Type of business Subsidiary Industry Video on demand Website www.dramafever.com Founders Seung Bak, Suk Park | Owner Time Warner Slogan(s) "Passion Shows" Founded 2009 Parent organization Warner Bros. | |
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Key people Seung Bak, founder & CEO
Suk Park, founder & President Headquarters New York City, New York, United States Profiles | ||
DramaFever is a video streaming website owned by Warner Bros that offers on-demand streaming video of documentaries, movies, and TV shows with subtitles. DramaFever's content offering is both ad-supported for regular users and available in high definition for premium subscribers.
Contents
DramaFever is available on a variety of devices including iPad, iPhone, Android, and Roku. The company's library of international programming is one of the largest licensed U.S. collections available online, in both English and Spanish, and comprises over 15,000 episodes from 70 content partners across 12 countries. More recently the company has branched out into co-producing television dramas. Co-producing the 2013 Korean drama The Heirs and the 2014 drama Cantabile Tomorrow. On February 23, 2016 it became a subsidiary of Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner
History
Built upon the feedback of drama fans, many of whom previously frequented pirated sites for Korean drama, the original site was in beta before going live on August 6, 2009. The website was acquired by SoftBank.
Audience
DramaFever reports that over 80% of its estimated 3.5 million monthly viewers are non-Asian. The company reports that the majority of users are young, urban and educated. As of May 2015, the website had around 8 million monthly active users. Females make up 65% of viewers and among these, the 18 to 34 age range is the most significant.
Additional, new Spanish and Latin American content is expected to increase viewership among Hispanic users.
Partnerships
In 2012, DramaFever sponsored The Supply Cup 2012, a charity soccer tournament hosted by YouTube personalities to benefit the non-profit organization The Supply, which helps build secondary schools in African slums to better provide greater possibilities for the next generation.
In 2011, Dramafever partnered with San Diego Asian Film Festival to present the first virtual on-demand Asian American film festival titled "DigiFest."
In March 2010, DramaFever unveiled a partnership with Hulu.
DramaFever also makes curated selections from its collection available on Netflix and iTunes. After their first week in the iTunes store, two popular Korean romantic comedies, "Boys Over Flowers" and "Heartstrings", broke the iTunes Top 200.
Licensing
DramaFever has licensing deals with all three major Korean TV networks: Seoul Broadcasting System, Korean Broadcasting System, and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. It is the first website to work with all three South Korean content providers legally and its partners represent over 60 of the top TV networks and production companies from China, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Argentina and Spain.
Other licensing partners include Artear, CCTV, Imagina, rtve, Sanlih E-Television, Shanghai Media Group and Telefe among others.
Subscription offering
Consumers can choose between a free or premium subscription. Registered subscribers can watch limited videos for free with commercials while premium subscribers watch without interruptions and in high definition. Users can register on the site or with their Facebook login.
A premium subscription costs $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year in the United States. Content from Asia is available to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Content from Latin America and Spain are only available to U.S. and Canada users due to international licensing agreements.
Recognition
On December 13, 2010 DramaFever was awarded the Korean Business of the Year Award by the Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), Korean Cultural Center and Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for its work showcasing Korean content in the U.S.
DramaFever Awards
In February 2013, DramaFever launched the first "Annual DramaFever Awards" honoring films, dramas, actors and actresses of the year through subscriber voting. The ceremony for the 3rd Annual DramaFever Awards was sponsored by Toyota and was held at the Hudson Theatre in New York City on February 2015. The 4th Annual DramaFever Awards in 2016 received a total of 1, 889, 384 votes from users.