ok, I am confused. I just got back onto Viki a few days ago, not able to see some of the dramas I would like to see. I understand that Viki does need the money for licenses and all. But with someone like me on a fixed income, I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with the pricing, I am not venting, or angry like someone said. I do enjoy watching Viki, and they get shows that DF doesn’t get, and I will throw this in too, their subbers does a great job too, which we all have talked that one to death. so after this month I may have to cancel due to finances. I sure hate that ! p/s I will think on it first before making a decision.
I can’t figure out what Viki’s new business model is, although I do understand that it’s between a rock and a hard place at the moment. Viki probably didn’t have the option of renewing licenses for old KNet shows, and probably can’t license new ones from these networks either, outside of a structured deal of some sort with Kokowa. (The same thing will eventually slam Dramafever.)
I don’t think Viki has handled the transition well; these are large changes that they introduced to subscribers very suddenly without backup explanation. Also, the lines between Viki Pass and Viki Pass Plus content are too blurry, and are bound to create dissatisfaction and discontent with the subscribers. I’d expect a lot more clarity in the next 30-90 days, with Viki gambling that it can gain back any subscribers it loses. (This is not a good gamble on their part.)
The biggest thing I don’t get is: Why doesn’t Rakuten/Viki beef up its other content by adding Japanese programs? Or lakorns from Thailand? If they had to, Viki could lose all of its Kdrama content, and supplant it all with Chinese, Japanese and Thai programming. There is a huge market, and no one else is doing it.
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There has been a discussion here, some time ago, about how Japan actively discourages selling of its programs to international streaming sites. If I remember correctly, one of the ways to discourage buyers is to keep prices extremely steep.
As for lakorns, they have a very limited public, and the few that were here as fan channels were taken away last year. I don’t know anything about that. Only that all the Thai shows I tried to watch were of very low quality - with puerile, cliché scripts, over-the-top amateurish acting, poor cinematography etc. - so I was never able to complete any of them, until I quit trying.
I wonder if that’s rumor, or fact. I’m not contesting what you said about Japanese programming. I’m just wondering if it’s speculation. That would be quite interesting, seeing as how VIKI is owned by a Japanese company.
I knew that VIKI had wiped all of its Thai programming last year. I don’t believe VIKI spoke out about why it did that, except that I think the lakorns were unlicensed. If that’s the case, nothing stops VIKI from trying to make deals with Thai content providers, assuming it’s legal. (Your argument, that losing lakorns doesn’t matter because they are low quality anyway–I disagree. I would be glad to watch lakorns somewhere where they are showing legally.)
i just cancelled my viki pass. say what u will but i’m not ok with this plus stuff. the simple fact that i was paying the standard was crazy b/c i’m not on this site alot. but one can not argue with viki quality. i was happy to pay for the HD. but the fact that there is ANOTHER level just made me really think…is this worth it. no i dont think that is.
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I searched a bit for that thread.
It would also be interesting to find out whether other legal sites have more recent Japanese contents, to compare.
I haven’t upgraded yet, but if I do it will be the annual plan. I noticed a launch special which brings it down to 7.50 per month. Otherwise, I’ll just cancel. I was considering cancelling anyway because I rarely watch Viki anymore. Hoping the new change will bring a lot more exclusive shows to make it worth staying and paying.
I just upgraded to Viki pass, I hope this will be a good move.and more Japanese, Hong Kong, China dramas.
So I kinda did a search, I found some of the Japanese dramas, Chinese too, now let me ask you are they, (sorry don’t know the word,) black listing, black market? these dramas, are they not legal? is DF & Viki, yeah Netflix the only ones that have “licenses” for these dramas or what? Honestly I did see some fantastic dramas on that link!
Boy did I ever get off the subject! Anyway, I do hope we will get a better variety of dramas here.
I just remembered something about Japanese dramas, read it somewhere, but they don’t do the dramas because they frown on the way history is handled in those dramas, the person said that is one reason why they aren’t shown(or Chinese?)
Hello, you said the consumers are not in control? Without the consumers Viki, Drama Fever or Kocowa would be nothing.
Who do you think are putting “MONEY” in their pockets? We the consumers, without the consumers non of these drama places would be. Instead the market would rise with buying into the network with shows and network like KBS, MBC, SBS which right now I get all those networks on my TV through my TV provider like. ( Comcast ) even that need consumers.
Why do you think all these drama outlets started ? Because they knew they could make money. So we all have some choices here plug in or get out, either way it seems we may need each other. It all comes down to the Greed of Money. $$$$
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@peggyroyster_409
Hello!
I still say the consumers are not in control, they have influence but not control.
The money of the consumers …
Let’s start from the other side the production of a drama needs a lot of money, so yes the companies involved, try to raise money any way possible that’s why there is a lot of product placement, f.e. in Korean dramas. It brings money since it can raise attention from the consumers.
One episode may be sold for about 200.000 and 300.000 USD to a streaming service. So imagine what the production costs are, it’s not about peanuts.
Of course streaming services exist because the demand is there, but if the demand gets less, or too many want a “piece of the cake”, one or two might go out of buisness. We are still at the early stages of that developement. Nobody can predict how it will be in the future.
Therefore I still say the consumer has no control, if you become an associated person, you might get control.
But as consumer, especially as one consumer, you are not in the position to make certain content available. Or are you?
Advertisement make it as it seem that the content available is what you’ve always been waiting for …
If all consumers were f.e. like me all the “fast food chains” would go belly up. Some foodstuff in the shops would disappear. Convenience food would be gone.
