August 17, 2022 • 33 mins
Sam Wu, CEO of the Rakuten Viki streaming service, discusses the surging demand for Korean dramas and other content from Asia. He details the company’s growth as the streaming arm of the Japanese retail giant, and he muses on the reasons for the burst of interest in South Korean pop culture in recent years. “It’s easy to fall in love with K-dramas,” Wu says.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcasts featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guest is Sam Wu, CEO of Rockutan Vicki. Vicki is
the streaming arm of Japanese retail giant Rocuten. Vicki carries
(00:28):
content from Korea, Japan, China and other Asian countries. As
global streaming has taken off, so has Vicki, and nothing
has boosted the service more than the popularity of Korean
dramas or k dramas. My conversation with Wu coincides with
a deep dive in Variety this week into South Korea
(00:50):
and its influence on the world stage. This exploration was
eye opening for me, and this also connects with the
return of Kecon in downtown law So Angeles this week.
Hakon is a fan gathering that celebrates K pop and
other aspects of Korean pop culture. The streaming marketplace itself
is evidence at how well k dramas are traveling well
(01:13):
beyond the country's borders. There are half a dozen streamers
that make top Korean content available in markets around the world,
and that's not including the majors like Netflix and Disney
Plus who has seen the growth of the market firsthand.
At Vicky, the service has grown at a steady clip
for the last ten years, but the past three to
(01:34):
five years have seen really big games everywhere from Latin
America to the Middle East. WU offers great insights into
a market that is defined by a sense of community
that knows no geographic bounds. That's all coming up after
the break. M Sam, woo see eeo of rocketin Vicky
(02:02):
coming to us from Oakland. Thank you so much for
joining me today. Great to be here, Cynthia. You can't
ignore the explosion of interest around the world and the
just the explosion of creativity and innovation in Asian themed
content content shows, original original movies and TV shows that
are coming out of the Asian diaspor rocketin VICKI is
(02:24):
right in the in the heart, in the center of that, Sam,
why don't you start by telling us just kind of
sketch out for us what rocutin Vicky is as a
streaming service, who you reach and what your audience profile is. Yes,
definitely so, Rocket and Vicky is the leading streaming destination
for Asian entertainment. We offer one of the largest content
(02:47):
libraries focusing on Asian content, with a premius selection of
TV shows and movies from Korea and all across Asia.
In addition to our content, we're also known for a
high quality subtitles which are contributed contributed by our community
in over one hundred languages, as well as are engaged
(03:07):
in product experiences such as watch parties and collections, ratings
and reviews and much more so. We've we've seen this
growth and interest from Asian entertainment UM, I would say
over the last ten years and really picking up more
recently in the last three to five years. And I
(03:29):
think this is speaks to the trend of one format
just being really, really quite engaging, the storylines UM really
resonating with audiences and through that word I'm out and
sharing and through this no streaming destinations like like vicky
(03:49):
uh and other global and US based services introducing Asian
content to the US audience really have driven this growing
interests and popularity in the market. So you are the
service itself is based if I'm not mistaken out of Japan.
Rocklan itself is headquartered in Japan and Vicky Rocktan Vicky
(04:14):
were spread across multiple different locations. Uh. Here in the
US were headquartered in San Mateo, California, in the Bay Area.
So I have offices in South Korea in Shanhai and
Singapore as well. And where where are your biggest pockets
of strength? Is the US one of your biggest markets? Yes,
(04:35):
so US is our biggest market by audience, but we're
global UM. We have users in North America, South America
and Europe, in Australia and New Zealand, India. So we
really see this bandom growing, not just now here in
the US, which is really strong in terms of the
(04:56):
audience reception, but we're seeing the popularity UM really growing
everywhere around the world. M What the next question is
the is the why of it all? What do you think?
What do you think is driving this? Well? So, I
think you know the Asian Asian content. I think over
(05:16):
the years, there's been a lot of great stories that
have been told but UM that had not really reached
UM different markets around the world, and through platforms like
Vicky now we're able to bring that outside of the
home countries. We leverage the community to subtitle and localize
(05:37):
the content in multiple different languages so that people around
the world can enjoy in their own languages and really
understand the content and fall in love with their content.
At the heart of the storylines are great UM it
resonates with people U. The stories are about life, about love,
(05:58):
things that people can really neck with. And so the production,
the format there's really high quality, lends itself to be
easily enjoyed. I think the k drama format typically is
in mini series form roughly sixteen episodes to twenty episodes
uh and about one hour each. So you can imagine
(06:21):
these single season UM series to be highly entertaining with
a lot of different storylines and twists Shaw Grayson inmtography,
with great acting and cast h. So there's a lot
that goes into it. And I think, you know, with
the platforms like Vicky and others, really bring this out
(06:41):
to people and allow people to enjoy this, introduce it
um no. I think it's easy to fall in love
with this UM this genre, and once they fall in
love with this, they come to UM discovered there's even
more beyond Korean dramas that they fall in love with.
But they are different genres. We think in dramas and
also in Chinese dramas or Japanese dramas and others h
(07:05):
that really fall into the world uh of of Asian content.
