**BC Tsuchiya** Did you have any interesting realizations when you started collecting data?
**NTV Kawagoe** To be honest, we didn’t have any data before the Data Strategy Division was set up. We weren’t even storing any.
**BC Tsuchiya** So you didn’t know how to analyze it, but you weren’t even storing any.
**NTV Kawagoe** To be honest, we only had the data we could extract from Brightcove. It’s been about 9 months since we started collecting data, and we’re just about to start focusing on analysis from next year. I have a vision in my company of “making everything easier with data”.
**BC Tsuchiya** That’s cool!
**NTV Kawagoe** And we’re going to have to work hard… (lol)
**BC Tsuchiya** (lol)
## What does “making things easier” mean?
**NTV Kawagoe** What does “making things easier” mean? If you break it down, I think it means making it easier to communicate the value of programs and advertising. The first thing is to provide sales with opportunities to increase sales by proving the value of programs and advertising. Secondly, by providing an environment where data can be viewed easily at any time, it makes it easier to make decisions about the cycle of internal improvements. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to call it a “work style reform”, but it’s more like a story about improving work efficiency. Until recently, we were all working hard to copy and paste Brightcove figures into Excel.
**BC Tsuchiya** The term “work style reform” is one of the techniques used to get the company involved (lol). In fact, is the DMP being built in-house?
**NTV Mr. Kawagoe** We use Treasure Data and analyze the data using Tableau. We have a daily catch-up service information feed, and we also have a dashboard that shows us which advertising agencies are selling well, making it easier for us to make decisions. We do everything ourselves, from retrieving data via API to storing it in Treasure Data and visualizing it in Tableau. We’ve managed to visualize the data, so now we’re thinking about analysis.
**BC Tsuchiya** Speaking of data, when we first started the catch-up service, there were a lot of people who were concerned that the catch-up service would have a negative impact on current viewing rates. Did this kind of reaction change before and after the start of the catch-up service?
**NTV Kawagoe**: It has changed for the better. I can’t go into specifics here, but I do feel that we have been able to attract a new audience who were previously not watching TV to our internet broadcasts. Also, although it wasn’t an on-demand broadcast, the live broadcast of this year’s Hakone Ekiden race had good ratings and a good number of views via the internet, so it may have been the synergistic effect of broadcasting online that made it so successful.
**BC Tsuchiya**: That’s some interesting data! Could you tell us about your future plans, even though they may be difficult to achieve?
**NTV Mr. Kawagoe** Hmmm… that’s a difficult question. I think that the “raku” we were talking about earlier will not only be seen in VOD, but also in live and simultaneous distribution, and I think that our immediate goal is to organize that area, including TV viewing data. Up until now, we only needed to look at the viewing rate, but with the emergence of various data, such as data from external advertising companies and data from manufacturers, it is becoming more difficult to convey the value of content, so we are using data to make things easier.
**BC Tsuchiya** I see. In Japan, it seems that making things easier is often seen as being just as bad as making money, but for engineers, making things easier is basically their job, and it’s their job to make things easier.
## Why did you choose the word “making things easier”?
**NTV Kawagoe** There’s not really a very cool reason, but I thought that the word “raku” (easy) could be applied to all aspects of work, including product value, advertising value, business decisions, and operational improvements, and I also thought it was a word that would be easy for people in the company to understand, so I chose “raku”.
**BC Tsuchiya** I thought that “doing things with ease” was a good word. I had seen Mr. Kawagoe’s way of thinking and work style, and there were parts that I really agreed with, so I was impressed again when I heard his story.
**NTV Mr. Kawagoe** (laughs)
**BC Tsuchiya** Thank you very much!
We have received valuable information about the cutting edge of data analysis in video distribution and about taking on new challenges. We would love to cover the follow-up story of “making everything easier with data”, but that’s all for this time. The next Video Addict will be with Mr. Danno from TV Tokyo. Please look forward to it!
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__After the interview__
__BC Tsuchiya__
After talking to you this time, I realized that being able to work with premium content such as TV programs is very exciting. I have been involved in the construction of various services from the vendor’s perspective, and it makes me very happy to see that there are so many users who are strongly using the content and have high expectations. I feel that it is a very rewarding job and environment.
