Thailand's biggest BL producer absorbed its most distinctive rival for 3.5m baht
Thailand's dominant producer of BL drama, boys' love, the male-male romance genre that became the country's most successful television export, took majority control of its best-known independent rival on 14 September.
The One Enterprise told the Stock Exchange of Thailand that day that Studio Wabi Sabi Co., Ltd. had been incorporated, with GMMTV holding 51 per cent and the studio's founder and director, Siwaj Sawatmaneekul, holding 49 per cent. GMMTV's share was worth about 3.56m baht, roughly £81,000, paid from working capital, according to the filing as reported by ChaPop.
Thailand's dominant producer of boys' love drama took majority control of its best-known independent rival on 14 September, through a newly registered company capitalised at a few million baht.
The original Studio Wabi Sabi, founded by Sawatmaneekul in December 2018, was not bought. A new company carrying the same name was created around its founder, with GMMTV in control of it and The One Enterprise above that. The registered business is content production and development, together with integrated artist management. GMMTV becomes a direct parent and ONEE, the SET-listed group that has owned GMMTV since 2020, an indirect one.
What GMMTV has acquired for the price of a small flat is the name behind Love By Chance and Until We Meet Again, two of the series that turned Thai BL into an export category before GMMTV industrialised it.
The two have been converging for years. In 2022, the vampire project Sawatmaneekul developed at Wabi Sabi moved to GMMTV after the lead actors' contracts expired, re-emerging as a GMMTV title co-produced with the studio. In 2024, Wabi Sabi performers including Boun Noppanut and Santa Pongsapak signed to GMMTV.
The remaining independence went last week. On 30 September, Studio Wabi Sabi announced it was closing its artist management and development department after nearly a decade, having already wound back that side of the business in 2024.
The commercial logic is the one playing out across Asian entertainment at every scale. HYBE bought labels, Toho bought animation studios, and Tencent took minority positions across Korean and Thai music. GMMTV has gone a step further and bought the director rather than the catalogue, which is the cheaper purchase when the asset is a sensibility.
For Thai BL as an export, the question is what happens to range. GMMTV's output has a house style, a house cast and a house distribution route through ONEE's prime-time slot on GMM 25. Wabi Sabi's reputation rested on not having one.
Sawatmaneekul remains a director of the new company and its second shareholder. He now makes Thai BL as an employee of the group that buys most of it.
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