M hm. Would you say that, um, if we could
drill down a little bit more, would you say that
a large, you know, a large part of the engine
of it would be the drama series or are there
are there you know, comedies and game shows and do
you have like a wide array of genres and content. Well,
(07:27):
our service, we have a wide vary of content. And
what we found is that typically people are introduced through
the dramas and once they get into the dramas, um,
because the cast tend to also crossover in the variety
shows or or reality and movies, we see that carry
(07:49):
people over to the different formats. And also we see
similar storylines being remade now from Korean dramas to Japanese
drama's Chinese dramas except dra and people then carry over
and enjoyed those contents in this various forms. It's a
metaverse of remakes it sound like it is and and
(08:11):
we didn't you know follom our platform. People really love
seeing how each um, each culture reimagines the story and
makes it their own on your service, do the do
the does the content do you make it binge able
or do you roll out shows in like a weekly
in a weekly episode release pattern? How do you how
(08:31):
do you actually just what's the cadence of your content?
So we we look at um each show uh slightly differently.
So we to typically take a look at how UM
how we want to introduce a show to the audience. Particular,
if certain shows we made, we may broadcast, you know,
(08:53):
a couple of episodes every single week, so we may
offer to to be binged uh no from the beginning.
Some we also offer to be enjoyed for free without
with supported by advertising summer for subscribers only. So we
try to look at the content UM and introduce it
(09:13):
to the audience in different ways that allow fans to
be able to be introduced to Asian content and also
enjoy this in different ways. Because a lot of it
is new to people. People would like to try to
see if this is something that they've be interested and
may they ever heard about it from their friends and
family and they want to get introduced to it. So
(09:35):
we try to make it some uh in a way
that is can be enjoyed in multiple different ways and
formats to allow people to be introduced to it. And
onst we see that points people are introduced to it,
they typically really enjoy and they've all love and try
to enjoy more of the catalog. Do you so you
have a mix of do you have a mix of
(09:55):
paid and advertising supported services. It's different and tiers that
people can get into. That's right, we have. We have
multiple tiers, as you can say, as you know, that's
the that's the way of the future for a lot
of big players right now. Yes, that that is the
wave of the future, and that's the world that we've
been thinking, um since the very beginning. Um and since
(10:15):
the very beginning, I think with with foreign language content. UM.
You know, we've we've tried to introduce this to people
from around the world, and it's it's not easy to
get people to want to pay for something that they
don't know much about. So we'll introduce it by creating
creating a free version that's supported by ads. As we
(10:38):
as we see that there are more and more users
and fans around the world really enjoying this, then know,
we started incorporating a more premium subscription plans to allow
earlier access moves to ads and creates an offers an
AD free and HD enjoyable experience and more and more
we iterate on that, but we always provide a selection
(10:58):
of content to be a joy for free, to allow
new users to be introduced to the genre so that
they can really fall in love with it and you know,
then see if they want to get into the whole
world of drowns with the with the growth and you
have you know, you have competitive Although Rocko Dnviki was
definitely early in this space, you do have some competitors. Now,
(11:20):
are you finding that getting content sourcing the content that
you want? Is that becoming more competitive? Well, so, I'll
say that we work closely with our content partners from
Asia and it is a pretty um there's a wide
(11:40):
selection of content that's being produced across Korea, Japan, China
and others. Uh So, there's certainly a lot of activity
in the market right now from many global and U
S space streamers um acquiring more Asian content. But we've
(12:00):
been able to develop good relationships with our partners to
provide and select the right content that we think our
audiences will really resonate with and enjoy. So there's certainly
more activity, but we see that there's a healthy market
that does UM provide us with the healthy amount of
content and the right content to bring to your audiences.
(12:24):
M tell me, I wanted to ask you a bit
more about the subtitling. You say that a lot of
subtitles are contributed by the community. How do you how
do you quality control and make sure that the subtitles
are right? Yeah, that's that's a great question, and that's
something that I think when people hear about this. You know,
when I first learned about how Vicky UM, how Vicky
(12:48):
contributors are creating the subtitles, that's one of the first
questions that I had too, is how do you manage
this process and how do you ensure the quality of
the sub titles? Because at the heart of it, we
also have to convince their content partners to allow us
to put this on their content, so that really you
(13:09):
know that and know that so when we really look
to create different tools that allow our community members to
one create process within themselves to validate a cross check
the quality of this. There's for every show, there's always
(13:30):
UM a channel manager that organizes different languages, and each
language will have a lite that manages the contributors and
they go through their own quality control and to ensure
that they bring the right people with the right knowledge.
For example, of their translating show that is a medical drama,
(13:50):
then they're bringing on people with some knowledge in that
to go to correctly translate that in the right language.
And also then once they have this, uh, the subtitle
is complete, then the subtitles are locked so no mores
can be made, so that they ensued a quality of this.
And you know, I think many times you are content
(14:13):
partners in the past have also requested us to share
the completely subtouse that they can put on in the past,
in the past DVDs and and some of the sort
that they can provide that for resell later. You can
see that by that, Um, that's a proofpoint of how
high quality the subtitles are and that the power to
community really I think shows that, Um, the love and
(14:36):
passion that people have the content will result in great work. Yeah,
transcribing it themselves. It isn't interesting. It is a challenge
that there are so many languages and dialects, and you
know in the diaspora of compared to other regions where
you might have different flavors of Spanish, but it's all,
you know, kind of that basic. There are very many
(14:59):
many languages in the in the Asian community, so that
I would imagine that that that would have been in
the past a certain hurdle to a service like this,
but um, this sounds like a very enterprising solution. Was
that something having having viewers send in their own send
in suggested subtitles. Was that something that happened organically or
was that something that was solicited by the company. Well,
(15:23):
so that's actually so that brings me to the origins
of the company. I don't know if you know. So
the company started out as actually a class project in
two thousand and seven of Crass students who are studying um,
how can um uh? How can people better learn different languages? Uh?
(15:49):
And the idea was that perhaps people can learn through
entertainment by watching and subtitling, you know, different videos online
and learning new language as a part of that. And
and it was in when you know, the co founders
saw the opportunity to leverage this community based crowdsource translations
(16:13):
subtitles to open new markets for content creators and also
introduce foreign language content. Uh. Two people around the world.
So so that was kind of the basis of it.
So many things, so many, so many interesting businesses of late,
you know, start as a college project. I know. Another
(16:39):
trend that is really starting to bubble up is Korean
Korean remakes of of popular U S shows, like the
show Suits and and, but also like Korean remakes of
the popular Netflix show Money Heist, which is which is
Lacasa the Papal, a Spanish show that has been that
(16:59):
has been remade in a couple of of markets, including Korea.
Is that now, I mean that that's like meta on
meta in terms of the pop culture and the kind
of blurring of the lines. But is that something that
you guys are seeing, is is driving some viewership? Is
like sort of fun remakes of contemporary U S shows? Yeah?
(17:20):
So interesting you bring that up. I think, you know,
it's certainly an interesting evolution of this. Uh. I think
it's been common for studios to remake popular shows that
maybe out from from the US in all other cultural formats,
you know, in Asia, ands and other countries to attract
WI their audiences. Early's Angels and how many different right,
(17:44):
exactly exactly, So this seems like a natural evolution that
kind of going going in the other way. Uh, And
in that I think this this speaks to I think
more of how the cajama format as just becoming more
popular UM around the world, that this can be something
(18:05):
that may not just be enjoyed in those domestic local markets,
but also regionally in globally as well. And we recently
UM brought a cream remake of Jane the Virgin called
Wuy the version to our platform, and it was really
a perfect fit because you know, in addition to know
it's a great story, which is why it was a
(18:26):
hit in its original generation. Uh, it also was great
for drawing in more casual viewers to our platform who
may not know normally watch K dramas. But we're intrigued
with how this will be made. So the show is
what we received by our audience, and it was one
of our top five drafts when it was on There
(18:50):
Don't Go Anywhere. We'll be right back with more from Rocluton,
Viki CEO Sam Wu after this phreak and we're back
with more from Rapuiton Viki CEO Sam Wom. How do
you market Racerton vicuity? I mean you market obviously territory
(19:13):
by territory. But do you do you have? Do you
do much off air? Is most of your marketing promotion
kind of within your own ecosystem? How do you get
the word out about your service? Yeah, that's that's a
great question, you know, especially this UM this category. You know,
while we have very passionate fan basis, it's it's new
(19:34):
to many of us now in each market and what
we try to do, and it's at the heart of
our businesses. You know, you kind of will hear these
kind of mentioned this multiple times now conversation is how
we engage with our community and the community of k drama,
Asian drama, Asian content ands and we truly leverage ammunity
(19:59):
UM to one UM be the advocates to help UM
okay shared the content outside of you know, outside of
Vicky and we we built a strong social media presence
with followers across social media, and we share that no
(20:22):
within our account UH and people will tend to highly
engage with their tag their friends and share that and
also post repost about UM some of their contents. So
we leverage that quite heavily as a way for us
to get the word out in one an authentic UH
(20:43):
and something that really scales quite well UM because you know,
I think from from what we see, most people discover
content NO through word of mouth and through their friends,
from what we have seen in our platforms, so we're
trying to leverage that NO through our different outlets, whether
that's through social media and on our platform. So we
(21:04):
also create UM different differentiative features such as watch parties
UH and different discussion and collections that one enable fans
to create different recommendations for other fans, introduce new content
to other users who may be new to the platform.
(21:24):
So there are different ways that we try to engage
in to make it a fun experience in discovery and
make it authentic and connect people together and leverage that
UH to drive more awareness for the content. It sounds
like you have a lot of sort of built in
fans that are that are evangelists. They want to talk
about this content, they want to let people know that, hey,
(21:47):
there's all this very cool and creative stuff going on
in another part of the world. And now through the
magic of streaming and you know, rasing borders, it's it's available.
Do you have much issue when you are licensing shows?
Do you have does it become a territory by territory, Uh,
you know, challenge to clear a show and each in
(22:08):
each territory, are you able to kind of do do
do broad deals. There's so much in the US right now,
there is so much changing about rights and how how
they are held in streaming, how long they're held in streaming.
I'm very curious about how it's working in other parts
of the world and and in the US. As far
as your business is concerned, Yeah, I think there's there's
(22:29):
certainly a lot of activity going on in the market.
It's a lot of work for your b A. I'm
sure there's a there's a lot to be going on.
And I think what we um, what we what we
focus on is UM is building and continue to build
on those relationships we have with our content partners. And
(22:52):
I think over the years we've demonstrated that we've been
our focus in carving out this category UM and really
driving them value UM on the business perspective have contributed
to us be able to maintain some of these relationships
and these rights, and of course with growth in the business,
(23:16):
we're able to share more with our partners as well.
