Hana TV from Hanaro Telecom

Hanaro telecom, South Korea's second-largest broadband company, has begun offering video-on-demand TV service through its broadband network, which it expects to break even in 2007. Hanaro telecom expects revenue from the "Hana TV" service to reach 200 billion won ($210 million) annually by 2008.Converged service will help loss-making hanaro to defend and increase its customer base in the broadband and fixed-line markets. Hanaro and Korea Telecom were facing margin-crushing competition as local cable network operator Powercomm has entered into saturated Internet market.

Hana TV provides media content, including movies, on demand through a broadband Internet network and an IP set-top box hooked up to a television set. The service will cost new hanaro telecom customers 11,800 won a month and aprox 10,000 wons ($10.5) per month for existing customers excluding the set-top box price, which will be free when clients commit to a certain period of subscription. Some premium clips will be charged for separately. Users of Hanaro's broadband and landline telephony services will get favorable discounts and the monthly fees would go for as low as 7,000 won under a four-year mandatory subscription contract for them. Hana TV is expected to attract 250,000 subscribers by the end of this year, expand to one million in 2007 and 1.5 million the next year.

More than 22,000 high definition (HD) videos are now available to Korea's 12.5 million homes, the largest number for a domestic company, signing agreements with more than 50 domestic/foreign content providers including the Walt Disney Television, CJ Entertainment, SBS, BBC Worldwide, YTN, EBS, Daum, and National Geographic and is in talks with Hollywood studios including Warner Bros. When full-fledged Internet protocol television (IPTV) services begin in 2008, hanarotelecom can easily upgrade its existing network to provide IPTV service at low cost. Every version of VOD services has failed since its premiere about 10 years ago. But Hanaro has an edge this time in that it is starting the on-demand applications with full HD quality. As many households are presently equipped with HD TVs and they are eager to gain access to HD video clips. HanaTV can be the answer.