KT's 'Woo' might be Korea's answer to Netflix dominance

Home > Business > Industry

print dictionary print

KT's 'Woo' might be Korea's answer to Netflix dominance


KT Studio Genie's ″Extraordinary Attorney Woo Young-woo″ topped Netflix's global top 10 list for non-English TV shows. [NETFLIX]

KT Studio Genie's ″Extraordinary Attorney Woo Young-woo″ topped Netflix's global top 10 list for non-English TV shows. [NETFLIX]


 
KT Studio Genie is giving Netflix a taste of its own medicine with "Extraordinary Attorney Woo."
 
The original series is No. 1 on the Netflix weekly chart of non-English-language dramas. It is the first time for a local TV series produced by a company other than Netflix to top the list.
 
KT Studio Genie is a KT subsidiary.
 
The legal drama, scheduled for 16 episodes, is centered on Woo Young-woo (portrayed by actor Park Eun-bin), a rookie attorney with autism spectrum disorder. Woo works for the Hanbada law firm, and each episode depicts how Woo and her colleagues deal with different cases and everyday challenges.
 
From July 4 to 10, the first four episodes of the series were watched for nearly 24 million hours in total, according to Netflix. The drama landed within the top 10 in 12 countries and ranked No. 1 in Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea.
 
KT is seeking to achieve 5 trillion won ($3.8 billion) of revenue from the content and media business by 2025, from last year's 3.2 trillion won. The company has been ramping up investments in its non-telecom business to reduce exposure to telecom.
 
The revenue goal includes sales from KT Studio Genie, KT Skylife, Storywiz, Olleh TV and Bookclub Millie. 
 
"It's time we get serious about investing in original work," KT CEO Ku Hyeon-mo said in March last year.
 
A year later, KT announced a three-year plan to invest 500 billion won and create over 30 new drama series and 300 entertainment shows through 2025.
 
Spearheading the project is KT Studio Genie.
 
"Extraordinary Attorney Woo" is KT Studio Genie's second original series after "Never Give Up" (2022), which was released in May. KT Studio Genie plans to release 22 more original drama series by next year.
 
"KT Studio Genie is on a cruise through its early stage of business, with its first original series 'Never Give Up' and also 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' both landing on Netflix Korea's top 10 list," said Jeong Ji-soo, an analyst at Meritz Securities. "About 10 originals are to be released this year, and some of those have already been pre-sold overseas."
 
The series is currently being aired on ENA, a cable channel, every Wednesday and Thursday, with two episodes released per week. It is available on Seezn video streaming service and on Netflix in North America and Asia, and became available in Europe and South America Wednesday.
 
KT's Skylife, which is 50 percent owned by KT and operates ENA, traded at 9,470 won Thursday on Kospi from 8,230 won on June 29 when "Extraordinary Attorney Woo Young-woo" was first released. Kosdaq-listed Astory, a production company that participated in the production of the drama, traded at 32,600 won, up from 17,200 won on June 29.
 
On Thursday, KT Studio Genie and CJ ENM announced the merger of video streaming service Seezn, which is owned by KT Studio Genie, and Tving, 57 percent owned by CJ ENM. The final decision was made after the companies each held board meetings that day.
 
Seezn will be merged into Tving by December, with KT Studio Genie becoming the third largest shareholder of the resulting company. CJ ENM will be the largest shareholder, followed by Studio Lululala. Studio Lululala held 15 percent of Tving in April.
 
The resulting company will be the second biggest video streaming service in Korea in terms of the number of users, following Netflix.
 
CJ ENM announced its 100-billion-won investment plan in KT Studio Genie in March, but the investment has not been executed yet. The issue was also discussed in KT Studio Genie's board meeting Thursday, according to local media reports.

 
Korea's content market has been highly competitive due to the aggressive investments of foreign companies and the market dominance of overseas companies such as Netflix. According to WiseApp, Netflix had over 10 million users as of April, while Tving, Coupang Play and Wavve had slightly over 3 million each. Seezn had about 1.2 million.
 
 
 
 
 

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)