So we've definitely see the activity but we're managing through those,
through the long term relationships that we're building, and through
the performance that we delivered for our partners. Do you
can you disclose your your your basic subscriber base as
it stands now? Sorry, I can't. I can't speak to
(23:39):
that number, but we can see the overall number of
registered users we've about a platform. So we have over
fifty nine million registered users on the platform. Uh. That
has grown I think thirty three percent year over a
year UM as of the last quarter. And so that
continues to grow well. And now we've seen I think,
(24:03):
you know, tremendous growth over the last couple of years,
and we see the momentum building. I think it's one
of those things where well, once it's reaching more people
and people are discovering the content more and they really
will enjoy it, uh and and then share and then
that builds on to a larger audience. So we see
(24:23):
this category really continuing to grow. UH and I think
the future is right. M hmm. Do you um, would
you say, is there is there a demographic basic demographic?
Is it on the younger end of the bulk of
your audience or is it is it a mix of
you know, is it a range of ages that in
terms of your audience, I would say what we see
(24:47):
as a as a range of ages, but um more
concentrated in the millennial and gen Z demographic. We've seen
that this UM demographic really growing, and as we bring
on different types of content, we're also diversifying the audience
a bit. But I would say that that's certainly the
(25:07):
most active audience segment that we have on the platform.
M hmm. Do you web tunes have become such a
such a like almost overnight where I feel like Variety
is starting to write about web tunes every day kind
of a very it seems like a very digital native format.
Is that anything? That is that any an area of
expansion for Vicky? Well, so, we we definitely see the
(25:32):
popularity of web tunes becoming, um um much much more
prevalent in you know, with with I think similar segments
of users. Uh. I think there's actually a lot of
cream dramas and Asian dramas that are based off of
web tunes as well. So I'm learning see that format
(25:54):
crossing over it quite well. And now so we'recessarily happy
to see the popularity of web tunes being able to
carry over and introduce audiences to the drama format, and
that's something that we do seem we see that is
going to be a continuing trend just given the popularity
(26:17):
of web tunes, and I think similar to how in
the past different longas have inspired um different types of
formats being created as well, So this is something that
we see as as a growing trend. We do watch
parties um as UM I think launch event specip particular
(26:37):
shows and I think to introduce spans to know new premiers.
We also have the private watch party features that Yeah,
so people can create their own and we uh and
other users can discover that on our website and they
can join and participate and meet other fans and enjoy
(26:58):
their favorite content together or be introduced to another new
show that they know that they weren't aware of. So
we've seen some of those really take off as well. UH,
and that's something we're pretty excited about as new iterations
of bring communities together. Anything any new frontier for Vicky
coming up that you can talk about, anything, any new
(27:19):
iteration or application or feature that you're that you're excited
about coming up, or any any content that you're excited
about coming up well, So we're certainly excited about the
content lineups that we have. I think products side, no,
there's there will be a few iterations of how we
leverage and bring forward our community ratings and reviews and
(27:41):
recommendations to be more forefront. So that creates a different
way for people to browse and discover content through more
authentic user lead um and recommendations. So those are differentiation
that you'll see us working on and sharing with our
through our experiences in the future as a differentiator that
(28:03):
we have and speaks to the community centric experiences that
we have as a business. Mhmm, gontru. Sam, it sounds
like a lot of a lot a lot going on.
There is so much there's so much activity in the
in the content world. It is a seven global business.
My last question for you, Sam, tell me a little
(28:24):
bit about yourself. What brought you to rock Utin VICKI
I joined a company in and it's been a long time,
so ten years. I I discovered a company back then
and the the mission and how the business um was
(28:47):
focused around bringing people together through entertainment, bridging cultures through entertainment,
and now the part of discovering new languages and learning
languages through content. It really spoke to me. I m
I moved to the US when I was ten, and
(29:07):
the way I didn't speak any any English before I
moved over, and the way I learned English was through
watching sign felt my dear friend, my dear friend Nelly Andreva,
fellow journalist, came from Bulgaria. Same thing. I've got to
connect you to you, guys, can she's in Seinfeld And
that's so there's some esoteric language in honey. Yeah so
(29:32):
so no, that that was how I learned learned English,
and you know, by watching television. People in my family,
no mine even know. My parents didn't speak much English
at all. So I'm learning through that and through through friends.
And when I discovered Vicky and saw that really the
mission is around how do we bridge cultures and connect
(29:53):
through languages and the localizing it through the power community
and sharing great content two people all around the world
and me growing up watching content from all over Asia
and US and other parts. That just hit hit home
for me, and I thought I had to I had
(30:14):
to join this, this company. So I dropped an email
to a job's that Vicky alias and started a conversation
and and here I am ten years later. What would
you say in your role as CEO, what is the
what is the experience from your past that is most
(30:37):
helpful to you in your role today? Well, I would
say that the one thing that I um, I think
I learned um starting from my first job was UM
one uh realizing that I didn't really know very much
(31:02):
at all, um and knowing that learning and the curiosity
and interest to continue learning was really my one UM
one skill set that I that I had capacity and
capacity for curiosity and learning. That's a good that is
(31:25):
a good skill in the CEO. So so that is
something that I think has um no I've carried out
through my career um And I started out in working
finance and business operations capacity uh and but it was
my curiosity to learn more about different aspects of businesses,
(31:47):
the different functions and trying to no, actually do those
functions and learn outside of what my role is UM
and I think that that's what carried out me over
to today. And I'll be joining Dicky at an earlier
stage when we're just to start up. Really you get
(32:08):
a job titled, but you're doing whatever is necessary to
sweeping up at night to sure I'm sure right to
carry the business force. So I think it really is
that curiosity and no always looking to learn and see
how do we overcome different challenges. And that's what really
kept me uh going and got me to where I
(32:32):
am today. And I think something that I truly believe
in is important. Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave
us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety and sign up for
our Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in
(32:55):
next week for another episode of Strictly Business. Creating incle
Infilting decla depleting detail
Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcasts featuring conversations with
industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
guest is Sam Wu, CEO of Rockutan Vicki. Vicki is
the streaming arm of Japanese retail giant Rocuten. Vicki carries
(00:28):
content from Korea, Japan, China and other Asian countries. As
global streaming has taken off, so has Vicki, and nothing
has boosted the service more than the popularity of Korean
dramas or k dramas. My conversation with Wu coincides with
a deep dive in Variety this week into South Korea
(00:50):
and its influence on the world stage. This exploration was
eye opening for me, and this also connects with the
return of Kecon in downtown law So Angeles this week.
