Hong Kong’s PCCW starts sharing its streaming love around the region from 2016 with a mobile platform that has a major advantage over everyone else in Asia with a mobile wing and an OTT prayer – rights to a whole lot of Korean drama that it is offering for free, some with subtitles eight hours after the Korean telecast. And with a download-to-go option.

The Viu OTT video platform, which launched in Hong Kong at the end of October, rolls out in Singapore at the end of this year or early in 2016 and expands to another eight markets – including India and the Middle East – in 2016.

The freemium service offers a slate of language​-​customised Korean content​ express from Korea along with titles from Japan, mainland China and Taiwan​​.

Titles include new KBS’ Joseon Dynasty historical drama The Merchant: Gaekju (2015), which premiered in Korea at the end of September; MBC’s romantic comedy She Was Pretty; and medical drama D-Day, set in Seoul in the aftermath of a natural disaster that paralyses the city.

“Users want to keep up with the most current content in a way that’s relevant for them,” says Janice Lee, managing director of PCCW Media.

Lee says the OTT video service, built on PCCW’s acquisition of video streaming platform Vuclip earlier this year, capitali​ses on the paradigm shift in users’ viewing habits and demands.

Viu also leverages the group’s ​strong content providers’ network, telco relationships​ and​ patented adaptive streaming technology​.

“We expect significant interest from users who will become premium subscribers as well as advertisers keen to reach the mass millennial generation, which remains a captive engaged audience for Viu OTT video service,” Lee says, adding that the balance between free/advertising supported and premium/subscription will differ market by market across the region.

Meanwhile...

On home ground, PCCW is working the Viu brand hard. Subsidiary, HK Television Entertainment Company Limited (HKTVE), rolls out its new domestic free-TV channel in 2016 under the same banner.

The Cantonese digital channel, ViuTV, is expected to soft launch by the end of March 2016, with the full channel up and running, using hard-won spectrum, by April.

Channel bosses have begun talking about programming (a mass market mix of news, financial, sports, drama, variety and culture) and the original factual entertainment with which it plans to take on rivals.

Among these is Travel with Rivals, where artistes and celebrities “travel in pairs and express their innermost feelings throughout the journey”.

During the launch in Hong Kong, HKTVE general manager, Lofai Lo, said the goal was a “comprehensive and quality channel for Hong Kong people”.

“People and humanity are at the core of VuiTV,” is one of the rallying cries.

Lo’s message was one of creative inclusion: “ViuTV is committed to driving the continuous development and sustainability of Hong Kong’s TV industry,” he said adding: “Backed by a creative and professional production team, ViuTV aims to establish itself as an open platform for creative individuals and teams from Hong Kong and elsewhere around the world who are interested in producing brand new programming content with ViuTV through different forms of cooperation, whether they are artistes or production members, veterans or novices”.

He went on to welcome talent from all backgrounds and sectors and said ViuTV “encourages different genres and production parameters”.

ViuTV will also be seeking global exposure. Lo said in house format, Agora, had already been sold to Japan.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia Issue 6, 2015, published in November 2015.