Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) conditionally approved SK Telecom, the country’s largest wireless carrier, acquiring a 30 per cent stake in Content Alliance Platform (CAP), a joint-venture company of KBS, MBC, and SBS, Korea’s three largest TV networks. CAP will merge its online video service, Pooq, with SK Broadband’s Oksusu to create a new service called Wavve. (Korea Times)

Talking point: The merger will make Wavve the largest domestic online streaming service with 12.5 total subscribers. It’s aiming to be a homegrown competitor to Netflix, which has been expanding quickly, after only having a 4.7 market share in the country in 2018. An estimate from June said it had 1.84 million paid subscribers in the country—nearly triple what it had the year before—while others place the total number at 2.4 million. Netflix’s entry into Korea in 2016 wasn’t embraced by the country’s domestic players, many of whom turned down licensing partnerships with the streaming giant. But it’s been gaining traction by developing in-house Korean content while also promoting existing Korean content to its immense global audience, something domestic firms don’t have. One factor that could hinder Wavve’s ability to compete is the conditions placed on it by the FTC. Wavve must negotiate contracts with rivals that want its broadcasters’ content, while those rivals aren’t obliged to do the same in return. That means if Netflix wanted to stream an SBS show, for example, Wavve must negotiate the request—but if Wavve wanted a Netflix show, the U.S. firm can simply dismiss it.