Hakon is a fan gathering that celebrates K pop and
other aspects of Korean pop culture. The streaming marketplace itself
is evidence at how well k dramas are traveling well
(01:13):
beyond the country's borders. There are half a dozen streamers
that make top Korean content available in markets around the world,
and that's not including the majors like Netflix and Disney
Plus who has seen the growth of the market firsthand.
At Vicky, the service has grown at a steady clip
for the last ten years, but the past three to
(01:34):
five years have seen really big games everywhere from Latin
America to the Middle East. WU offers great insights into
a market that is defined by a sense of community
that knows no geographic bounds. That's all coming up after
the break. M Sam, woo see eeo of rocketin Vicky
(02:02):
coming to us from Oakland. Thank you so much for
joining me today. Great to be here, Cynthia. You can't
ignore the explosion of interest around the world and the
just the explosion of creativity and innovation in Asian themed
content content shows, original original movies and TV shows that
are coming out of the Asian diaspor rocketin VICKI is
(02:24):
right in the in the heart, in the center of that, Sam,
why don't you start by telling us just kind of
sketch out for us what rocutin Vicky is as a
streaming service, who you reach and what your audience profile is. Yes,
definitely so, Rocket and Vicky is the leading streaming destination
for Asian entertainment. We offer one of the largest content
(02:47):
libraries focusing on Asian content, with a premius selection of
TV shows and movies from Korea and all across Asia.
In addition to our content, we're also known for a
high quality subtitles which are contributed contributed by our community
in over one hundred languages, as well as are engaged
(03:07):
in product experiences such as watch parties and collections, ratings
and reviews and much more so. We've we've seen this
growth and interest from Asian entertainment UM, I would say
over the last ten years and really picking up more
recently in the last three to five years. And I
(03:29):
think this is speaks to the trend of one format
just being really, really quite engaging, the storylines UM really
resonating with audiences and through that word I'm out and
sharing and through this no streaming destinations like like vicky
(03:49):
uh and other global and US based services introducing Asian
content to the US audience really have driven this growing
interests and popularity in the market. So you are the
service itself is based if I'm not mistaken out of Japan.
Rocklan itself is headquartered in Japan and Vicky Rocktan Vicky
(04:14):
were spread across multiple different locations. Uh. Here in the
US were headquartered in San Mateo, California, in the Bay Area.
So I have offices in South Korea in Shanhai and
Singapore as well. And where where are your biggest pockets
of strength? Is the US one of your biggest markets? Yes,
(04:35):
so US is our biggest market by audience, but we're
global UM. We have users in North America, South America
and Europe, in Australia and New Zealand, India. So we
really see this bandom growing, not just now here in
the US, which is really strong in terms of the
(04:56):
audience reception, but we're seeing the popularity UM really growing
everywhere around the world. M What the next question is
the is the why of it all? What do you think?
What do you think is driving this? Well? So, I
think you know the Asian Asian content. I think over
(05:16):
the years, there's been a lot of great stories that
have been told but UM that had not really reached
UM different markets around the world, and through platforms like
Vicky now we're able to bring that outside of the
home countries. We leverage the community to subtitle and localize
(05:37):
the content in multiple different languages so that people around
the world can enjoy in their own languages and really
understand the content and fall in love with their content.
At the heart of the storylines are great UM it
resonates with people U. The stories are about life, about love,
(05:58):
things that people can really neck with. And so the production,
the format there's really high quality, lends itself to be
easily enjoyed. I think the k drama format typically is
in mini series form roughly sixteen episodes to twenty episodes
uh and about one hour each. So you can imagine
(06:21):
these single season UM series to be highly entertaining with
a lot of different storylines and twists Shaw Grayson inmtography,
with great acting and cast h. So there's a lot
that goes into it. And I think, you know, with
the platforms like Vicky and others, really bring this out
(06:41):
to people and allow people to enjoy this, introduce it
um no. I think it's easy to fall in love
with this UM this genre, and once they fall in
love with this, they come to UM discovered there's even
more beyond Korean dramas that they fall in love with.
But they are different genres. We think in dramas and
also in Chinese dramas or Japanese dramas and others h
(07:05):
that really fall into the world uh of of Asian content.
M hm. Would you say that, um, if we could
drill down a little bit more, would you say that
a large, you know, a large part of the engine
of it would be the drama series or are there
are there you know, comedies and game shows and do
you have like a wide array of genres and content. Well,
(07:27):
our service, we have a wide vary of content. And
what we found is that typically people are introduced through
the dramas and once they get into the dramas, um,
because the cast tend to also crossover in the variety
shows or or reality and movies, we see that carry
(07:49):
people over to the different formats. And also we see
similar storylines being remade now from Korean dramas to Japanese
drama's Chinese dramas except dra and people then carry over
and enjoyed those contents in this various forms. It's a
metaverse of remakes it sound like it is and and
(08:11):
we didn't you know follom our platform. People really love
seeing how each um, each culture reimagines the story and
makes it their own on your service, do the do
the does the content do you make it binge able
or do you roll out shows in like a weekly
in a weekly episode release pattern? How do you how
(08:31):
do you actually just what's the cadence of your content?