I am still saying control is something else, when it comes to the intern business development. Of course it is the consumer to chooses or not chooses a product, but that is all the influence on the market he/she has, except you take part in funding a project and have a say. In the end if a product is not liked by consumers, we know how it ends, it will be a money-losing business. If the consumers had control, they could say I want that or that product, but even so we are still not at the point that simple wishes will get our most desired dramas on our screen. We might have done the first or second step to get there, but it still is a long way to go.
“Since you seem in control, did you create Kocowa? Can you get everyones favorite drama for them to watch?”
wow looks like some one is “hot under the collar” everyone of these places do want money, hey you can’t run a “business” without money, no matter how we gripe about it, its there.I do not think I am in control and never have.consumers are not making the money the people like Viki, Netflix, DF and the other links are. yeah I cancelled viki a month ago, and recently came back on here AND upgraded to viki pass. wow 2-300 dollars per episode?? thats a lot! I don’t know what started this but my goodness, , reason for me cancelling last month, I am on a fixed income and its getting kind of pricy for me. they are in control, not me. I will do this for awhile and just wait and see the outcome.
Even if you dislike thai dramas, there is a really huge fanbase in the internet and all are desperately searching for english subtitled thai lakorns. There are private fan sites and I must admit, I’m a big fan of lakorns, too. So I’m collecting all private playlists and all links to fan sites, as long as I can find them.
Viki had many thai lakorns and it’s a shame, that all got deleted. Although I can understand, that Viki had to delete them due license issues, as almost all of them were fan channels.
But you’re right, Japan is extremely possessive towards their dramas and their music, too. They don’t want to export any of them. I have friends in Japan and they confirm, that Japan has many restrictions.
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Hello Is this not a discussion ? You share your opinion, I respect that, I also share my opinion we can always agree to disagree, being “Sarcastic” is really not necessary to get your point across, by saying “Since you seem in control can I get everyone favorite drama for them to watch.” I have work with customers in businesses for years, and have witness the power of consumers, So nothing is impossible to do if done by a group of consumers not just one person who voice probably will not be heard in some cases. As far as the other side of the production why do you think the whole idea of having drama of all kinds come from? and why? Because they know there is a big market for it. Whatever the production cost may be it will, come back through the consumers less or even more. 
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i love viki because of the comments section. feels like watching with friends around the globe but with this plus subscription whats not to stop me and maybe others from watching the same shows for FREE and without COMMERCIALS in websites like drammacools?.
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I’m sure there are many fans out there, and I have absolutely no problem in viki including lakorns, as long as I also find what I like to watch. But my impression is that viki is more oriented towards Korean and Chinese content (Japanese too until some years ago), therefore it attracts mostly the public interested in those. (Mostly doesn’t mean “only”)
On viki, Indian content is very sparse, mostly fan channels, and out-of-bounds for European me. (I happen to like Bollywood films, but I think that TV shows are of a much lower quality than their films). And although viki has a number of telenovelas, it’s not the go-to-site for telenovela lovers. And so on and so forth.
It may be an impression, but I get the feel that there is a sort of specialization online. For instance there are sites where you find mainly manga-style shows, of which viki has never had any. Some others where you find mainly Chinese.
However, because of the Kocowa situation, I see this changing. They recently added a bunch of Indonesian and Pakistani stuff - of dubious quality if I may say so - as well as numerous reality shows from more or less everywhere.
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Hello!
Well, isn’t a discussion, about asking back and forth to understand the other persons standpoint better?
If I sounded a bit harsher, then normally, it may be because you sounded “rougher” in your response as well.
Maybe we have different access possibilities to Asian drama. Are you from the Americas?
It is just that the word control is a pretty “hard” word, like the word power.
I just wanted to know, where is the effect of the customer’s control?
Since I originally pointed out that the cusomers don’t have power, that certain buisnesses taking this or that step.
It is a business development the consumer is not in control, …
Maybe you will understand me better if I give an example … Let’s take this one. Viki being bought by Rakuten. It is not something in the consumer’s reach, or is it? We concumers were as surprised, as when Kocowa surfaced, right? These are the things, that I say are out of consumers’ control but have huge effects on the market.
Maybe we are talking past eachother, eventhough we are talking about the same thing, at least I hope we do?
Without the consumers Viki, Drama Fever or Kocowa would be nothing.
It’s a given all three are products, if there was no one buying it, it would vanish from the market. Agreed.
And maybe we are weighing the words control and influence differently? Even if you translate both of the words into my native language, you can get one:
https://www.dict.cc/?s=einfluss
Or if you translate them from my native language into English you can get two words:
https://www.dict.cc/?s=Kontrolle
https://www.dict.cc/?s=Einfluss
In the discussion not everything is black and white, but since you sounded as if I should change my point of view, or you just discem something else out of it, I felt like I had to make my point clearer. That’s all. And I wanted you to make your point clearer. And yes, it is a discussion.
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I just wanted to say I love you.
The only problem with DramaFever is they will eventually lose a lot of older licenses and aren’t getting 95% of the new shows. Kocowa is charging $70 a year is because they have monopolized the dramas. It makes me sad. I am going to drop DramaFever as soon as Hospital Ship goes off.
I am debating if i want to cancel my VIki. You are right they are charging more to watch the same shows and now new shows are released in Pass Plus. Not cool Viki!
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Right there with you girl! I have dramas that I start on DF but change over just cause I am dying to hear what everyone is thinking. but now I am building my list of other kdrama sites.
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