DramaFever was a video

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

website owned by Warner Bros. that offered on-demand streaming video of

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

, movies, and TV shows with subtitles. DramaFever's content offering was both ad-supported for regular users and available in high definition for premium subscribers. DramaFever was available on a variety of devices including iPad, iPhone, Android, and Roku. The company's library of international programming was one of the largest licensed U.S. collections available online, in both English and Spanish, and comprised over 15,000 episodes from 70 content partners across 12 countries. More recently, the company branched out into co-producing television dramas, co-producing the 2013 Korean drama '' The Heirs'' and the 2014 drama '' Naeil's Cantabile''. On February 23, 2016, it became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. DramaFever content was available on their own platform as well as via the VRV streaming service. Warner Bros. shut down the service and company on October 16, 2018. Its content was available via VRV until November 1, 2018.

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 founders raised approximately US$12 million from investors before the website was acquired by

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...

in October 2014 for approximately US$100 million. Softbank sold the site to Warner Bros in mid-2016. DramaFever was shut down by Warner Bros. on October 16, 2018, with no advance notice to its subscribers. All that remained on its website was the following message on its main page:

Audience

In 2013, DramaFever reported that over 80% of its estimated 3.5 million monthly viewers are non-Asian, and that the majority are young, urban and educated. As of May 2014, newly added Spanish and Latin American content was expected to increase viewership among Hispanic users. As of May 2015, the website had around 8 million

monthly active users Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...

. Females made up 65% of viewers, most significantly in the 18 to 34 age range.

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 The San Diego Asian Film Festival ( SDAFF) is an annual event organized by Pacific Arts Movement (formerly the San Diego Asian Film Foundation) that takes place every November in San Diego, California. Background SDAFF is the flagship event for ...

to present the first virtual on-demand Asian American film festival titled "DigiFest." In March 2010, DramaFever unveiled a partnership with

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television series ...

. DramaFever also made 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 , is a Japanese ''shōjo'' manga series written and illustrated by Yoko Kamio and set in Tokyo, Japan, and the fictional "Eitoku Academy" (an elite school for children from rich families). It tells the story of Tsukushi Makino, a girl f ...

" and " Heartstrings", broke the iTunes Top 200.

Licensing

DramaFever held licensing deals with all three of the major Korean TV networks:

Seoul Broadcasting System Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) () is one of the leading South Korean television and radio broadcasters. The broadcaster legally became known as SBS in March 2000, changing its corporate name from Seoul Broadcasting System (서울방송). Its f ...

Korean Broadcasting System The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) () is the national broadcaster of South Korea. Founded in February 1927, it is one of the leading South Korean television and radio broadcasters. KBS operates seven radio networks, ten television channels, ...

, and

Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC; ) is one of the leading South Korean television and radio broadcasters. ''Munhwa'' is the Sino-Korean word for "culture". Its flagship terrestrial television station MBC TV broadcasts as channel 11. ...

. It was the first website to work with all three South Korean content providers legally, and its partners represented over 60 of the top TV networks and production companies from China, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Argentina and Spain. Other licensing partners include

Artear Channel 13 (known by its current brand name El Trece, stylized as eltrece) is an Argentine free-to-air television network and the flagship station of the network of the same name, located in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. It is owned by ...

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly ...

, Imagina,

rtve The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española, S.A. (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española or RTVE, is the state-owned public corporation that assumed in 2007 the indirect management of the Spanish public radio and television service kno ...

Sanlih E-Television Sanlih Entertainment Television or Sanlih E-Television (SET; ) is a nationwide cable TV network operated in Taiwan which was founded in May 1993. It also produces Taiwanese drama that are broadcast on free-to-air channels e.g. Taiwan Televisio ...

, Shanghai Media Group and

Telefe Telefe (acronym for Televisión Federal) is a television station located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The station is owned and operated by Paramount Global through Televisión Federal S.A. Telefe is also one of Argentina's six national televisio ...

among others.

Subscription offering

Consumers could choose between a free or premium subscription. Registered subscribers could watch limited videos for free with commercials while premium subscribers watched without interruptions and in high definition. Users could register on the site or with their Facebook login. A premium subscription cost $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year in the United States. Content from Asia was available to the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Content from Latin America and Spain was only available to U.S. and Canada users due to international licensing agreements. DramaFever reportedly had over 400,000 paying subscribers by the time it was shut down in October 2018.

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 South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) is a central government agency responsible for the areas of tourism, culture, art, religion, and sports. It has two vice ministers, three assistant ministers, one commission, and ...

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 is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

and was held at the

Hudson Theatre The Hudson Theatre is a Broadway theater at 139–141 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. One of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, the Hudson was built ...

in New York City in February 2015. The 4th Annual DramaFever Awards in 2016 received a total of 1, 889, 384 votes from users and the 5th one received a total of 3,239,506 international votes. The announcement of the winners in each category was accompanied by videos including fragments of the work of the nominees and a final segment showing the winner thanking for the award with a brief speech.

References

External links

Official website1st Annual DramaFever Awards Winners2nd Annual DramaFever Awards Winners3rd Annual DramaFever Awards Winners4th Annual DramaFever Awards Winners5th Annual DramaFever Awards Winners
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dramafever Advertising video on demand 2009 establishments in the United States 2018 disestablishments in New York (state) Internet properties established in 2009 Internet properties disestablished in 2018 Television websites Subscription video on demand services Defunct subscription services Defunct video on demand services SoftBank Group Warner Bros.