Besides our main activity of promotion of Korean TV drama series in the UK, we have decided to launch an activity of distribution of Asian co-produced webseries under the umbrella of Daehan Drama.

Our decision is based on the international market’s growing acceptance of webseries as professional and qualitative content:

• Previously ad-funded streaming services for short-form content are now turning to subscription and transactional business models, YouTube being the most famous example;
• A growing number of VOD platforms are commissioning or co-producing exclusive content, including DramaFever (Heirs, Tomorrow Cantabile);
• Webseries now have dedicated festival categories or festivals – such as the KWeb Fest launching this July 2015, first webseries festival in North East Asia;
• Established TV companies are launching their own digital studios – such as CJ E&M in April 2015, in the path of successful webdrama experiences of TV NaverCast (Love Cell) and SBS Plus (Doll House).

While we know there are certainly big players already out there, our aim and difference is to seek for Asian webseries projects that look to build a bridge between Europe and Asia.

Korean TV dramas, for instance, have enjoyed more than ten years of success in Asia with an omnipresence from traditional (television) to connected (tablets, smartphones, etc.) screens. But, this success has been more relative in the West with only a few VOD services taking into account the Hallyu, either specialized but with a low subscription fees or ad-funded (Viki, DramaFever, cool2vu) or mainstream but with a very limited selection (Netflix U.S., Hulu, Viewster). In other words, monetizing Korean dramas in the West, especially Europe, has been challenging – to say the least.

The advantage of short-form programming is its ability to travel on connected screens, on which the new generations consume most of their audiovisual content. Those same generations are also more likely to be open-minded to something different and multicultural as well as sharing content across a variety of social media.

Based on such motivations, our first project is the French-Chinese webseries, Ex-Model, produced for and financed by China’s leading VOD platform Youku Tudou. Since its premiere in March 2014, the webseries has accumulated 80 million views on Youku for the 20 episodes (~6 minutes each) produced so far (released in March and December 2014).

You can check out the trailer below, and if you would like us to bring Ex-Model to your country, we would be glad to receive recommendations of local channels or platforms where you think it could be aired or streamed at info@daehandrama.com