By Cassandra Garrison
MEXICO CITY -TelevisaUnivision will launch its anticipated streaming platform "ViX" in March, executives said on Wednesday, billed by the company as the world's largest Spanish-language streaming content offering.
The new company combining Mexico's biggest broadcaster Televisa and U.S. broadcaster Univision will make available a free ad-based version of ViX on March 31.
The subscription-based tier, ViX Plus, will launch in the second half of the year, said Pierluigi Gazzolo, president and chief transformation officer of TelevisaUnivision, in a virtual presentation.
The services, which will compete with established rivals like Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc's Prime Video, were unveiled just over two weeks after the two broadcasters closed a deal to merge content and create TelevisaUnivision.
Company executives said prices for ViX Plus would be announced soon after a thorough socioeconomic analysis of Latin American markets where the product will be available.
"Everything you've seen today ... consumers are going to get at a lower price than the lowest price of all the global streamers that you see out there," Gazzolo said.
The free tier of ViX will host entertainment content, original live news and live sports, including soccer, executives said. ViX Plus will feature more exclusive new content, including movies produced by Mexican-born actor Salma Hayek and her production company. Fifty new original productions will be released in the platform's first year.
Chief Executive Wade Davis said the platform represented a "massive capital commitment of billions of dollars" on new Spanish-language content.
"This is multiples of what any other service spends on that," Davis said.
ViX will launch in Mexico and the United States before rolling out in other Latin American countries and Spain, executives have said.
