In an interview with The STAR and another media outlet, Viva Communications, Inc. president and CEO Vincent del Rosario says that they were surprised that in international territories, locals and not overseas Filipinos primarily accounted for the Pinoy-made streamer’s subscribers. In Indonesia, Vivamax has now a million subscribers.
“So, now, we promote on social media in Bahasa. We’ve been putting Bahasa subtitles in that territory and even in Malaysia kasi may mga marunong mag-Bahasa dun.” “What happened was, we attended film markets and our titles were getting licensed for payTV, for streaming in other countries. The titles we produced are now traveling beyond our borders. There’s acceptance for the content,” he said.
“I think you go back to the time of Peque Gallaga’s ‘Scorpio Nights,’ there’s always that element. We’ve also noticed that humor or comedy does well, but not as much sa medyo drama suspense and thriller.” In an interview last year, the streamer claimed that “sexy content” only accounted for 10 percent of its offerings, although this figure has yet to be updated, as of writing. Also in 2023, viewed as a move to further counter “perception” that it only catered to adult viewers, Viva introduced Viva Prime, a service within the Vivamax app for specially curated content for general audiences.
Amidst global lockdowns in March 2020, Viva had 17 films due for theatrical runs. “At that time, there was fear that we would be stuck in our homes, pangmatagalan . But before that, we were already toying with the idea of coming up with a streaming platform,” Vincent shared. “So pinatawag niya yung kausap namin na technical provider, the backend, and said, ‘Let’s pursue streaming.’ Ano ilalaman natin? ‘We have 17 movies.’ But 17 movies are not enough to run a streaming platform. we have a thousand movies in our library, ilagay mo muna yan dun, and then start rolling out those 17 films. That’s where it all started.”
One of Vivamax’s early hits was Darryl Yap’s sexy-comedy “Paglaki Ko, Gusto Kong Maging #Pornstar,” featuring former sexy stars. It also launched new talents like AJ Raval, who’s on hiatus, and Angeli Khang, now in a primetime teleserye. “That’s outside of the two a month for the cinemas,” he added. “We’re solidly committed to the business. ‘Pang matagalan na yan . It’s already part of the ecosystem of Viva.”