Why does Sailor Moon Crystal not air weekly?

Question

Sailor Moon Crystal is "airing" (online) every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Not only is this not every week, but not every other week.

Why is this?

Answer 1

Sailor Moon Crystal is not expected to make money among the Japanese (its main hope to turn a profit is to make it available to viewers outside of Japan, such as by selling a license to stream it). (Please also see my answer to a similar question, which Toshinou Kyouko linked in the comments, for details on why.)

Airing episodes weekly would mean that either 1) the series ends after only 26 weeks, or 2) that the animation company would need to animate 2 to 3 times as many episodes to run for the same number of weeks. Since it is not necessarily profitable to produce the series, animating more episodes would be too costly.

Only the first 2 episodes were made available to view for free on NicoNico Douga in Japan; to see all subsequent episodes, Japanese are required to buy a subscription to NicoNico. Spreading out the episodes more sparsely over time forces the fans who buy a subscription for the sole sake of watching Sailor Moon Crystal to pay for about a year's worth of subscription, rather than only 26 weeks' worth. The number of such fans is probably low, but the company needs to milk the amount of money it can get from them. Stretching it out also can provide a longer time frame in which said fans could decide to buy some collectible merchandise before it ends and they move on to avidly watching another series.