A NEW ERA OF TELEVISION: WeTV’s IMPACT ON THE INDUSTRY’S LANDSCAPE
WeTV allows you to view TV episodes, movies, animation, and variety shows on internet-connected devices. The company’s earlier success came from its different approach toward the international market. WeTV is the subsidiary of Tencent Video, having all Tencent Video’s features but with localization. WeTV produces its own original local series, local marketing strategy, and localized language and interface to give the most optimum experience for the users. Entering the market as a mixed profit business model, WeTV supplies free content for the audience with ads and a subscription version to watch earlier episodes than users that are using the free account. This type of business model fits the Indonesian market as they have greater willingness to watch ads as an exchange for free content. But this also limited WeTV footsteps for the past year, WeTV has been popular among the middle-low-income segments but now, as WeTV is more eager to generate profit through subscription and lessen the role of advertising income, it did bring critics to the platform. Moreover, as newer OTT comes through the industry, WeTV is not the only one providing local original content. Giant players such as Netflix, VIU, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ Hotstar have also started to make their original local productions. Moreover, many local competitors also bring more cultural fit and differentiation that threatens WeTV’s position in the market. From a commercial perspective, how can WeTV balance audience interest and succeed in this dynamic relationship in the market to last over time? Could WeTV beat its competitors and be the market leader in Indonesia OTT market? What changes in Strategy WeTV should implement to better fit the consumer?