Drama Fever: A Lovely Way to Burn?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Facebook becoming a “utility”—something as fundamental to modern life as electricity and running water. I’m not on that bandwagon; I never even signed up, believing my privacy to be more important than posting daily updates about my cat or friending elementary school classmates I’ve lost touch with. (Newsflash: If we’ve lost touch, there’s probably a reason.)

On the other hand, it’s getting pretty darn hard to imagine life without Drama Fever. It’s the first thing that pops up when I turn on my television, before even the option for local or cable networks. I spend a horrifying amount of time on the site, and am always relieved when they carry something I want to see. The streaming competition just isn’t tenable: Viki is buggy, Crunchyroll has a tiny selection, and the Drama Crazy class of illegal sites are unreliable, low-res nightmares stuffed with ads that usually cause my computer to freeze.

I’ve been a premium member of Drama Fever for almost as long as I’ve been obsessed with Korean drama. And while the service isn’t perfect, it’s absolutely the best value I get for my entertainment dollar. According to my drama list, I’ve watched 1,285 episodes over the past year and a half (!), the vast majority of which were housed on Drama Fever. That means I’ve paid under 5 cents per hour of of television. If things stay as they are, it’s hard to imagine that I’d ever end my membership.

My worry, though, is that things won’tstay as they are. Drama Fever’s recent redesign was fine and gets better every day, but two months on it’s still littered with features that don’t work the way they should. There are little problems and big problems, ranging from it being impossible to navigate beyond the first page of user reviews to the inexplicable quasi-functionality of the Currently Watching feature. Once upon a time, clicking on a show listed there would take you right to the episode you most recently watched, but now it drops you at the series’ first episode. (Sometimes. Other times it seems to pick a random episode in the 5 to 8 range.) In combination with the redesign’s less-trustworthy “you’ve watched this episode” checkmark and lack of the “watch again” screen for episodes you’ve completed, I’m always having to hit play on multiple episodes to find where I actually left off. And then there are the mouseover notes that have disappeared altogether—they used to be a handy way to see the other shows actors had been in without navigating away from the drama you were watching. With a slowish internet connection, that was a blessing.

Even more concerning is that Drama Fever might just start focusing on their new Spanish-language content at the expense of Asian shows. As a service geared toward North American users, it’s no wonder they wanted to expand their offerings into Latin American programing: there’s a huge population of people here with roots in that region, many of whom are native speakers of Spanish. Now that it’s possible to watch shows on Drama Fever without subtitles, the site is in a prime position to market to this group. The word of mouth potential is so enormous that it’s not hard to imagine this material taking over the site.

I don’t have any evidence to back this up, but it’s my impression that Korean drama gets much less attention in mainstream American media than the closer-to-home Spanish-language programing. For one thing, people are familiar with telenovelas because there have been a number of American remakes, including Ugly Betty and an upcoming Sofia Vergara project. (Dear McG: How about an American Boys over Flowers? Please?) The Hispanic population in America is also about three times as big as the Asian population. Clearly, heritage doesn’t determine viewing habits, but it might just mean more press coverage, more infrastructure, and potentially more buzz.

On the bright side, Drama Fever’s new video player is pretty awesome: I love being able to watch things in high definition, which really improves the experience of gorgeously filmed shows like Arang and the Magistrate. The ability to change the subtitle size is also nice. Drama Fever’s selection of dramas is still incredible and growing every week. They even stream most of the new shows I want to see (although I’m getting a little antsy about the new Yoon Eun Hye drama, which still hasn’t appeared on their Coming Soon list).

I also find it interesting that Drama Fever has recently replaced their original version of Secret Gardenwith higher resolution files and re-edited subtitles. I don’t have much company on this one, but Secret Garden is probably my least favorite Korean drama of all time. (The only thing that might make me enjoy it more would be cutting out all the parts that include human beings—I could actually sit through the resulting thirty minutes of pretty scenery and interesting architecture without wanting to scratch my eyes out.) I don’t remember the Drama Fever subtitles or video quality for this show being particularly bad, though. Does this mean they’re going to be revisiting all the popular old series and making improvements? Because their Coffee Prince is grainy as all get out, and its subs aren’t particularly good (even if they are the official ones).

(Some random facts about Coffee Prince on Drama Fever: you can tell by the numbers in its URL that it was the first drama they ever uploaded, and although they recently improved its crappy descriptive copy, it now incorrectly says that Choi Han Gyul is from a “wealthy hotelier family.” Plus, it calls him “Han Kyul,” in contrast to the show’s subtitles.)

I’m also glad to see that new shows are being added from Korea’s jTBC cable network. This channel aired a slew of programs this spring that had Korean-speaking bloggers buzzing, including A Wife’s Credentials and the sitcom I Live in Cheongdam Dong, but as of yet none of those shows have made it to Drama Fever. (As far as I can tell, they’re only available streaming on one legit site, and even then only partially subbed.) Drama Fever once carried new shows aired by this network, so I was wondering if they’d had a falling out that represented the end of the relationship. It seems that’s not the case, though, as both jTBC’s Beloved and Can We Get Married? have been recently added. (I’m dying to watch the later, might I add.)

As conflicted as I may be about some of Drama Fever’s practices, it’s still the website I visit most often, and probably will continue to be. Here’s hoping, anyway.

• It started operations in August 2009 and now has more than over 400 streaming titles, for a total of more than 10,000 hours (“About Us,” Drama Fever)

• Drama Fever has “two million unique advertising-supported monthly visitors, having added an additional half million viewers since mid-March [2012]. Seventy-five percent of current DramaFever viewers are native English-speakers of non-Asian descent, underscoring the broadening appeal of foreign content, which has historically been attractive to art house and independent film fans. Traffic is doubling every six to eight months and is up 400% since early 2011.” ( “Drama FeverCompletes $6 Million Round with Backing from Global Media Giants,”Drama Fever press release)

• “DramaFever sees significant opportunities to attract millions of new users from adding Latin American telenovelas, Bollywood movies, and expanding the service to potential new viewers in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Australia.” (“Drama Fever Raises $4.5 Million in SeriesB Round to Found Global Expansion,” Drama Fever press release)

• By early 2013, Drama Fever will carry 60 Spanish language shows from Argentina and Spain (“Asian-Spanish Fusion for Drama Fever,” Variety.com)

• In 2013, Netflix will stream 500 hours of Drama Fever content. (“Drama Fever adds Spanish Flavor,” C21 Media)

• “DramaFever is already the largest single source of online revenue for its Asian content partners.” (“DramaFever adds Spanish-language content, hooks up with Netflix and iTunes,” Gigaom)