The digital entertainment team at Taiwanese telco, Far EasTone, spends all day figuring out how to make every day feel like friDay. Team leader Gary Tsai on how the telco thinks about making consumers that happy.  
 

In Gary Tsai’s world, every day should be friDay. As COO of digital entertainment at Far EasTone Telecom, Tsai’s waking life is spent figuring out how to bring that weekend play energy to Far EasTone’s friDay Video streaming platform around the clock.  

friDay Video has four superpowers, Tsai says. These are exclusive and premium content, co-producing global hits, intensifying content investment through joint ventures and co-productions and AI-powered smart and personalised streaming.  

The Far EasTone Telecom/friDay Video strategy has been built over nine years, expanding most recently into two entertainment production funds that will be up and running by the end of this year or in Q1 2025. The funds, announced in November 2023 during the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei, have been in the works since early 2024 with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), CJ ENM HK and TVBS, among others. 

The size of the funds has not been confirmed. But the aim is clear: “We hope to continue to work with our domestic and international partners to come up with the best content for both local markets and international markets as well,” Tsai says. Content will span movies, TV series, variety shows and live events. 

The funds follow at least two years of friDay commitment to co-productions, including the two-year-old joint venture with Mission and friDay Video parent Far EasTone’s successful investment in Japanese-Taiwanese movie, "18x2 Beyond Youthful Days", which released on Netflix in August this year after a successful festival and theatrical run. Directed by Michihito Fujii, "18x2 Beyond Youthful Days" stars Taiwanese actor/singer, Greg Hsu, and Japan’s Kaya Kiyohara in the story of an unemployed games developer on a solo trip to Japan reminiscing about a past romance that never blossomed.  

“We cannot do these on our own,” Tsai says, at the same time not glossing over the pain points of co-production. “Each co-production project has its own challenges, whether it’s money or having to re-write the script 10 time, or 20 times, or not being able to find a great director, or casting,” he says. 

The co-production approach is firmly grounded in a broad entertainment strategy. friDay Video, owned and operated by one of Taiwan’s three telcos, is Taiwan’s number one domestic streaming platform. friDay serves Taiwan’s appetite for Korean, Japanese and local content and has committed to a growing slate of co-production partnerships in a crowded environment of more than 20 local and global OTT services.

The average consumer in Taiwan used three OTT platforms from 2020 to 2023, but paid for less than two, compared to the U.S. where consumers pay for up to three, according to friDay Video. In 2023, Taiwan’s average paid streaming subscription was 1.57, down from 1.77 during the pandemic. “What does that tell us?” Tsai asks. “That it’s not easy to win people’s eyeballs,” he answers.  

At the same time, Taiwan cable, once the crown jewel of Asia’s pay-TV environment, is shrinking. Streaming viewership overtook cable viewing for the first time in 2023. Tsai cites public data that shows Taiwan’s OTT market size up from about US$856 million to about US$2 billion heading into 2023. Although growth has slowed, the trajectory still points north. By 2027, Taiwan’s streaming market size is expected to be more than US$2.5 billion, according to PwC Taiwan Entertainment & Media Outlook. 

The top genres are drama, movies, variety shows, animation, music programmes and news, according to TAICCA’s 2023 Taiwan Content Trends report. Surveys from three local agencies – Nielsen Taiwan, the National Communications Commission (NCC) and TAICCA –  show friDay Video in top local streaming spot. That’s behind global platforms, but Tsai is taking the win. “We have been trying our best,” he says.  

friDay Video’s line up is led by Korean, Japanese and local Taiwanese content – in that order – with a wide range of movies as well as a strong flow of live content in the form of news (“Taiwanese are crazy about news,” Tsai says) and live events, such as music concerts. 

friDay takes the live event approach a notch up with, for example, multi-angle cameras “for a better user experience”, Tsai says, underscoring the focus on being “competitive in a very fiercely competitive market”.   

Korean titles include exclusive rights to premium drama followed by movies and a trove of variety shows. In Q2 this year, friDay Video streamed about 18 variety titles. “Variety has really taken off in Taiwan,” Tsai says. 

He emphasises a string of strong partnerships with Korean broadcasters as well as platforms such as Hong Kong-based regional streamer, Viu, through which friDay Video accessed 2022 Korean blockbuster "Reborn Rich". The following year, friDay worked with Korean broadcaster SBS for "Taxi Driver 2". Korean thriller "Knight Flower", which broke MBC rating records for a Friday-Saturday drama in Q1 this year, was also part of friDay’s line up. “For the past three years, we have been able to license the highest-rating programmes both in Korea and in Taiwan,” Tsai says. 

friDay Video has also  inked a slate of exclusive deals with major Japanese studios and TV stations, including an annual contract with Fuji TV, for premium drama and some movies. 

Taiwanese content is a third – but rising – pillar for friDay Video. The local initiative kicked off two or three years ago with licensing of drama series, movies variety and reality shows. 

U.S. studio movies along with films from China, Hong Kong and Thailand build out the entertainment offering. 

Other Asian markets have taken something of a back seat so far, but nothing is off the table, Tsai says.

Meanwhile, AI... speaking during the ContentAsia Summit in Taiwan in September, Tsai said friDay Video’s churn had been effectively reduced by 10% in a year because of its AI-powered recommendation system developed with Microsoft and Open AI. Users have also increased their viewing time by more than 30%. “AI really gives OTT operators strength... it’s not just something to say to show off”. Happy Friday!

▶ Published in ContentAsia's Oct/Nov 2024 Magazine