A Conversation on Regional Language Content: Kocowa CEO KunHee Park (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Then what happens?

KunHee Park: I could not speak English at all at that time. It was my handicap. NDS is a global company. I could hear Indian English, British English, Hong Kong English, and American English. It was challenging for me. I tried to communicate properly. I tried to learn all the advanced technologies in paid TV technology. It’s based on encryption. There’s very advanced technology across manufacturers and service providers.

Sramana Mitra: You developed a lot of core competencies in the area of TV and related technologies like streaming and IPTV.

KunHee Park: Yes. The starting point was traditional paid TV infrastructure. When I did the streaming project, it was close to IT infrastructure. I had to learn about data analytics and various e-commerce connectivity. The final project was OTT, mainly in Asia. This was acquired by Cisco. It was probably around 2011.

Sramana Mitra: Did you work for Cisco?

KunHee Park: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: How long?

KunHee Park: Until 2016.

Sramana Mitra: You were still based in Korea?

KunHee Park: Yes. I was covering northeast Asia – China, Korea, and Japan mainly.

Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2016?

KunHee Park: Korean content was very popular in Asia at that time. KDrama was extremely popular in Asia, especially in China. It was number one at that time. Korean production companies didn’t have any experience delivering data content to the market directly. They sold their license to the service provider. The price of the content was around $2 billion. They thought it was successful, but I didn’t think so.

The buyer of the content has over 100 times revenue than the producers. No OTT service provider in Korea played in the Asia Pacific region. Then one day, a broadcaster came to me. They asked me to join a joint venture company. They were going to make a global platform in the US. They were going to serve K content.

When I got the offer, I laughed at their approach. I know how much they hate each other. Each broadcaster hates each other too much. I asked them if they were working together. They were really competitive of each other. They pursued me for six months. I wanted to see their strategy. Their strategy was valid. I thought for a while. I believed that this might be the first and last chance. If they will fail, they will not try again.

Sramana Mitra: Is this Kocowa?

KunHee Park: Right.

Sramana Mitra: Their idea was to have a platform where all these Asian broadcasters will be using this platform?

KunHee Park: No.

Sramana Mitra: What is the concept?

KunHee Park: They collect all the Korean content onto one platform. The broadcasters – KBS, MBCN, and CBS – produce over 50% of Korean content. They were unsatisfied with the individual license being sold separately. They cannot collect user experience at once. At that time, Hulu and Amazon Prime individually bought individual titles. There was no common user experience under K Content brand before.

Sramana Mitra: There was no Netflix of Korean content is what you’re saying. There were piecemeal content, but you didn’t have it in one place.

KunHee Park: Right. The broadcasters made the strategy to build a unified platform in the United States. They try to provide better user experience under one brand name.

This segment is part 2 in the series : A Conversation on Regional Language Content: Kocowa CEO KunHee Park
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