Naver TV rebrands as Naver NOW with new app, and some updated looks at Naver VIBE

Naver is reorganizing their audiovisual contents offerings by rebranding their previous video streaming site "Naver TV" under their music-focused audio streaming service brand "NOW."

Naver NOW promotional image

Naver NOW app on the App Store

Previously, Naver kept two seperate brands for this: NOW was an audio streaming platform accessible inside the main Naver app (or the Naver homepage) that offered several channels of streaming audio content including themed hosted shows and music, more like actual radio stations. I wrote a post about it awhile back:

Guide to Naver NOW audio contents service

NaverTV meanwhile was a YouTube-like catch-all site for watching video clips mostly of K-dramas and variety shows. 

But starting this month, NaverTV is getting a major overhaul and coming under the NOW umbrella. The NaverTV app has already transformed into the NOW app and highlights these live shows for broadcast. 

Naver actually released news about this in English:

Hello, this is NAVER TV team.​
It is thrilled to announce the latest update to our users.
NAVER TV has been renewed as 'NOW' brand as of March 28th, 2022.
​

What's change?
NAVER TV app → It will be replaced by NOW App once you update the app to the latest version.
NAVER TV web → No change, you can use the current service. (It will be integrated to NOW service by the end of this year)

Through NAVER TV app and web services, we have been trying to give you fun and joy.
By this update, you can watch NOW original contents in addition to the current NAVER TV live clips and VOD within a single application.

Enjoy newly added contents and brand-new app design.

​FAQ

Q. If I install the latest version of app to my device, then can I get back my previous NAVER TV app?A. Once you update the latest version of NOW app from Google Play or App Store, you cannot get back to the previous NAVER TV app.

Q. What about previous contents provided through NAVER TV?
A. No worry, still you can watch those contents from the updated NOW app. 

​Q. How can I sign in to the updated NOW app?
A. You can sign in with a NAVER account as you did in NAVER TV app.

 Q. Is this update applied only to mobile application?
A. Yes it is. Android and iOS applications are updated to NOW app in March, 2022 and web service is going to be updated by end of this year. We will let you know once we are going to update the web service.

[Naver TV blog]

The new app looks like a good fit for this kind of content. Here are some screenshots from Naver.

A lot of the focus of this app is on live broadcasts of entertainment content shows. So the live chat among the audience and ability to "heart" the content is a main feature.

Within the app you can now follow specific shows. Looks like they are branded as "Naver originals" (not a very original name, but gets the job done since we're already familiar with YouTube originals), and importantly the schedules are listed clearly to know when the live broadcasts go on air. Here you can see new episodes come out Mon/Wed/Fri at 9pm. I assume that following will give you an alert or something when it's broadcast time. 

Replays are finally more clearly located here. You can of course watch the scheduled replays (listed in the show schedule as shown above) but it looks like now these back broadcasts will be stored in the NaverTV type channel list for much easier viewing. The difficulty of hearing/watching former NOW shows seems to have been heard by Naver as this was surely a fan request based on online chatter. 

As they said, the NaverTV site will remain for now, but expect a refresh soon. Right now it looks the same as before, with just a promotional link to download the new app:

Screenshot from current design of Naver TV

The main Naver NOW promotional page highlights the types of shows available, bleeding over from the normal NOW broadcasts, and includes a link in the upper-right to a current live show. Scroll through it to see some of the featured shows.

Click it, and right from your computer right now you can watch in the NOW player. Currently it seems to be a promotion of a show called The X, as a new episode is going to air at 8pm, which is right now. 

And now episode 2 of "The X" featuring Squid and Tent (are these people?) is airing. 

The X episode 2 stream

Slightly confusing is that two seperate methods for rewatching are listed on the side, one for the preview and one for the actual show:

• 본방이 끝난 후 최신 에피소드는 " NOW.앱 > 쇼 홈 > 에피소드 탭" 에서 감상하세요!
• 본방이 끝난 최신 에피소드는 VIBE 앱에서 감상할 수 있습니다.🎉

So it looks like when the show is done, you can open this new NOW app > Show's homepage > "Episodes" tab.

But the second part says it's available in the Naver VIBE app (Naver's music streaming app, similar to Spotify). The VIBE app is mostly free, including ability to rewatch NOW streams for 2 weeks after their airing (usually starting ~3 hours after air), but after that you'll need the paid membership. 

Here's a quick illustration of how to rewatch Naver VIBE content:

Naver VIBE restream (다시보기) guide

I'm not sure what the difference is here. Are new episodes kept in the VIBE app until a certain point and then posted on the show's main NaverTV NOW channel? Are the NOW "originals" kept in one but not the other? Might want to check both if this is of interest to you. 

It will obviously be interesting to see how these two apps distinguish themselves going forward. Clearly VIBE has the huge streaming catalog of music and as a service geared towards a paid model is designed for that market. Until today I had no idea that VIBE included any video content at all. 

Including these NOW-produced shows reminds me of Spotify trying to milk premium podcasts on top of their bread and butter music streaming. Which is odd since VIBE already has a selection of original audio based show content:

Naver VIBE original audio contents. Naver Vibe

And further speaking of VIBE, I also did not realize until now that they've released native desktop apps (may be region locked if downloading from your desktop's app store):

Anyway there are a huge number of shows that will be airing in the dedicated NOW app. Take a look at their Instagram highlighting each one:

Screenshot of Naver NOW Instagram

Taking a critical view, I suspect NaverTV was just never popular or able to compete with YouTube for that kind of content it focused on, but "NOW On Air" has been popular both domestically and internationally. Probably a smart move to expand that into a more fleshed out K-pop and K-music destination with more live shows and entertainment content to better distinguish the app from YouTube or TikTok. 

Go ahead and listen/watch to whatever is the main live broadcast right now (there are usually several to choose from) at this link:

🔗 https://now.naver.com/listen

Or download the app yourself and try it out:

• App Store에서 제공하는 NAVER NOW
• NAVER NOW - Apps on Google Play

And the main Naver NOW broadcasts can still be heard from the Naver "Green dot" homepage, although they all seem to now be directing to the live video versions.

Overall it will be interesting to see how this whole ecosystem coalesces. Clearly there is a lot of content being produced a lot of push to distribute that content. But between NOW, VIBE, and V LIVE, there seems like too many options to keep straight. Maybe I'm just not familiar enough with the differences and specifics of each service. I don't use any of them regularly. Dedicated Koreaboos and K-pop fans will know more than me. 

UPDATE 2022: Apparently VLIVE is closing down, so it makes more sense that Naver decided to go this route, with more focus on produced content. 

So just click around and enjoy the plethora of options for getting your Korean entertainment fix.