Naver Webtoon, TBS, SHINE Partners to make a joint venture

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Naver Webtoon, TBS, SHINE Partners to make a joint venture

Executives from Naver Webtoon, Japanese television channel TBS and Japanese webtoon studio SHINE Partners pose Monday after signing an agreement to establish a webtoon joint venture. From left are: President of SHINE Partners Arisawa Iwamoto; President of TBS Television Takashi Sasaki; and Naver Webtoon CEO Kim Jun-koo. [NAVER WEBTOON]

Executives from Naver Webtoon, Japanese television channel TBS and Japanese webtoon studio SHINE Partners pose Monday after signing an agreement to establish a webtoon joint venture. From left are: President of SHINE Partners Arisawa Iwamoto; President of TBS Television Takashi Sasaki; and Naver Webtoon CEO Kim Jun-koo. [NAVER WEBTOON]

 
Naver Webtoon, Japanese television channel TBS and Japanese webtoon studio SHINE Partners will establish a webtoon joint venture in Korea this month.
 
The three will invest 1.1 billion yen ($8.5 million) in total, but each company's stake was not disclosed.
 
The joint venture, named Studio TooN, will specialize in the production of webtoons and their video adaptations, according to Naver Webtoon.
 
Studio TooN will produce the webtoons, which will be distributed on either Korea's Naver Webtoon or Japan's Line Manga platform. TBS will make video versions of popular works and air them to a Japanese audience.
 
This is TBS's first joint venture in Korea. The broadcaster approached Naver Webtoon for the partnership, according to a Naver Webtoon spokesperson.
 
“Webtoons are being recognized as a source of original content all over the world,” said Kim Jun-koo, CEO of Naver Webtoon in a statement. “We will be presenting fun and diverse content through the joint venture with TBS.”
 
This year, Naver has been accelerating its own expansion into the Japanese market.
 
It teamed up with CJ ENM and Studio Dragon to establish a joint venture in Japan for local drama production.
 
In March, its subsidiary, Line Digital Frontier, purchased Japanese electronic book company eBOOK Initiative Japan to grow in the Japanese content market, "the biggest comics market in the world,” according to CEO Kim.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]
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