Paramount+ is looking to make waves in APAC. Catherine Park, senior vice president, head of office and broadcasting, reveals how she’s getting active in South Korea and beyond.
The US-based entertainment company has been on a launch spree with forays into Latin America, Australia, Canada and the Nordics, and more recently high-profile releases in South Korea and the UK.
South Korea, a bustling market for broadcasting as well as content production, music and culture, marks the company’s debut in the saturated and high-growth Asian market.
Paramount+ has big plans for the South Korean market
Drum supports over the top (OTT) plans.
Catherine Park, Paramount’s head of office and broadcasting for Asia, says of the brand’s penetration into Asia: “With its sheer population size along with the technology and creativity available, Asia is the place to be if you want to succeed and grow a broadcasting business.”
It has been strategizing which countries to expand into, with Asia and South Korea the obvious choice for Paramount+.
Park continues: “South Korea is a vibrant market for both a streaming subscription business and content that is taking the global stage. South Korean content, music and culture are hot right now – we want to tap into this demand and CJ ENM and Tving are the perfect partners.”
Paramount+ has launched its premium entertainment offering on Tving to complement local South Korean content on the channel. “This partnership is a great opportunity for our content to be rediscovered and appreciated by South Korean audiences,” says Park.
The latest marketing news and insights straight to your inbox.
Get the best from The Drum by choosing from a range of great email newsletters, whether it’s daily news, weekly round-ups or deep dives into media or creativity.
Sign up
The multilateral strategic partnership includes co-productions for original series and films, licensing and content distribution. This would allow South Korean audiences to watch original Paramount+ titles released in the country for the first time, as well as classic Paramount Pictures hits like Mission: Impossible and Nickelodeon shows including SpongeBob SquarePants.
The first series originally produced as part of the Paramount+ collaboration with Tving, Yonder will also launch soon. Park says, “To increase our reach and business in South Korea, we will constantly seek to better understand what our local audience wants and cater to those preferences.”
But in the wider APAC space, Paramount+ also has its eyes on India, where it will also have to contend with new entrants like Netflix and Amazon Prime. It will land in that market by 2023 in partnership with Viacom18.
While declining to comment directly on other media players, Park said he has a more diversified distribution strategy when it comes to the debate about the subscription-only, or D2C, model.
She adds: “We have a solid ecosystem – linear, streaming, free – as well as a strong bundle model and different streaming products to address the different needs in each market.”
The US-based entertainment company defines its approach on a market-by-market basis so that it can quickly enter a market with a relevant local broadcast model for long-term growth – whether subscription, fast (ad-free streaming channels and AVOD), or with the linear networks Falas and PayTV, she says.