So we we look at um each show uh slightly differently.
So we to typically take a look at how UM
how we want to introduce a show to the audience. Particular,
if certain shows we made, we may broadcast, you know,
(08:53):
a couple of episodes every single week, so we may
offer to to be binged uh no from the beginning.
Some we also offer to be enjoyed for free without
with supported by advertising summer for subscribers only. So we
try to look at the content UM and introduce it
(09:13):
to the audience in different ways that allow fans to
be able to be introduced to Asian content and also
enjoy this in different ways. Because a lot of it
is new to people. People would like to try to
see if this is something that they've be interested and
may they ever heard about it from their friends and
family and they want to get introduced to it. So
(09:35):
we try to make it some uh in a way
that is can be enjoyed in multiple different ways and
formats to allow people to be introduced to it. And
onst we see that points people are introduced to it,
they typically really enjoy and they've all love and try
to enjoy more of the catalog. Do you so you
have a mix of do you have a mix of
(09:55):
paid and advertising supported services. It's different and tiers that
people can get into. That's right, we have. We have
multiple tiers, as you can say, as you know, that's
the that's the way of the future for a lot
of big players right now. Yes, that that is the
wave of the future, and that's the world that we've
been thinking, um since the very beginning. Um and since
(10:15):
the very beginning, I think with with foreign language content. UM.
You know, we've we've tried to introduce this to people
from around the world, and it's it's not easy to
get people to want to pay for something that they
don't know much about. So we'll introduce it by creating
creating a free version that's supported by ads. As we
(10:38):
as we see that there are more and more users
and fans around the world really enjoying this, then know,
we started incorporating a more premium subscription plans to allow
earlier access moves to ads and creates an offers an
AD free and HD enjoyable experience and more and more
we iterate on that, but we always provide a selection
(10:58):
of content to be a joy for free, to allow
new users to be introduced to the genre so that
they can really fall in love with it and you know,
then see if they want to get into the whole
world of drowns with the with the growth and you
have you know, you have competitive Although Rocko Dnviki was
definitely early in this space, you do have some competitors. Now,
(11:20):
are you finding that getting content sourcing the content that
you want? Is that becoming more competitive? Well, so, I'll
say that we work closely with our content partners from
Asia and it is a pretty um there's a wide
(11:40):
selection of content that's being produced across Korea, Japan, China
and others. Uh So, there's certainly a lot of activity
in the market right now from many global and U
S space streamers um acquiring more Asian content. But we've
(12:00):
been able to develop good relationships with our partners to
provide and select the right content that we think our
audiences will really resonate with and enjoy. So there's certainly
more activity, but we see that there's a healthy market
that does UM provide us with the healthy amount of
content and the right content to bring to your audiences.
(12:24):
M tell me, I wanted to ask you a bit
more about the subtitling. You say that a lot of
subtitles are contributed by the community. How do you how
do you quality control and make sure that the subtitles
are right? Yeah, that's that's a great question, and that's
something that I think when people hear about this. You know,
when I first learned about how Vicky UM, how Vicky
(12:48):
contributors are creating the subtitles, that's one of the first
questions that I had too, is how do you manage
this process and how do you ensure the quality of
the sub titles? Because at the heart of it, we
also have to convince their content partners to allow us
to put this on their content, so that really you
(13:09):
know that and know that so when we really look
to create different tools that allow our community members to
one create process within themselves to validate a cross check
the quality of this. There's for every show, there's always
(13:30):
UM a channel manager that organizes different languages, and each
language will have a lite that manages the contributors and
they go through their own quality control and to ensure
that they bring the right people with the right knowledge.
For example, of their translating show that is a medical drama,
(13:50):
then they're bringing on people with some knowledge in that
to go to correctly translate that in the right language.
And also then once they have this, uh, the subtitle
is complete, then the subtitles are locked so no mores
can be made, so that they ensued a quality of this.
And you know, I think many times you are content
(14:13):
partners in the past have also requested us to share
the completely subtouse that they can put on in the past,
in the past DVDs and and some of the sort
that they can provide that for resell later. You can
see that by that, Um, that's a proofpoint of how
high quality the subtitles are and that the power to
community really I think shows that, Um, the love and
(14:36):
passion that people have the content will result in great work. Yeah,
transcribing it themselves. It isn't interesting. It is a challenge
that there are so many languages and dialects, and you
know in the diaspora of compared to other regions where
you might have different flavors of Spanish, but it's all,
you know, kind of that basic. There are very many
(14:59):
many languages in the in the Asian community, so that
I would imagine that that that would have been in
the past a certain hurdle to a service like this,
but um, this sounds like a very enterprising solution. Was
that something having having viewers send in their own send
in suggested subtitles. Was that something that happened organically or
was that something that was solicited by the company. Well,
(15:23):
so that's actually so that brings me to the origins
of the company. I don't know if you know. So
the company started out as actually a class project in
two thousand and seven of Crass students who are studying um,
how can um uh? How can people better learn different languages? Uh?
