Wavve Originals 'Beting on Fact' and 'Cult Hunter' Win New Media Content Awards
IT DAILY ·
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Wavve announced on the 16th that 'Beting on Fact' and 'Cult Hunter' had won awards.
The two works each won the top prize in the entertainment and documentary categories, respectively, at the '2026 New Media Content Awards' hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency.
Wavve is continuing its strategy of reconfiguring social issues into original content in entertainment and documentary formats.
Wavve has delivered results by producing original content on socially sensitive issues in entertainment and documentary formats. With original content on social problems such as fake news and pseudo-religion, Wavve has earned recognition for both quality and commercial success.
This result is in line with Wavve's strategy of reconfiguring social issues into formats suited to the platform, rather than investing in large-scale drama productions. Wavve is highlighting that strategy as a differentiating factor for Wavve Originals.
Wavve announced on the 16th that 'Beting on Fact' and 'Cult Hunter' had won awards. The two works each won in the '2026 New Media Content Awards' hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, with 'Beting on Fact' taking the top prize in the entertainment category and 'Cult Hunter' winning the top prize in the documentary category.
What the two works have in common is that they center on issues facing Korean society. 'Beting on Fact' frames fake news in the form of game rules, while 'Cult Hunter' was restored as a documentary tracking a long-buried religious study expert's murder case.
'Beting on Fact' won the top prize in the entertainment category. It is a social-experiment-style brain survival show that judges the truth of news based on limited information. The cast consisted of 8 people from different backgrounds, including current affairs commentators, politicians and celebrities.
The show took place in a space where smartphones and internet use were not allowed. Participants competed by deciding whether the given news was true and then placing bets. It was designed so that participants would determine the truth of the news and bet under conditions of limited information and blocked external searches.
Rather than directly warning about fake news or educating viewers, the production team used the participants' judgment process and wavering confidence as tension-building elements in the entertainment format. Viewers also took part by inferring whether the news was true or false using the same information as the participants. This was intended to prompt viewers to examine their own ability to assess information.
'Beting on Fact' was first released on March 27. It then recorded the highest number of new paid subscriptions among Wavve entertainment titles. The specific number of subscribers was not disclosed. Wavve said the experimental format addressing social issues showed that such content can lead to user acquisition on the platform.
Kim Jun-gyu, CEO of Next Key, said in his acceptance remarks that he was grateful for recognition of an attempt to present information and truth through an entertainment format. Kim said he would continue producing content with new perspectives and formats and expressed his intention to actively challenge the overseas format market.
The top prize in the documentary category went to 'Cult Hunter.' The work covers the murder of the late Director Tak Myeong-hwan and the forces behind it, and is a 5-episode series depicting the story of his three sons who pursue the case. The late Director Tak Myeong-hwan is known as South Korea's first pseudo-religion researcher.
Seo Jeong-mun, a PD from MBC's 'PD Notes,' took part in directing the work. Seo reexamined records of the 1994 incident and reconfirmed the testimony of the people involved.
'Cult Hunter' faced multiple injunction requests seeking to block its broadcast before release, but the court dismissed them and the show was released as scheduled. 'Cult Hunter' was released in May.
Immediately after its release, 'Cult Hunter' ranked second among all genres in driving new paid subscriptions on Wavve, and it took first place in the current affairs and education genre. Since documentaries are generally considered a more difficult genre than mainstream dramas or entertainment shows when it comes to attracting subscribers, 'Cult Hunter' is meaningful as a case of driving paid subscriptions on a platform.
After 'Cult Hunter' won the digital content current affairs and education category at the 53rd Baeksang Arts Awards, it added another win at the New Media Content Awards, receiving repeated recognition for its quality. The 53rd Baeksang Arts Awards were hosted by the Korea Broadcasters Association on the 3rd.
Seo Jeong-mun, PD, said 'Cult Hunter' is a work that sheds new light on Director Tak Myeong-hwan, who was murdered in 1994, and the three sons who followed him.
Seo Jeong-mun, PD, explained that content that was difficult to fully include in a broadcast was thoroughly captured on the Wavve platform.
Seo Jeong-mun, PD, said he hopes the work will be of some help to people who are still suffering from pseudo-religious harm today.
This simultaneous win is interpreted as the result of Wavve's social-experiment-style original content strategy. Rather than unilaterally explaining social conflict and the process of collective decision-making, Wavve has reworked them into a survival format built around participants' direct clashes and choices, and is expanding that approach with 'The Community 2.'
'The Community: The Community,' which won the Best Work Award in the entertainment and culture categories at the 2024 Blue Dragon Series Awards, brought together participants with different political leanings and values in one space to form a community. The work turned a social experiment on clashes of ideology and belief into entertainment, showing conflicts between different political leanings and values in the form of a community experiment.
Wavve continued its existing strategy with the release of the follow-up, 'The Community 2: The Invisible Hand.' The new season is set in an environment where resources and authority are sources of power, and the 13 participants repeatedly trade, betray, and cooperate over survival and prize money. The cast includes people from different fields, such as Gary Kim, Knox, Lee Su-min and Seung Woo-apa.
A Wavve official said the planning intent behind the two works was to reinterpret social issues such as fake news and pseudo-religion in the language of content. The official also said the company sees the latest awards as encouragement for the original and experimental spirit of Wavve Originals. The official added that Wavve plans to continue releasing content with social messages in the future.
Source: IT DAILY · Lee Jae-young
Original: https://www.itdaily.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=241657
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Source: IT DAILY
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