OTT platform TVing gets tailwind from CJ ENM's TV series

TVing, the second-largest over-the-top (OTT) platform in South Korea, has been gaining momentum from hit series such as “Lovely Runner,” “Queen of Tears” and “Marry My Husband” this year, challenging Netflix’s dominance in the video streaming market.

The TV shows were produced by its sibling Studio Dragon Corp. and aired by their affiliated TV channel tvN, creating synergy for their parent and entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM Co.   

On May 28, TVing became the first video streaming platform in South Korea to beat Netflix in terms of hours spent on an OTT platform per day.

TVing subscribers watched its content for a total of 2.5 million hours on the same day, according to Mobile Index Insight, a data analysis platform.

The tally beat the 2.4 million hours Netflix viewers spent on its shows during the day.

TVing has been narrowing the gap with Netflix in daily active user (DAU) count to 130,000 from over 200,000. It marked the smallest gap between the US streaming giant and a homegrown OTT platform.

TVing’s daily active user number stood at 2.17 million as of May 28, compared with Netflix’s 2.30 million.

The final episode of “Lovely Runner,” released on May 28, was credited with the sharp increase in watch hours on TVing.

It is the exclusive streaming platform for “Lovely Runner,” "Queen of Tears” and “Marry My Husband,” which were first aired on tvN this year.

In particular, "Lovely Runner" topped the domestic real-time OTT rankings throughout its airing period of two months.

The TV series also ranked first in terms of unique visitor numbers for both video-on-demand and real-time streaming for four consecutive weeks. A unique visitor refers to a person who visits a website at least once within a defined timeframe.

The total viewing time for the TV show's 16 episodes reached 26.7 million hours, the second-most hours for TVing subscribers spent on a tvN drama.

“Queen of Tears,” which ended early this month, took first place.

Besides making original content, TVing will strengthen its collaboration with tvN to market and distribute the latter's content.

They will continue to air new flagship series episodes on Mondays and Tuesdays, when Netflix viewer numbers are relatively low.

To bolster viewership, TVing also secured the exclusive online broadcasting rights for the Korea Baseball Organization league in March of this year.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at jeong@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.