hi! you mentioned WeTV/YYDS/Insight not sticking so much to the coupled pairing system and I am very intrigued👀 what are some actors or shows under them?
YYDS haven't put much out yet--it was only founded in 2023--but the trend has been an aim for prestige BL stylings. For BL, they have 4 so far: I Feel You Linger in the Air, My Stand-In, Never Forget Your Enemy, and, releasing this month, Love of Silom. They have a few more series they announced (thank you @poomphuripan) for release this year, as well. UpPoom are their only clearly fixed pair in terms of series and promotion--although Up and Poom both have their own independent management. YYDS also put on the variety series Boys Lost in Thailand with many of their upcoming actors. With Boys Lost in Thailand, they let the actors mingle without any clear push for specific couples, despite having at least one pair (and I suspect more to come) who were set to be in a YYDS series together.
The executive producer and founder, Yuan Wan Thabkrajang, stepped down last year, but there's other continuing elements. P'Pepzi is the creative involved in the company people are most likely to be familiar with. She worked as an assistant director under Aof Noppharnach at GMMTV and directed Sweet Tooth Good Dentist over there--but don't hold that against her lol--because she also co-directed Kinnporsche and My Stand-In, two of the more boundary-bushing and visually stunning BLs out there. She also directed the variety show and is directing Love of Silom. According to the Tpop wiki, YYDS only manages two artists Porche Tanathorn (Sol from My Stand-In) and Earth Sira Tararak (who was on survival Chuang Asia 2).
From what I can tell, YYDS has a strong relationship with Insight Entertainment, founded in 2020. Insight manages several of the actors that appeared on the shows I mentioned above, and they have a multi-national direction with their artists, a few of whom BL fans might recognize, like Pentor Jeerapat, Nine, and Lay Talay. Daou and Joong were both formerly managed by the company, too. They manage Lee Jawoon and Hwang Junsu, two Korean actors, who are currently paired in Never Forget Your Enemy, a YYDS production in partnership with WeTV.
Which brings us to WeTV, aka Tencent video, a Chinese streaming platform launched in 2011. In the BL-sphere, they're one of the first digital streaming platforms to get involved with co-production of series, as well, but they do plenty outside of BL, too. It's a model similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime. IQiyi has also recently joined in this model, although, unlike WeTV's close relationship to YYDS and Insight, IQiyi has opened their own management of actors. In one sense, I actually think WeTV (and even moreso IQiyi now) is a bit closer to GMMTV than many other companies people often use for comparison because the company has a hand from creation to release in the same way GMMTV starts at the production level to bring it to distribution throughout it's parent companies television platforms.
One of the popular series WeTV recently released was Love (X), a bisexual (described as "boundless love" by the series) reality dating show, which featured, among others Hwang Junsu, who as I mentioned above was managed by Insight and paired in a YYDS x WeTV production. Now, Junsu's acting partner Jawoon was not in the show, which I found fascinating. We all know reality shows can be used as vehicles for artists to get their name out there, but nothing about going on this show fit with the BL model for building a fan-base and financial backing. Coming out has been mentioned time and time again as an obstacle for male BL actors. But an even bigger surprise is putting him on the show without his koojin. There's a way they can spin this narrative, but I've seen other actors' entire digital ship history practically erased (looking at you pre-Earth Mix Sahaphap), so putting an actor on a full reality dating show when you know he's got a CP project coming up is dramatically different.
I think this throuple of companies offers somethings healthy to the QL-sphere. Centralizing all the parts of production makes for an exceptionally risky work environment. We just watched Idol Factory implode, and it's been a recurring issue in the vastly unregulated Thai entertainment industry. Much of GMMTV's ability to amass strong actors has come from its financial stability and capability to offer actor's regular work within their much more massive network of production and release platforms. They've literally been picking up actors from the collapses (or restructurings of other BL companies). That's a gift to the actors, of course. However, that centralized structure with a stable of actors is RIPE for abuse of power. GMMTV doesn't seem to be doing this (many of their actors take work regularly outside the company), but the potential is stronger. Look at the history of Hollywood for some horror stories.
The separate-but-intertwined companies model--one for production, one for talent management, and one for distribution--defends against that kind of financial risk and abuse of power. Especially for the actors (the talent), having a company solely dedicated to getting them the best deals allows them to push a bit harder for what they want. This might, in fact, be why Junsu can explore something beyond the CP model, why Boys in Thailand didn't press a coupling agenda, and why YYDS can focus on prestige dramas without all the publicity issues that faces a company with a similar demographic like BoC. I could be wrong about all of this, of course, and we'll see how things shape up in the next few years. But, I think there's something quite unique going on here to take note of.
