HBO, Paramount to enter Korea via local OTT players

Two US streaming platforms HBO Max and Paramount Plus will be launching South Korean services this year via domestic over-the-top (OTT) players in a country, where Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus have yet to play catch-up with local rivals, industry sources said on Tuesday.

HBO Max, an OTT arm of Warner Bros. Discovery, had initially had planned to create its own platform in South Korea, following in the footsteps of Netflix Inc., Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus. 

But it has shifted to using a Korean platform as its distributor.

“HBO Max’s job ads, which had been placed since last year, have all disappeared,” said an entertainment industry official.

“They have changed their strategy since Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus are struggling in this market,” he said in reference to HBO Max and Paramount Plus.

Both streaming companies also took into consideration South Korean viewers’ preference for local content and the fierce competition for subscribers, he noted.

Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus landed in South Korea last year, where Netflix more than doubled its subscriber number to over 8 million in one year amid social distancing trends during the prolonged pandemic era. 

Despite their ambitious debut in Korea, however, both Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus are fighting an uphill battle to attract viewers due to a dearth of new content compared with Netflix and domestic rival platforms.
 
HBO Max is nearing a deal to distribute its original content through Wavve, said an official of Content Wavve Corp., the operator of South Korea’s top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co.'s OTT platform. 

Wavve has already served as a Korean channel for HBO’s TV series and shows, for which the companies are now in discussions to extend their contract ahead of its expiration in July, according to the company official.

“It is highly likely that we will become the Korean distributor of HBO Max’s original content, in addition to HBO's content,” the official told The Korea Economic Daily.

HBO Max, launched in 2020, holds the intellectual property rights to popular series such as Game of Thrones, Friends and Chernobyl.

Paramount Plus will kick off its Korean services next month in partnership with TVing, an OTT channel of CJ ENM Co., South Korea's entertainment juggernaut. Since its launch in 2021, the US OTT platform has secured 40 million subscribers globally as of end-March of this year. It is aiming for 100 million viewers by 2024.

The unit of Paramount, formerly known as ViacomCBS, owns IP rights to numerous global hits including CSI, Star Trek, Yellowstone, and Spongebob.

BATTLEGROUND OF OTT PLAYERS

Netflix is the dominant No. 1 player in South Korea’s OTT market. Its viewership growth was far faster than that of domestic rivals and other global players thanks to a string of its popular content releases like Squid Game and All of Us are Dead.



Despite its small market size relative to neighboring China and Japan, South Korea is now emerging as a battleground for global OTT players to secure content as locally produced TV series and dramas became global hits.

“For global OTT platforms, it might be more important to build relationships with local studios and secure original content,” than distributing their content in Korea, said another entertainment industry official.

Choosing TVing as its Korean distributor, Paramount Plus agreed in December of last year to co-produce original content with TVing’s parent company CJ ENM.

TVing is a joint venture of CJ ENM, Naver Corp. and JTBC, a Korean cable TV channel. By joining hands with TVing, Paramount Plus could tap into numerous original content distributed by Naver, South Korea’s top online portal and webtoon platform.

KOREAN PLATFORMS’ GLOBAL EXPANSION

Paramount also could join TVing's global expansion as homegrown streaming platforms hope to capitalize on the global success of K-content from TV series and movies to pop groups.

TVing is set to launch services in Japan within the year, in collaboration with Naver’s Japan-based subsidiary LINE Corp.

Video streaming startup Watcha became the first Korean OTT player to enter Japan in 2020. It is now planning to advance into other countries.

Write to Seung-Woo Lee at leesw@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.