earticle

영어

The online fitness industry has experienced rapid growth in recent years, overcoming physical and geographical constraints of conventional fitness programs. The COVID19 pandemic accelerated the trend as social distancing policies were implemented. However, as financial distress of offline gyms worsened, the Korean government implemented the "With-COVID19" policy, lifting most of the restrictions and regulations, which raised concerns about the loss of drivers for the growth of the online fitness industry. Using regression discontinuity design in time (RDDiT), this study investigates the causal effect of the "With-COVID19" policy on viewer engagement of online fitness content on YouTube. Contrary to expectations that viewer engagement would decrease, it increased by 21%, and additional analysis reveals the heterogeneity, as high-cost group experienced a greater increase of 32%. Based on these findings and possible mechanisms, the study provides practical implications and contributes to existing literatures.