(15:49):
And the idea was that perhaps people can learn through
entertainment by watching and subtitling, you know, different videos online
and learning new language as a part of that. And
and it was in when you know, the co founders
saw the opportunity to leverage this community based crowdsource translations
(16:13):
subtitles to open new markets for content creators and also
introduce foreign language content. Uh. Two people around the world.
So so that was kind of the basis of it.
So many things, so many, so many interesting businesses of late,
you know, start as a college project. I know. Another
(16:39):
trend that is really starting to bubble up is Korean
Korean remakes of of popular U S shows, like the
show Suits and and, but also like Korean remakes of
the popular Netflix show Money Heist, which is which is
Lacasa the Papal, a Spanish show that has been that
(16:59):
has been remade in a couple of of markets, including Korea.
Is that now, I mean that that's like meta on
meta in terms of the pop culture and the kind
of blurring of the lines. But is that something that
you guys are seeing, is is driving some viewership? Is
like sort of fun remakes of contemporary U S shows? Yeah?
(17:20):
So interesting you bring that up. I think, you know,
it's certainly an interesting evolution of this. Uh. I think
it's been common for studios to remake popular shows that
maybe out from from the US in all other cultural formats,
you know, in Asia, ands and other countries to attract
WI their audiences. Early's Angels and how many different right,
(17:44):
exactly exactly, So this seems like a natural evolution that
kind of going going in the other way. Uh, And
in that I think this this speaks to I think
more of how the cajama format as just becoming more
popular UM around the world, that this can be something
(18:05):
that may not just be enjoyed in those domestic local markets,
but also regionally in globally as well. And we recently
UM brought a cream remake of Jane the Virgin called
Wuy the version to our platform, and it was really
a perfect fit because you know, in addition to know
it's a great story, which is why it was a
(18:26):
hit in its original generation. Uh, it also was great
for drawing in more casual viewers to our platform who
may not know normally watch K dramas. But we're intrigued
with how this will be made. So the show is
what we received by our audience, and it was one
of our top five drafts when it was on There
(18:50):
Don't Go Anywhere. We'll be right back with more from Rocluton,
Viki CEO Sam Wu after this phreak and we're back
with more from Rapuiton Viki CEO Sam Wom. How do
you market Racerton vicuity? I mean you market obviously territory
(19:13):
by territory. But do you do you have? Do you
do much off air? Is most of your marketing promotion
kind of within your own ecosystem? How do you get
the word out about your service? Yeah, that's that's a
great question, you know, especially this UM this category. You know,
while we have very passionate fan basis, it's it's new
(19:34):
to many of us now in each market and what
we try to do, and it's at the heart of
our businesses. You know, you kind of will hear these
kind of mentioned this multiple times now conversation is how
we engage with our community and the community of k drama,
Asian drama, Asian content ands and we truly leverage ammunity
(19:59):
UM to one UM be the advocates to help UM
okay shared the content outside of you know, outside of
Vicky and we we built a strong social media presence
with followers across social media, and we share that no
(20:22):
within our account UH and people will tend to highly
engage with their tag their friends and share that and
also post repost about UM some of their contents. So
we leverage that quite heavily as a way for us
to get the word out in one an authentic UH
(20:43):
and something that really scales quite well UM because you know,
I think from from what we see, most people discover
content NO through word of mouth and through their friends,
from what we have seen in our platforms, so we're
trying to leverage that NO through our different outlets, whether
that's through social media and on our platform. So we
(21:04):
also create UM different differentiative features such as watch parties
UH and different discussion and collections that one enable fans
to create different recommendations for other fans, introduce new content
to other users who may be new to the platform.
(21:24):
So there are different ways that we try to engage
in to make it a fun experience in discovery and
make it authentic and connect people together and leverage that
UH to drive more awareness for the content. It sounds
like you have a lot of sort of built in
fans that are that are evangelists. They want to talk
about this content, they want to let people know that, hey,
(21:47):
there's all this very cool and creative stuff going on
in another part of the world. And now through the
magic of streaming and you know, rasing borders, it's it's available.
Do you have much issue when you are licensing shows?
Do you have does it become a territory by territory, Uh,
you know, challenge to clear a show and each in
(22:08):
each territory, are you able to kind of do do
do broad deals. There's so much in the US right now,
there is so much changing about rights and how how
they are held in streaming, how long they're held in streaming.
I'm very curious about how it's working in other parts
of the world and and in the US. As far
as your business is concerned, Yeah, I think there's there's
(22:29):
certainly a lot of activity going on in the market.
It's a lot of work for your b A. I'm
sure there's a there's a lot to be going on.
And I think what we um, what we what we
focus on is UM is building and continue to build
on those relationships we have with our content partners. And
(22:52):
I think over the years we've demonstrated that we've been
our focus in carving out this category UM and really
driving them value UM on the business perspective have contributed
to us be able to maintain some of these relationships
and these rights, and of course with growth in the business,
(23:16):
we're able to share more with our partners as well.
So we've definitely see the activity but we're managing through those,
through the long term relationships that we're building, and through
the performance that we delivered for our partners. Do you
can you disclose your your your basic subscriber base as
it stands now? Sorry, I can't. I can't speak to
(23:39):
that number, but we can see the overall number of
registered users we've about a platform. So we have over
fifty nine million registered users on the platform. Uh. That
has grown I think thirty three percent year over a
year UM as of the last quarter. And so that
continues to grow well. And now we've seen I think,
(24:03):
you know, tremendous growth over the last couple of years,
and we see the momentum building. I think it's one
of those things where well, once it's reaching more people
and people are discovering the content more and they really
will enjoy it, uh and and then share and then
that builds on to a larger audience. So we see
(24:23):
this category really continuing to grow. UH and I think
the future is right. M hmm. Do you um, would
you say, is there is there a demographic basic demographic?
