Global dinosaurs are coming… A native OTT’counterattack card’ is established

Global online video streaming (OTT) companies such as Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Apple TV Plus have announced a landing in the Korean market or are considering launching services. As the domestic market grows, there is also a side that swallows mouth, but it also contains a plan to secure and supply’K-content’ such as Korean movies and dramas to the global market.

According to the industry on the 31st, the domestic OTT market grew from 306.9 billion won in 2016 to 781 billion won last year. Netflix is ​​the undisputed number one with a market share of 40%. The monthly average number of unique users is 6.37 million, which is more than the sum of Wave (344 million) and Teabing (241 million), the second and third place in OTT.

As global OTT dinosaurs are ready to enter the domestic market, native companies are advocating differentiating strategies. CJ affiliated Teabing announced that it recently recruited JTBC Studio as its second largest shareholder and invested more than 400 billion won in the production of original content such as dramas and entertainment for the next three years. It also created a collaboration structure with Naver.

Season is scheduled to secure 10 to 20 original contents a year through’KT Studio Genie’, a content specialist that encompasses investment, planning, production, and distribution. Popular webtoon’The Legend of Regression’ will soon become a drama. Wave also plans to invest 300 billion won in content production by 2023.

In December of last year, Watcha posted a phrase on the main screen of’No Net (Not in Netflix, but in Watcha)’ and bet on Netflix. They used the’Harry Potter series’ that Netflix does not have for marketing. ‘Watchapedia’, which provides customized star ratings for movies, TV, and books, is also popular.

Another purpose of flagging global OTTs in Korea is to secure K-content. According to foreign media and Netflix, the viewership of Korean content (K-content) last year increased four times in Asia compared to 2019 and 2.5 times in North America and Europe.

An official of a native OTT company who wanted to remain anonymous said, “In fact, it should be seen that the insides of those who covet the Korean market with only 50 million people are original content.” At the same time, he was concerned that “this could lead to a problem in which domestic content producers are subordinate to global companies.” In fact, Netflix invested more than 300 billion won in K-content production last year, and plans to increase the scale this year.

Indigenous OTTs are looking to overseas while keeping the’home’. However, it is still in its infancy. Watcha started its service in Japan last September for the first time among domestic OTT companies.

It was speculated that they would join hands with foreign OTTs and knock on overseas markets. It is representative that Teabing can cooperate with HBO Max. Teabing CEO Yang Ji-eul dismissed this as “a story without evidence.”

The government is also rolling up its arms to support native OTT, but there is a regretful voice in the market that “it is still far away”. Minister of Science and Technology Information and Communication Choi Ki-young met with officials from major OTT companies on the 29th and emphasized that “this year will be a golden time for our companies to grow significantly in the OTT market in the future.” He promised, “I will try to introduce policies that the industry needs, such as tax credits.” The government support plan also included support for the development of artificial intelligence (AI)-based automatic translation technology, market research and legal advice when expanding overseas.

However, the industry stresses that the government needs support for content expansion and overseas expansion. Watcher CEO Park Tae-hoon said, “In fact, there is no place among domestic OTT that makes a lot of profits,” and said, “The tax credit is like a different country.”

Reporter Kwon Yujin [email protected]