TVer is a Japanese ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) service. It was established in October 2015 by the five commercial broadcasters in Tokyo: Nippon TV, TV Asahi, TBS Television, TV Tokyo, and Fuji Television. It allows viewers to watch TV programs they missed during their initial broadcast for free for one week. Additionally, the service offers simultaneous streaming, allowing viewers to watch programs at the same time as their TV broadcast.
TVer offers content from 115 stations across Japan as of October 2020 and provides access to 650 programs as of 2023.
History
On October 26, 2015, the five Tokyo-based commercial broadcasters, namely Nippon TV, TV Asahi, TBS Television, TV Tokyo, and Fuji Television, launched an AVOD service called TVer. The service offered about 10 contents per week from each station, totaling 50-60 contents per week, which were available for streaming for one week from the TV broadcast. The aim of this service was to help eliminate illegal video distribution. The operation of the service was handled by Presentcast, Inc, a company established in 2006 by nine companies, including the five broadcasters and four advertising agencies: Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Asatsu-DK, and Tokyu Agency.
On November 19, 2015, TVer announced that its app had been downloaded over 1 million times. Later, on December 17, 2016, the app reached 5 million downloads.
On October 3, 2016, two local commercial broadcasters in Osaka, MBS TV and ABC TV, began offering their programs on TVer. In addition, the service expanded its content offerings from about 50 programs to approximately 100 programs, including content from the five broadcasters in Tokyo, starting in October.
On March 15, 2017, Yomiuri TV in Osaka began offering their programs on TVer.
By August, 2017, TVer had reached 8.5 million downloads, and by December, it had surpassed 10 million downloads.
On August 26, 2019, the public broadcaster NHK started distributing content on TVer. NHK's goal is to increase viewership and public understanding of public broadcasting, and TVer does not require reception equipment capable of receiving NHK broadcasts nor is it subject to a reception contract. Additionally, because NHK is prohibited from advertising by the Broadcasting Law, any advertising revenue generated by TVer will not be allocated to NHK.
On April 15, 2019, TVer released the "TVer TV app" that supports Android TV-equipped Bravia and Fire TV, making it possible to watch TVer on television.
In February 2019, TVer announced that its monthly view count exceeded 90 million and its monthly unique visitors exceeded 13 million, stating that it was the second largest online video platform in size after YouTube.
On April 1, 2019, TV Osaka started distributing their content on TVer, followed by Hiroshima TV on October 6, 2019.
On June 1, 2020, Presentcast, Inc announced a third-party allocation of new shares to the five broadcasters in Tokyo to increase its capital stock, along with a change of its name to TVer Inc. The shareholding ratio of each of the five broadcasters became 17.9%, making them all equal top shareholders. Furthermore, TVer itself started developing and selling advertising products that meet the needs of advertisers, instead of relying on the participating broadcasters to sell TVer's advertising inventory. With this change, TVer shifted from being a cost center that operated on the operating costs received from the broadcasters to a business company. TVer began operating as a business company in April 2021.
On January 20, 2020, TVer began a demonstration experiment for the simultaneous distribution of television programs. From January 20 to 24 of the same year, TVer live-streamed the evening news programs of the five broadcasters in Tokyo alongside their television broadcasts. On October 3, 2020, TVer announced a three-month experimental live-stream of 32 programs from three broadcasters - Nippon TV, Yomiuri TV, and Chukyo TV, mostly from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. - free of charge until December. Then, on September 17, 2021, Nippon TV, Yomiuri TV, and Chukyo TV announced that they would start live-streaming their terrestrial TV programs on TVer from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. starting on October 2.
On June 23, 2021, TVer announced a third-party allotment of new shares to five major broadcasters in Osaka, namely MBS Media Holdings, ABC TV, Kansai TV, Yomiuri TV, and TV Osaka. After the capital increase, TV Osaka held 1.0%, and the other four companies held 1.8% each. The five broadcasters in Tokyo, who were previously equal leading shareholders, now hold 16.4% each.