Abema

CyberAgent and TV Asahi announced on March 31, 2015, that they would jointly establish a fixed-rate video distribution company called AbemaTV in April of that year.

[3] CyberAgent and TV Asahi launched the service on April 11, 2016, with some channels pre-released starting from March 1 of the same year.

AbemaTV channels stream in real-time, similar to traditional linear TV, but missed programs can only be watched by becoming a premium plan member, which costs 960 yen per month.

[7] In December of the same year, AbemaTV announced that the 72 Hour Honne TV program featuring three former members of SMAP had garnered 74 million views.

[9] Despite this, CyberAgent plans to continue investing in AbemaTV in the fiscal year 2018 and expand into peripheral businesses such as radio channel launch and broadcast of shopping programs.

[10] In January 2019, CyberAgent disclosed that Abema Premium had 358,000 subscribers, a 4.5-fold increase from the previous year, and that AbemaTV's app had been downloaded 37 million times.

[11] President Fujita explained that when AbemaTV started about three years ago, the plan was to create a linear TV service on the internet.

After March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a tailwind, and the number of weekly active users reached a record high of over 14.9 million in early April.

As a "soccer enthusiast" who was concerned that the World Cup might not be viewable in Japan, President Fujita decided to pursue the acquisition of broadcasting rights.

Abema's headquarters at Abema Towers in Shibuya , Tokyo