With a content offering focused on the Hispanic community and with an easy-to-use interface, TelevisaUnivision’s SVODViX+, is already a realityin the US market and in all Latin American countries where Spanish is spoken. The ambitious target is +600 million of Hispanics around the world.
Interviewedby Prensario, Rodrigo Mazón, EVP and general manager of ViX+, highlighted the streamer’s strategy, focused on Latin culture, some premieres, and some innovations included in the platform.ViX+ is TelevisaUnivision’s paid streaming platform, a proposal that meets the need for content especially aimed at the Hispanic community in the world: ‘We are not reissuing the classics from the TelevisaUnivision catalog, but rather presenting the most innovative content made by the creative community in the region’, he clarified.
The executive highlighted that during this first year of launch, the service plans to release 70 original titles from its development and production partners, which can only be seen on SVOD. ‘We have high expectations, very high. This is basically because we all bring a very precise vision of what the service can be. We have spent more than a year focusing on the product proposal, on the content proposal, and with-it fine-tuning strategies and ways to enter the market and stand out among the audience’,Mazón said.
With its launch, the service premieres the original blockbusters La Mujer del Diablo, and the period series María Felix, La Doña. The first one tells the story of Natalia Vallejo (Carolina Miranda), a primary school teacher with dreams of leaving her town to pursue a career in tourism, and Cristo Beltrán (José Ron), a notorious criminal who seems to be the town’s benefactor. When he becomes obsessed with Natalia despite the fact that she loves another of hers, he does the unimaginable to seduce her.
The production was filmed in more than 50 locations throughout central Mexico with cutting-edge cinematographic techniques, exceptional aesthetics and more than 1,300 extras. The Devil’s Woman presents Carolina Miranda, José Ron, Adriana Louvier, José Pablo Minor, among others; and was written by the Venezuelan author Leonardo Padrón.
The secondis based on the life of the legendary Mexican actress, María Felix, La Dueña is the first series about a star, 20 years after her death. The strip had an extensive journalistic investigation and testimonies from the people closest to the artist, including Luis Martínez de Anda, her right-hand man and her universal heir. Sandra Echeverría, Ximena Romo and Abril Vergara will play the role of Maria Félix at different stages of her life. The producer of the biography is Carmen Armendáriz, its director is Mafer Suárez and the screenwriters are Larissa Andrade, Alejandro Gerber, Tania Tinajero and Gabriela Rodríguez.
TelevisaUnivision shows off its content alliance with the main development players of the Hispanic community. Among the big names that comprise the ViX+ proposal, explained Mazón, it includes Eugenio Derbez‘s production company, 3Pas Estudios, with whom they already have some titles underway; also, with the producer of the actress Salma Hayek’sVentana Rosa, with whom they are already in production of the first film; likewise, with María Dueñas from Spain, who will premiere her first fiction for TV on ViX +, called Los Artistas; among others.
‘We also have the support of Televisa and Univision, as well as that of other content providers with a Hispanic identity. Our focus and strategy is to be leaders in the Spanish-speaking streaming world, and there we have a clear goal, since being a purely Latin company, this gives us the confidence to be able to bet on the business in the Hispanic market and therefore it gives us a competitive advantage over other players’, added the executive.
The service was launched on July 21, and will work simultaneously with its AVOD offer, ViX, launched on March. According to Mazón, this joint offer is one of his innovations, compared to other competitors, he explained: ‘Both services will coexist in parallel within a single platform and app. It will be easily accessible to all users. Although its content and experience are different, navigation and access will be in the same place’, he completed.
During the last month, TelevisaUnivision also completed the acquisitions of Hemispher Media’s US Hispanic OTT Pantaya, which offers series and movies in Spanish, combining a successful blockbuster and current programming line up, as well as top original productions available on the same time of the theatres premiers in Latin America.
