SEOUL (ANN/THE KOREA HERALD) – As inflation continues to strain consumer budgets, streaming service subscription rates are surging in South Korea, prompting a noticeable uptick in the use of illegal streaming platforms.
The latest contender to announce a price hike is South Korea’s local service Tving, slated to increase its subscription fees by approximately 20 per cent starting December.
The basic plan, permitting 720p resolution for a single viewer, will see a 20.3 per cent rise from KRW7,900 (USD6.11) to KRW9,500 per month. Simultaneously, the standard plan, offering 1080p resolution for two concurrent users, will experience a 22 per cent increase from KRW10,900 to KRW13,500 monthly.
Tving’s premium plan, allowing four individuals to share an account, will also see a 22 per cent surge, now costing KRW17,000 per month. This move comes as consumers explore alternative, potentially illegal, streaming options in response to the escalating costs of legitimate services.
“The price hikes in our subscription plans come as Tving aims to continue investing in content development and improve the quality of service,” said an official from Tving.
Meanwhile, on November 2, Netflix announced via its website that it will limit password sharing to people living in the same household in Korea. Users of the account outside of the main household will be charged KRW5,000 monthly to access the account.
In November, Disney+, the flagship streaming service of US media giant Walt Disney Co, began offering two subscription plans: the standard plan at KRW9,000 per month and the premium plan at KRW13,900 per month. The streaming service had previously offered only one plan at KRW9,900 a month. The standard plan allows two people to access the account while the premium plan allows four people to access the account.
Under these new subscription plans, four people will be able to access the account only through Disney+’s premium plan. Initially though, simultaneous access had also been possible under the standard rate plan.
In addition, with YouTube Premium subscription fees rising to USD13.99 from USD11.99 in July in the US and Apple TV+ also raising its monthly fee to USD9.99 from USD6.99 in October, industry watchers expect subscription fees for Korean services of YouTube Premium and Apple TV+ to go up in the near future.
Meanwhile, local streamer Wavve told the source that it currently has no plans to raise its subscription rates, but plans to review the matter in the near future.
In a Korea Creative Content Agency survey of 3,000 people aged 15-59 last year, 42.5 per cent of respondents cited “financial burden” as the greatest difficulty in using streaming services.
Asked what they would do if the subscription fee were raised by 10 per cent, 51.2 per cent of the respondents said they would continue using their OTT service while 37 per cent said they would resort to using other OTT services. Those who responded they would not use OTT anymore recorded 11.2 per cent.
Rise of illegal streaming services
As subscription fees for OTT services rise, Koreans are turning to illegal websites, such as a new version of now-defunct Noonoo TV.
Launched in 2021, Noonoo TV was an illegal streaming site with servers in foreign countries such as the Dominican Republic, with cumulative users exceeding 83 million as of April. The service was shut down in April following a police investigation due to a complaint from a streaming company. However, two months later, the service returned under the name “Season 2.”
According to a Korea Communications Standards Commission report submitted to Rep. Park Wan-joo of the National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee in October, 17 sanctions were imposed on Noonoo TV Season 2 but to no avail. According to the report, the number of cumulative users of the website reached 19 million in August and September.
“If there are many illegal streaming websites such as Noonoo TV, users will inevitably resort to ways to freely access content they would otherwise have to pay for,” said Heo Eun-young, the team leader of the OTT support team at the Ministry of Science and ICT.
“Multiple government bodies such as Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Communications Standards Commission are closely monitoring the situation to combat the spread of illegal streaming sites and promote the use of OTT service,” Heo added.
