Maaduu: One successful year of the Free Video-on-Demand online TV Channel

Maaduu is the first and only free and legal video-on-demand online TV channel in Malaysia that runs primetime K-dramas and live performances of K-pop artists, 48 hours after its release in Korea from Korea’s KBS and MBC respectively. It plays high-quality videos complete with English subtitles.

Its library stocks over 2,000 hours of Korean goodies in full-length episodes from over 150 drama titles – including the loved Autumn in My Heart, Winter Sonata, Boys Over Flowers, Wol and The President, and Cruel Love to name a few.

Since its debut in September 2010, Maaduu has been on the high with great response and huge demand by over a million Korean flicks fans all over Malaysia. Within just a year, Maaduu has almost 1.5 million fans on Facebook (as at November 2011) and over 600,000 registered members (as at August 2011). Take note that its 1 millionth fan was acquired in just 9 months, making it the fastest growing video streaming portal in Malaysia.

According to Maaduu’s last statistic made in August 2011, 66% of the fans are Malays, 31% are Chinese while 4% are others, with majority fans are ranging from 15 to 34 years old. Among other interesting facts found are on average, each fan spent 3.5 hours per week and the fans make over 33,000 engagements (post and comments) on Facebook per week.

One of the factors that glued its community is its ‘Join Discussion’ feature that integrates with Facebook which allows viewers to discuss and share their experience with other viewers and fans on each drama/show.

Albeit Maaduu is just a year old startup, it manages to draw big brands’ attention to advertise with them such as DiGi, McDonald’s, Estee Lauder, Drypers, Libresse, Pantene, Clinique and more. The ads are played for 3 to 5 minutes at the beginning of each session – which is a reasonable trade for 60 to 70 minutes viewing compared to commercial TV channels that run 12 to 16 minutes ads per hour.

“Consumers develop and affinity towards Maaduu or the advertiser’s brand for making Maaduu possible and free. It’s no longer about ‘pitching’ a sale to the consumer but rather harnessing loyal ‘unsolicited’ support for our services and products by advertisers,” said Dennis Lee, founder of Maaduu.

According to Maaduu, the team is working on several new features such as Chinese and Malay subtitles and mobile apps to allow fans to watch on their smartphone.

Maaduu Singapore was recently launched in June 2011 and there are plans to expand further to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

From the advertisers list, we believe Maaduu has successfully made the right decision from the beginning to monetize from advertising rather than profiting from subscribers’ pockets. This also proves that big brands in Malaysia are taking internet advertising seriously.

Maaduu is owned and managed by PlayTV Asia, which is founded by Dennis Lee and Syed Yazrine.

Maaduu was started by five close long-time friends with a prior E-Learning Business relationship and they had first conceptualized the idea in early 2000.