Technology

Vix debuted Brazil's first free video streaming platform in late August

Latin America, where Vix Cine e TV launched last year, has been proving an interesting market for ad-based video-on-demand services

Image: Vix/ Courtesy
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  • Vix Cine TV has achieved a great success in Mexico, where it was the number 1 entertainment app on Google Play, according to App Annie;
  • In Brazil, Vix Cine e TV debuted in a commercial partnership with food-processing giant BRF, which offers branded channels.

Vix Cine e TV, a new video streaming platform, arrived in Brazil in late August. Along with more than 1,500 hours of content, including films, series and original productions, the service has also brought to the country a new and growing model in the industry: it is free of charge.

Vix was already available in Spanish-speaking countries since October 2019, and it has also chosen Latin America as a focus market for its advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) service. The region has been proving an interesting international market for the model, in which the platforms’s revenues come from advertisers instead of subscription fees. 

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Other players in this field are PlutoTV (the free platform of the American media giant ViacomCBS), which debuted in Latin America last April and is set to launch in Brazil in December; Roku (a hardware player that allows users to watch streaming TV content from other platforms and end up creating its own streaming service), and Plex (a media server already known as an option for organizing digital libraries).

Vix Cine e TV was born in 2019, out of the acquisition of Pongalo, the leading free VOD company in the Latin market, by Vix, a social media publisher. Since then, the company has established itself as the largest AVOD player for the Latin public in the world, increasing its audience 25 times, driven by its 80 million followers on Facebook.

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“The expansion of our platform is a milestone in our efforts to serve our audiences in Portuguese and Spanish wherever they are”, said Rafael Urbina, CEO of Vix, in a press release. The Spanish version is currently available on 30 player systems, such as Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku, with more than 10 million downloads.”It has been a great success, being the number 1 entertainment app on Google Play in Mexico and other countries in Latin America”, adds Urbina, citing App Annie‘s figures.

In Brazil, Vix Cine e TV debuted in a commercial partnership with food-processing giant BRF, which offered a playlist with recipes using Perdigão-branded products and a channel with videos from Churrasqueadas, a page specialized in barbecue with over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

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“For advertisers, [Vix] presents a unique opportunity to take advantage of user time, which is increasingly growing, on VOD platforms. It is the perfect time for the brand’s message to reach effectively the viewer who is 100% focused on content,” says Enor Paiano, Vix’s country manager for Brazil. In addition to the option of 30-second ads, sponsors can also appear in branded content, sponsored channels or customized playlists, such as BRF’s.

Vix catalog includes films and series from different genres, with Brazilian titles such as Boleiros 1 and 2 by the filmmaker Ugo Giorgetti, and Breaking Through: No Ritmo do Coração, with Bruna Marquezine and Anitta. Children’s series Galinha Pintadinha and Palavra Cantada, in addition to the documentary Pelé: Birth of a Legend will also soon enter the app, available both on Google Play and Apple Store.

International titles include series Bitten, Gracepoint and Haven, in addition to the films Five Corners, with Jodie Foster, Day Zero, with Elijah Wood, The Keeper, with Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, among others.

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