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Films and TV dramas are reducing their size in order to enter the Internet. Web dramas or web movies are not just a service to offer films and TV dramas through the Internet, but media products specifically made for mobile devices, especially smartphones. Web dramas offered on online mobile platforms such as portal sites, YouTube and various social networks, spread their content into 10-minute episodes, to fit the environment and attention span of mobile users. After going viral in 2013, web dramas exhibited a drastic rise in the number of productions and viewer hits in 2015. This even led to the launch of ‘KWEB FEST’, the first Asian film festival specializing in web series.

 

 

Web dramas started attracting attention in 2013 when two major works directed by two film directors, YOON Seong-ho and LEE Byoung-heon, went online. The two drama episodes, directed by each filmmaker in serial order under the title The Hungry Woman, gained steam for their populist and stylistic approach. Despite the fact that the web drama market was still at an early stage, the drama earned 50,000 hits during a course of two weeks, and has become a steady seller that continues to generate a high hit rate. The series’ enthusiastic response inspired a second season for The Hungry Woman.

 

With the birth of a number of popular works since 2014, web dramas started to be seen as a general trend, and when quite a few web dramas with fresh new ideas and high production values came out in 2015, it began to attract attention outside of the online community. Major broadcasting companies started jumping into the growing web drama market. A Tale of Gansuchi, based on the behind-the-scenes story of the famous old Korean novel ‘Tale of Hong Gil-dong’ is the first web drama from the public TV KBS. The time slip drama, Splash Splash Love is a popular web drama from MBC.

 

Major companies are also joining the web drama market for the purpose of corporate marketing due to its cost-effectiveness and potential for expansion through social networks. Samsung C&T produced and serviced the web drama Yellow for the purpose of marketing its clothing brand. The local smartphone market has reached a size of 40 million users who spend an average of three hours a day on their mobile phones. With this kind of environment, free of any time and location constraints, web dramas can only become more competitive. And because production costs are low compared to films and TV dramas, there is more room for taking risks and to experiment. This is why the public is responding so well to web dramas.

 

Web dramas are also raising their potential as one-source-multi-use contents through overseas exports. After School Missions, which was sold to Japan and China, attracted more than 10 million hits on China’s largest portal site, sohu.com. Season 2 was in fact entirely shot in Beijing. At last year’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), The Hungry Woman was the first to sell its rights to China through the first Entertainment Intellectual Property Market (E-IP) at the Asian Film Market. It’s not just the hardware of the market that's improving, but the quality of the contents as well. The most popular web drama of 2015, I Eat, Therefore I Am was officially invited to the 31st Santa Barbara International Film Festival where it was recognized not only for its value as entertainment, but also its quality.

 

The web drama, which was as good as any film or TV drama, eventually earned a slot for IPTV servicing. The film and broadcasting industry both seem quite keen on the possibility of web dramas settling down as an independent content market much like webtoons.