Local OTT services target middle-aged viewers to compete with Netflix

TV personalities pose prior to Tving's new reality show, “Spring Camp,” to premiere on May 7. Courtesy of CJ ENM

By Kim Jae-heun

Domestic over-the-top (OTT) services are targeting viewers in their 40s and 50s with appealing contents in order to catch up with Netflix, the No. 1 player here.

According to Nielson Korea, the American content platform saw its monthly active users (MAU) decline to 8.24 million in March from 8.78 million in February.

The figure is still far ahead of Tving and Wavve, whose MAUs increased to the 3 million range in April.

Tving is a local OTT service launched by CJ Group. Its MAU soared from 2.79 million at the end of 2020 to 3.27 million last month. Wavve is Tving's main rival, established by SK Telecom, and the three major broadcasting networks, KBS, MBC and SBS. Its MAU also increased to 3.68 million in the same period.

Tving and Wavve have expanded their audience demographics to middle-age viewers who prefer entertainment shows over American original content. The Korea Communications Commission revealed in a report that the number of OTT service users in their 50s showed the biggest growth, from 35.8 percent in 2019 to 63.1 percent in 2020. The number of users in their 40s also increased from 55.3 percent to 74.1 percent, to show the second-largest growth, followed by users in their 60s which grew from 21.3 percent to 38.3 percent. At the same time, viewers in their teens and 20s grew only 3.8 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

A scene from Tving's new film, “Seobok” / Courtesy of CJ ENM

Until January, local viewers preferred TV series with long episodes, like “Sweet Home” and “Bridgerton,” which ranked No. 1 and 2 on Netflix. Six other original content shows with more than 10 episodes each made it to the top 10 list on Netflix.

However, only two long television dramas ranked among the top 10 recently. The number of newcomers to Netflix totaled only 3.98 million people during the first quarter of this year, which is only half the number the American content platform expected in this three-month period. Netflix attributed the slower growth to the reduced number of new original content available compared to before.

Meanwhile, the number of viewers watching short-episode TV series or entertainment shows increased recently. Those genres are what local OTT players are good at. Tving, together with local cable channel JTBC and IT giant Naver, is diversifying the variety of its original content, and Wavve also revealed that it will invest 1 trillion won ($8.94 million) in its entertainment shows and TV series.

“Netflix dominated the local market with a massive amount of original content in the beginning. However, with local OTT players beefing up their content in collaboration with broadcasters here, they have now gained the impetus to compete against the American platform,” an industry source said.