Q&A: Tosca Musk, founder of Passionflix on the romance-themed streaming service
In our latest White Paper, Go big or stay small? Why the Smart TV experience is essential for online streaming services, we chat with our partner and Passionflix founder, Tosca Musk, about the romance-themed streaming service.
Passionflix is a premium romance-on-demand streaming service that’s home to a library of classic romantic content and original movies and series adapted from bestselling romance books. The unique service was founded in 2017 by film director and producer Tosca Musk and launched worldwide via the Magine Pro platform.
Passionflix is accessible via the web, mobile devices supporting iOS and Android, and the big screen. Subscribers can stream via the TV through Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV-supported televisions, and dedicated Smart TV apps for Samsung, LG, and, more recently, Vizio.
We spoke with founder Tosca Musk about the realities of launching a video streaming service, strategies to aid discovery and reduce churn, and the importance of expanding onto multiple devices, including big-screen today.
What inspired the creation of Passionflix?
We wanted to turn best-selling romance novels into movies and series but there was nowhere to release them because they were considered too risqué, so we created our own platform.
Who is your target audience, and what are your key marketing strategies?
Our target audience is romance readers from ages 18-99. And social media marketing has been one of the most powerful tools for Passionflix when it comes to brand awareness and growth.
In addition to creating engaging content that highlights our original films and series, we also create and participate in conversations among the romance reader community. The authors of our adaptations also play a significant role in our marketing efforts, introducing Passionflix to the fanbase they’ve already established. We also run advertising campaigns throughout the year to build brand awareness and drive potential subscribers to specific titles.
How important is it to Passionflix to be available to audiences through the big screen?
As we want Passionflix to become a household name, it’s important to be available on as many devices as possible. Anytime Passionflix becomes available on a new device like Roku or Vizio, we see an increase in subscribers.
What advice would you give others considering launching a video streaming service? And what are your long-term growth plans?
Find a great white-label streaming platform like Magine Pro to support your specific vision. Also, understand your niche and remain laser-focused on that. Our goal is for Passionflix to become a household name. I want to see it in every home worldwide, and Magine Pro will be key in helping us secure the distribution.
Learn more about our partnership with Passionflix within our case study. And download the white paper; Go big or stay small? Why the Smart TV experience is essential for online streaming services now, to find out more about how we enable our partners like Passionflix to expand on multiple devices, including the big screen. Within the white paper, we discuss why offering native Smart TV apps is essential for online streaming services and dive into the complexities of building TV apps.
Head over to our homepage to find out more about Magine Pro’s extensive library of technical resources and experienced team that enable our partners to deliver seamless streaming experiences on all devices, including the big screen. You can also check out our experience page to learn more about our partners.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the Magine Pro e-newsletter to stay up-to-date with our latest news, partners, and products and discover which industry events we’ll be attending next.
Renewed passion between Tosca Musk’s Passionflix and Magine Pro OTT
Tosca Musk’s OTT service Passionflix, the VOD bringing best-selling romance novels to life on screen, is renewing its long-term cooperation with platform partner Magine Pro by signing a new three-year contract. Passionflix has used Magine Pro’s platform since it first launched and is now prolonging the agreement for further expansion in the coming three years.
The story of Passionflix is about Tosca Musk taking her own route in Hollywood. The unique Passionflix concept is to produce and distribute romantic films as a fan service, attracting a female audience and readers of romance stories, and engaging the fans to be heavily involved in the filmmaking process, from casting to premieres. Passionflix was first launched at a romance novel conference in 2017, where fans signed up for crowdfunding. Later in 2017 after additional funding, Passionflix released their first own produced film, Hollywood Dirt, produced and directed by Tosca Musk herself. After three years the service has seen exceptional growth, with the support of the fan community.
Passionflix is, in fact, building its own “Romance Business Vertical” by taking control of everything from movie production to distribution of the service to the viewers in a cost-efficient and profitable way. This concept of profitable and cost-efficient thematic productions has parallels with the concept of Magine Pro. The OTT platform is serving thematic and Tier 2 linear and VOD services with cost-efficient end-to-end solutions, integrating the whole technical flow into one end-to-end solution.“Magine Pro has been our close partner since the early days,” says Tosca Musk, Founder and CEO of Passionflix. “I wanted an end-to-end solution that could scale in a reliable way for our future expansion. By placing Passionflix on the Magine Pro platform we could focus on content and marketing, leaving a large portion of the technical distribution in the hands of the Magine Pro team, and now, after three years, we are happy to prolong our relation further”. “We still share the same passion for Passionflix and are delighted that we now have gained the confidence to continue this partnership,” says Matthew Wilkinson, CEO of Magine.
About Magine Pro
Magine Pro is the platform for b2b managed services for OTT, which enables global content owners, broadcasters and telcos to build thriving OTT businesses with live TV and Video-On-Demand platforms. Magine Pro’s customers are located in Europe and the United States, as well as in emerging markets.
For more information
Håkan Tranvik, Corporate communications, Magine. +46709383293. hakan.tranvik@magine.com
Matthew Wilkinson, CEO Magine. matthew.wilkinson@magine.com
Introducing PassionFlix by Magine Pro
A successful OTT service will actively engage customers with high-quality content, strong user experiences, and attractive pricing models. However, to scale and grow sustainably, services need to find new ways to stand out from the crowd. Competing for consumer time and wallet share isn’t easy, but you can boost your chances of success by ensuring you have a well-defined product, target audience, and marketing strategy in place before launch. That being said content is critical and the key to real long-term success for any OTT service.
Niche video services that appeal to particular interests and audiences are on the rise and provided they can offer original high-quality content, that’s not available everywhere, they are likely to see better user engagement levels and much lower churn.
We recently partnered with TV and movie producers to launch a new online video-on-demand service, PassionFlix. PassionFlix is home to a library of classic romantic content, as well as original movies and series that are based on best-selling romance novels and is designed to appeal to those actively interested in romance-themed content. Since launch, PassionFlix has seen considerable subscriber growth month-on-month, and with new titles released each week, viewers remain engaged and return regularly for more.
To find out more about PassionFlix and what went into creating this unique service, check out our case study.
Here’s a sneak peek at the service itself:
