From TVING to Disney... The OTT Market Heats Up

TVING Joins JTBC
Disney+ Lands in Korean Market
OTT Market Earthquake Predicted

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] The domestic leading content company CJ ENM's online video service (OTT) Tving is set to undergo a major shift in the native OTT market with the addition of JTBC Studio. Especially this year, with the anticipated entry of Disney Plus into the domestic market and domestic OTT companies significantly increasing their investments, competition for original content in the OTT market is expected to heat up even more.

According to the OTT industry on the 9th, CJ ENM announced that JTBC Studio will join Tving, a 100% subsidiary, confirming the partnership. The two companies plan to combine their content competitiveness to grow Tving into a representative OTT service of South Korea.

CJ ENM currently operates over 30 proprietary channels including tvN, Mnet, and OCN, and is well-known for its drama and film production capabilities represented by Studio Dragon. JTBC has also produced numerous hit works such as "Sky Castle," "The World of the Married," and "Itaewon Class." Based on this joint venture, Tving plans to invest over 400 billion KRW in production costs over the next three years to secure major intellectual properties (IP) and original content.

Additionally, recent announcements of investment plans by Naver in the joint venture Tving have drawn market attention to Tving’s future moves.

Wavve is also planning to expand its original content investment to 90 billion KRW this year. Since launching in September 2019 with its first original content "The Nokdu Flower," Wavve has been aggressively releasing original content since May last year. Its investment scale has increased from 10 billion KRW in its first year to 60 billion KRW last year, and is expected to reach 80 to 90 billion KRW this year. Watcha recently completed a Series D investment round totaling 36 billion KRW from 10 companies including Kakao Ventures. Based on the secured funds, Watcha plans to strengthen exclusive content and explore and invest in new types of content.

Disney Plus is also expected to launch its service in the Korean market this year. Known as a "content giant," Disney Plus features works from Disney subsidiaries such as Marvel, Pixar, ABC, and National Geographic. Currently, the three major telecom companies are fiercely competing behind the scenes to secure exclusive partnerships with Disney Plus.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.