IP Has Become the New Currency Whether it was Netflix flagging a dormant fandom waking up around Japanese live-action and Chinese-language content, or MD Entertainment pursuing global co-productions, one theme appeared repeatedly at APOS 2026: owning IP matters more than ever . The focus has shifted toward creating franchises capable of traveling across platforms, markets and formats.
“I always consider myself and my team as portfolio managers,” said Minyoung Kim, Netflix VP of content for APAC (ex-India), pointing to successful investments in Korea, Japan and India . During the “Indonesia At Scale” session, MD Entertainment founder and CEO Manoj Punjabi said global streaming services have become important gateways for Indonesian stories to reach international audiences .
Vertical Entertainment Moves into the Mainstream From ReelShort’s Southeast Asia expansion to FlareFlow’s efforts to build vertical reality franchises, industry leaders increasingly described vertical storytelling as a long-term content category rather than a temporary trend . The category now has financial weight to match the conviction: Media Partners Asia estimates that DramaBox and ReelShort are generating combined annualized revenue of close to $1.5 billion, with most users based in the U.S. .
At the “Building the Vertical Stack in Asia” session, COL Group International general manager and chief marketing officer Timothy Oh said: “Today we’re already seeing the development of vertical documentaries, vertical IPs and vertical franchises” . RisingJoy CEO and co-founder Cassandra Yang announced the launch of RJOY, a direct-to-consumer microdrama streaming service launching via TikTok Minis in the U.S. and Japan with 20 originals planned for the second half of 2026 .
The Creator Economy Achieves Scale YouTube India country managing director Gunjan Soni framed India’s creator ecosystem not as a marketing channel but as a structural economic contributor . YouTube reported that 200 million logged-in users searched for shopping-related content on YouTube India in 2025, driving a 250% year-on-year increase in shopping watch time . The content-to-commerce pipeline—creators driving direct purchasing behavior—emerged as one of the most commercially concrete developments in Asia’s digital economy .
Sports Fandom as a Business Strategy Sport emerged at APOS as the category where fandom logic is playing out most visibly. JioStar Sports CEO Ishan Chatterjee said the platform is now regularly delivering over 1 billion viewers per IPL cricket tournament season – 1.2 billion in 2026 – and set a global digital concurrency record of 72.5 million during the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Cricket 2026 Final . Chatterjee described live sport as one of the few formats still capable of aggregating audiences at that scale, and pointed to JioStar’s decade-long investment in kabaddi – now drawing over 300 million viewers a season – as evidence that cricket’s top-of-funnel audience can be redirected to build fandom in other sports from scratch .
Connected TV Reshapes Viewing Habits A theme that cut across multiple sessions at APOS 2026 was the accelerating shift of digital viewing to the television set. Soni described YouTube as “India’s prime-time screen” . Creator-led cricket content alone generated 190 billion views on the platform in 2025, with 66% of that consumption time spent on non-live content such as analysis and behind-the-scenes programming . JioHotstar’s Bharath Ram cited nearly 100 million connected televisions in India as context for the platform’s accelerating CTV push, while Soni said YouTube now reaches more than 75 million Indian adults aged 18 and above on connected TV screens .
Korean Content Industry Trends Korea’s screen content industry enters 2026 in a state of structural reconfiguration. In Cine21’s annual entertainment industry outlook survey, 51 leaders from investment, distribution, production, and talent management companies identified four defining trends for the year ahead: short-form content, AI integration, OTT consolidation, and international co-productions .
Short-form content appears on the radar for the third consecutive year, having graduated from experiment to established market . On AI, more than 90% of respondents described its adoption as either positive or inevitable, with usage now spanning the full production pipeline . International co-production has shifted decisively from option to necessity, with over 90% of respondents saying they had pursued or seriously considered co-production partnerships with overseas entities .