Is it on the younger end of the bulk of
your audience or is it is it a mix of
you know, is it a range of ages that in
terms of your audience, I would say what we see
(24:47):
as a as a range of ages, but um more
concentrated in the millennial and gen Z demographic. We've seen
that this UM demographic really growing, and as we bring
on different types of content, we're also diversifying the audience
a bit. But I would say that that's certainly the
(25:07):
most active audience segment that we have on the platform.
M hmm. Do you web tunes have become such a
such a like almost overnight where I feel like Variety
is starting to write about web tunes every day kind
of a very it seems like a very digital native format.
Is that anything? That is that any an area of
expansion for Vicky? Well, so, we we definitely see the
(25:32):
popularity of web tunes becoming, um um much much more
prevalent in you know, with with I think similar segments
of users. Uh. I think there's actually a lot of
cream dramas and Asian dramas that are based off of
web tunes as well. So I'm learning see that format
(25:54):
crossing over it quite well. And now so we'recessarily happy
to see the popularity of web tunes being able to
carry over and introduce audiences to the drama format, and
that's something that we do seem we see that is
going to be a continuing trend just given the popularity
(26:17):
of web tunes, and I think similar to how in
the past different longas have inspired um different types of
formats being created as well, So this is something that
we see as as a growing trend. We do watch
parties um as UM I think launch event specip particular
(26:37):
shows and I think to introduce spans to know new premiers.
We also have the private watch party features that Yeah,
so people can create their own and we uh and
other users can discover that on our website and they
can join and participate and meet other fans and enjoy
(26:58):
their favorite content together or be introduced to another new
show that they know that they weren't aware of. So
we've seen some of those really take off as well. UH,
and that's something we're pretty excited about as new iterations
of bring communities together. Anything any new frontier for Vicky
coming up that you can talk about, anything, any new
(27:19):
iteration or application or feature that you're that you're excited
about coming up, or any any content that you're excited
about coming up well, So we're certainly excited about the
content lineups that we have. I think products side, no,
there's there will be a few iterations of how we
leverage and bring forward our community ratings and reviews and
(27:41):
recommendations to be more forefront. So that creates a different
way for people to browse and discover content through more
authentic user lead um and recommendations. So those are differentiation
that you'll see us working on and sharing with our
through our experiences in the future as a differentiator that
(28:03):
we have and speaks to the community centric experiences that
we have as a business. Mhmm, gontru. Sam, it sounds
like a lot of a lot a lot going on.
There is so much there's so much activity in the
in the content world. It is a seven global business.
My last question for you, Sam, tell me a little
(28:24):
bit about yourself. What brought you to rock Utin VICKI
I joined a company in and it's been a long time,
so ten years. I I discovered a company back then
and the the mission and how the business um was
(28:47):
focused around bringing people together through entertainment, bridging cultures through entertainment,
and now the part of discovering new languages and learning
languages through content. It really spoke to me. I m
I moved to the US when I was ten, and
(29:07):
the way I didn't speak any any English before I
moved over, and the way I learned English was through
watching sign felt my dear friend, my dear friend Nelly Andreva,
fellow journalist, came from Bulgaria. Same thing. I've got to
connect you to you, guys, can she's in Seinfeld And
that's so there's some esoteric language in honey. Yeah so
(29:32):
so no, that that was how I learned learned English,
and you know, by watching television. People in my family,
no mine even know. My parents didn't speak much English
at all. So I'm learning through that and through through friends.
And when I discovered Vicky and saw that really the
mission is around how do we bridge cultures and connect
(29:53):
through languages and the localizing it through the power community
and sharing great content two people all around the world
and me growing up watching content from all over Asia
and US and other parts. That just hit hit home
for me, and I thought I had to I had
(30:14):
to join this, this company. So I dropped an email
to a job's that Vicky alias and started a conversation
and and here I am ten years later. What would
you say in your role as CEO, what is the
what is the experience from your past that is most
(30:37):
helpful to you in your role today? Well, I would
say that the one thing that I um, I think
I learned um starting from my first job was UM
one uh realizing that I didn't really know very much
(31:02):
at all, um and knowing that learning and the curiosity
and interest to continue learning was really my one UM
one skill set that I that I had capacity and
capacity for curiosity and learning. That's a good that is
(31:25):
a good skill in the CEO. So so that is
something that I think has um no I've carried out
through my career um And I started out in working
finance and business operations capacity uh and but it was
my curiosity to learn more about different aspects of businesses,
(31:47):
the different functions and trying to no, actually do those
functions and learn outside of what my role is UM
and I think that that's what carried out me over
to today. And I'll be joining Dicky at an earlier
stage when we're just to start up. Really you get
(32:08):
a job titled, but you're doing whatever is necessary to
sweeping up at night to sure I'm sure right to
carry the business force. So I think it really is
that curiosity and no always looking to learn and see
how do we overcome different challenges. And that's what really
kept me uh going and got me to where I
(32:32):
am today. And I think something that I truly believe
in is important. Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave
us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety and sign up for
our Strictly Business newsletter, and don't forget to tune in
(32:55):
next week for another episode of Strictly Business. Creating incle
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