A whole new iWant is coming tomorrow.
On September 1, 2020, ABS-CBN’s on-demand service iWant will officially merge with TFC Online, ABS-CBN’s international streamer to form iWantTFC.
Subsequently, by 12 midnight, access to the old iWant website at iwant.ph and on its app will be restricted. Current users are required to re-register themselves on the new iWantTFC. The new registration is needed as iWT will employ a different pricing strategy than the incumbent streamer.
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As described in the picture above, iWTFC will have 3 tiers: free, standard, and premium.
Free users will gain access to a limited number of teleserye and other TV programs from the iWantTFC library. 300 movies are also available for free from the get go. The popular Live TV option, however, will be limited to three channels, namely Kapamilya Channel, Knowledge Channel, and TeleRadyo. Adverts are activated for this range and an account can only be used for one device at a time.
This tier is a far cry from the current set-up of free users on the iWant app, where majority of its contents are readily available for free. Free live TV, which was amended to 4 channels (Kapamilya, O Shopping, ANC, and TeleRadyo) after the May 2020 shutdown of ABS-CBN, will also be reduced to three (as mentioned above).
iWantTFC standard users, meanwhile, will have additional perks like unlimited movies, access to all live TV channels and four more additional channels. Full catalog of TV programs – both archived and currently airing – and original contents from iWantTFC will also be unlocked once this option is activated. But all of these will come at a price of P60/month, with ads still activated and an account still allowed to be tied to a single device.
The premium tier, priced at P120/month, is virtually the same as the standard plan sans ads, being capable of sharing an account for up to 2 devices, and a free access to a movie-for-rent every month.
The rebirth of iWant as iWantTFC is rather unexpected as the service became one of the new ways many Kapamilyas sought after the shuttering of the terrestrial service of the network in May. Whereas, it has also become familiar to the masses and can also be considered as a household name, thanks to the successful marketing of the product since its inception in 2010.
However, changes to the service is also comprehensible as ABS-CBN deployed another digital strategy via Kapamilya Online Live, which came after the denial of its franchise application bid in July. With KOL being easily available on Facebook and YouTube, coupled with ABS-CBN News livestreaming many of its produced shows on the same platforms, made iWant’s own near free-for-all live TV and catchup service almost obsolete.
With this repositioning, one can hope that iWantTFC can emulate, if not beat, all the success that it achieved during its near two-year-run as iWant.