Spanish-language media giant TelevisaUnivision, which recently launched the ViX and ViX+ streaming platforms, has swung to a second-quarter loss, despite overall revenue growth.
TelevisaUnivision on Tuesday posted a loss of $7.5 million for the three months to June 30, compared with a profit of $54.4 million in the year-ago period. Overall revenue grew 11 percent to $1.1 billion.
Advertising revenue increased 11 percent to $686.6 million on what TelevisaUnivision called “strong” ad upfronts seasons in both the U.S. and Mexico, market share increases and growth in both linear and streaming ad sales. In the U.S., advertising revenue rose 10 percent to $447.7 million.
The media player earlier this year completed a deal to combine the assets of U.S. Spanish-language media firm Univision with the content and production assets of Mexican TV giant Televisa.
“The fact that the growth of our core business can fund our investments in streaming highlights the power of our unique assets and the quality and focus of our execution,” said Wade Davis, CEO of TelevisaUnivision. “With our full streaming service launched, we are poised to supercharge the already impressive growth of our core business with the massive global Spanish-language streaming opportunity. We are just getting started on executing on our vision.”
The company launched streaming service VIX, a free, advertising-supported video on demand service, and the subscription VOD service VIX+.
