Today, OTT market is hot. As Korea raised OTT battlefield, following global OTT, It seems the market faced ‘OTT warring states period’. OTT service became popular as outside activities decreased due to COVID-19. Previously, viewers had strong awareness that “broadcasting had to watch through TV”. But, TV is no longer necessary media and particle of traditional media has weaken due to development of mobile devices, appearance of OTT service, and success of short-form contents like Tik-Tok and YouTube. Besides that, as the pandemic emphasizes the era of untact, not only in Korea, the usage of OTT service worldwide has soared compared to the previous year. So, users' channel options have expanded and are revealed distinctly different pattern of content consumption than before. OTT services are changing the paradigm of contents market following this social background.
Last 2016, Netflix, the world’s largest OTT company, was entered into domestic market followed on Disney+ and Apple+. This year, as Paramount+ is participated too, Korea is becoming arena for competition of global OTT companies. As a representative example, Netflix's nine-episode drama of the original content "Squid Game" was released last year, achieving an unprecedented record of No. 1 in 83 countries around the world, as well as gaining popularity at the level of syndrome. The popular K-contents of Netflix are Kingdom, Hell bound, All of Us Are Dead, Juvenile Justice and etc. Apple TV+ has released a work called Pachinko that deals with the stories of four generations of Korean residents families living in Japan and is receiving high attention around the world. In addition, OTT companies such as Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film “Parasite” and actress Yoon Yeo-jung’s “Minari” which won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress secure local content and original lineup.
In an era where various OTT services are overflowing, What aspect of services do consumers consider? It was found that consumers consider usage fees and contents the most important things when subscribing to OTT services. According to an online survey conducted by Mezzo Media, a digital media label, 42 percent of respondents cited "service usage fees" as a factor to consider when signing up for OTT. Since then, there have been "latest, popular content" (38%) and "original content" (37%) followed, especially those in their thirties showed the highest interest in original content. Usage fees and contents had a great influence too on the cancellation and movement of OTT services. 53% of the respondents said they had experience in terminating OTT membership, citing "no more content to watch (61%)," "because of the burden of usage fees (57%)," and "when it comes to other OTT (24%) that they want."
OTT service companies were also found to present various differentiation strategies in line with the trend of consumers. Recently, KT's OTT service (Seezn) is a hot topic. The season is equipped with chat function that allows you to directly communicate with the performers in real time while watching videos. While the existing OTT service is that users only saw contents on provided passively, KT Seezn increased consumer's interest through communication between users and performers. Also, KT's Seezn is going to offer ultra-high-definition and ultra-high-quality services suitable for the 5G era. Seezn, which was launched later than other OTT, is attracting attention with original content and quickly securing users. It is attracting attention not only from domestic but also from overseas users for short-form of idol content within 25 minutes. Another advantage is that it is an open platform that can be enjoyed by any user regardless of the mobile carrier that subscribes to various contents such as terrestrial broadcasting, general broadcasting, and cable broadcasting.
OTT services have become a trend in online life by gaining reflective benefits from the pandemic. On the other hand, some say that OTT industry has faced limitations in growth amid intensifying competition. An official from an OTT company said, "It is true that internal indicators are showing a decreasing trend. There will be influence of end to distancing, but also content issues. Compared to the beginning of the year, there are not many drama hits and new works at the moment," he said. The official added, "The number of users will rebound in the second half of the year when the original or exclusive works are concentrated." Against this backdrop, domestic OTT services need to strengthen their competitiveness by presenting world-famous K-contents as killer content.
