There's a significant shift happening in the way K-pop is being covered on over-the-top (OTT) platforms.

In the past, solo reality shows featuring K-pop idols were widely available on OTT platforms. Services like Wavve and Tving had a steady stream of original idol reality shows they had produced themselves.

Wavve, for example, released shows like 'Level Up Project' featuring Red Velvet's Irene and Seulgi, 'Boys Mental Camp' with Kim Jaehwan, Kim Wooseok, Jeong Sewoon, and Lee Jinhyuk, and 'Mtopia' featuring SuperM. Before being absorbed by Tving, they garnered positive responses from fans with shows like 'Wanna One's Wanna Travel', 'Mamamoo's Lucky Day', 'Winner Vacation: Hoony Tour', 'Sechskies' Incident in Bali', 'N.Flying's Delicious Truck in Jeju', 'Monsta X's Now on Vacation', 'NCT Life', 'Yeri's Room' and others.

However, recently, there has been a growing trend for documentaries that focus on the backstage lives of these idols, rather than traditional reality shows. This trend began in 2020 with Netflix's 'BLACKPINK: Light Up the World' and continued last year with Wavve's 'Mamamoo: Where Are We Now', a seven-year record from their debut to their rise to stardom.

In February, Tving released 'K-pop Generation', a documentary covering all aspects of K-pop. This documentary, featuring the stories of K-pop from a total of 22 teams and 53 K-pop artists including Kangta, BoA, Super Junior's Leeteuk, Sunmi, SHINee's Minho, 2PM, Highlight, EXO's Suho, Mamamoo's Hwasa, Seventeen's Hoshi, NCT's Doyoung, aespa, IVE, Kepler, L'ArcenCiel, and others, along with experts from various fields and fandoms, garnered considerable attention.

Disney+ has also been steadily releasing a series of K-pop idol documentaries since last year. They produced 'BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star', a full-scale documentary on BTS, 'J-Hope in the Box', a solo documentary on BTS's J-Hope, 'Suga: Road to D-Day' capturing BTS's Suga's solo world tour journey, 'Super Junior: The Last Man Standing' telling the backstage story of Super Junior, 'Tomorrow X Together: Lost the Weather', highlighting TXT's first world tour, offering fans the opportunity to hear these idols' sincere stories behind the stage.

Coming up on August 30, they plan to release 'NCT 127: The Lost Boys'. 'NCT 127: The Lost Boys' is a 'Neo Essay' that candidly captures what the members, now global stars, feel while looking back at their childhood. Unlike previous idol documentaries that focused on the trainee period to current activities, this documentary promises to capture NCT 127's childhood, which the members have never talked about before, for the first time, adding a special touch.

The trend of OTT platforms shifting from idol reality shows to documentary production is noteworthy. In reality show content, humor and fun were prioritized, and the entertainment factor was strong. Fans also enjoyed the reality show content as a new 'fandom' point, reworking and consuming it in two or three different ways.

However, given that the viewing target of these idol reality shows is mainly the fanbase, while completion rates were high, they fell short in attracting a larger audience. This is because fans would only consume related content, and there was insufficient connection to other content viewing. Moreover, while fans enjoyed seeing the cute variety-show side of their favorite singers, it didn't resonate much with the general public who were not familiar with the singer.

On the other hand, documentaries that deal with the sincere and professional side of K-pop idols are seen as refreshing for both fans and the general public. First, fans obviously cheer for documentaries that reveal the honest and straightforward side of their favorite singers. Interestingly, the general public also finds the barrier to entry for K-pop idol documentaries to be less than that for variety shows.

Even if the subject matter of a documentary is not of interest to the viewer, they often enjoy watching because of its academic aspect, leading to a wider viewer spectrum. Moreover, as K-pop's global status increases, not only fans but also the general public have a strong tendency to analyze and interpret this phenomenon. Especially with the global accessibility of OTT platforms, viewers worldwide can specifically understand the backdrop of the current K-pop syndrome.

Cha Woojin, who oversaw the story of Tving's 'K-pop Generation' as the main producer, said, "The attempt to produce related content is not because K-pop is accepted overseas, but because interest in the K-pop music fanbase has increased. K-pop has cultural influence and also yields good industrial results. While in Korea, where there is history, such K-pop documentaries might be seen as cliché, globally, they are receiving a lot of attention."

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