Univision Communications said it plans to launch a unified global streaming service with both free and advertising-supported tiers.
Univision launched its ad-supported PrendeTV in the U.S. in March. The new service is expected to launch in the U.S. and Latin America in 2022.
Univision said the new service--with the best of PrendeTV, Vix (acquired in February) and Univision Now--will offer more Spanish-language originals that any other service, and would include content from the Televisa library. Univision and Televisa announced plans to combine in April..
“With today’s announcement we are giving an early view into the scale and scope of our streaming ambitions. My partners and I closed on our acquisition of Univision less than six months ago, and I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made to date. With the acquisition and integration of Vix and the launch of the current, early version of PrendeTV, we now have an audience that is more than 7M users worldwide and growing rapidly,” said Univision CEO Wade Davis.
The new service will be run by Rodrigo Mazon, who was named executive VP and GM of SVOD. Mazon joins Univision from Netflix, where he had been VP of content, and reports to Pierluigi Gazzolo, president and chief transformation officer at Univision.
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“Today’s announcement is a quantum leap in Univision’s transformation as we aggressively scale and expand our streaming capabilities to bring thousands of hours of premium, original content to the nearly 600 million Spanish speakers around the world,” said Gazzolo. “We are excited to announce our new SVOD service as a powerful cornerstone of this strategy, providing us the opportunity to reach global audiences with high-quality, original programming from distinguished producers and top talent not available anywhere else. With PrendeTV, and now with our SVOD offering, Univision is uniquely positioned to satisfy the global demand for premium Spanish-language content, the last truly meaningful open lane in global video streaming.”
