Televisa-Univision’s streaming service Vix grew its premium subscriber base to 7 million by the end of last year, the company revealed on Thursday.
The data point was announced as part of Televisa-Univision’s fourth quarter (Q4) and full-year earnings report for 2023, which saw a continued stregthening of its cross-border streaming business as more Spanish-language consumers cut the cable and satellite cord.
Vix launched three years ago as Prende TV, and was rebranded following the merger of various broadcast and digital assets owned by the former incarnations of Univision and Grupo Televisa.
The company said the number of monthly active users on a free, ad-supported version of Vix continued to grow during Q4, though it did not provide specific numbers to that effect. Last fall, executives said the ad-inclusive Vix streamer had around 40 million monthly active users.
Subscription revenues from Vix and other properties accounted for $700 million during 2023, the company revealed. All told, advertising connected to Televisa-Univision’s streaming and radio properties helped grow overall revenue to $4.9 billion during 2023, a 5 percent increase compared to the prior year when excluding certain factors such as the FIFA World Cup final, certain sub-licensing arrangements and impairment charges from the divestiture of some broadcast assets.
“In Televisa-Univision’s second year, we demonstrated that our strategy, our assets and our execution against a differentiated market opportunity can yield superior operational and financial results,” Wade Davis, the CEO of Televisa-Univision, said in a statement. “We outperformed both the U.S. and Mexican advertising markets. Our direct-to-consumer business finished its first full year of operation with over $700 million in revenue, and our strategy to build complementary linear and streaming platforms is resonating with audiences and our distribution partners… .”
Part of that strategy involves forging partnerships with other companies to help get Vix in front of more Spanish-language streamers. Last year, Televisa-Univision struck an agreement with T-Mobile that allows some of the companies postpaid and prepaid customers to get one year of Vix through the T-Mobile Tuesdays app. In January, the company reached a similar deal that allows customers of Charter’s Spectrum TV service to receive the ad-supported version of Vix as part of their plan.
“We are the Spanish-language media leader with roughly 60 percent share of linear viewership in the U.S. and Mexico and the largest dedicated Spanish-language streaming service in the world,” Davis continued. “The size and power of our markets continue to build and provide us with important tailwinds. The U.S. is already the most valuable Spanish-speaking market in the world by GDP, and this year, Mexico surpassed Spain as the second-largest market, with these two markets alone representing $4.7 trillion of GDP. This is the backdrop for an even stronger 2024 in which we are poised to capture a massive U.S. political opportunity and have sustained DTC profitability on the horizon.”
