Vic Del Rosario

Vicente del Rosario Jr. (born October 26, 1945) is a Filipino businessman who co-founded the music publishing company Vicor Music in 1966 and the entertainment company Viva Communications in 1981.

Career

Vicor Music

Del Rosario co-founded Vicor Music with his cousin Orly Ilacad in 1966, which was later incorporated in 1969. Both del Rosario and Ilacad oversaw the release of the first mini-LP in the Philippines in 1970, Tirso Cruz III's album ''Maria Leonor Theresa'', which culled songs from Cruz's previous album ''PIP''. Del Rosario also signed folk singer Freddie Aguilar with the company in the 1970s.

In March 1980, del Rosario's three-year-old daughter with actress Mina Aragon, Vina Vanessa, perished in a fire set by Rodolfo Quizon Jr. to their home in San Juan, Metro Manila.

Viva Communications

In November 1981, del Rosario established the media conglomerate Viva Entertainment (now Viva Communications) with his sister Teresita "Tess" Cruz; he named it after his late daughter Vina Vanessa. Thru its subsidiary Viva Films, the company released its first film ''P.S. I Love You'' in the same month, which became a box office success. By the 1990s, Viva Films had the highest annual film output among all the film studios in the country.

Del Rosario's methods in developing Viva's roster of talents have sometimes been to gear its artists toward having a raunchier image. In the early 2000s, del Rosario continuously asked actress Andrea Del Rosario in their meetings if he can remake her image into a "sexy" celebrity, with Andrea relenting in 2003 by accepting the lead role in the erotic drama film ''Lupe: A Seaman's Wife''. Actress Maui Taylor, who previously starred in the television series ''Anna Karenina'' and '' T.G.I.S.'', accepted a suggestive role offered by del Rosario in the 2002 film ''Gamitan''. In 2003, del Rosario launched the girl group Viva Hot Babes, which included Taylor in the original line-up. The group recorded pop songs that were noted to frequently feature sexual undertones. In 2009, del Rosario had plans to cast Cristine Reyes in a raunchy horror film, but intended to stop short of making the film sexually explicit in order for theaters to allow its exhibition.

In January 2021, del Rosario directly developed and oversaw the launching of Viva's streaming platform Vivamax. Since its launch, a large portion of the platform's original content were sexploitation films and series; though Vic's son and Viva President Vincent del Rosario denied the view of Vivamax as mostly offering "sexy" films, he stated that "Our adult content is the differentiator."

In mid-2022, Vic del Rosario greenlit the period film '' Maid in Malacañang'' under the banner of Viva Films after holding discussions with Senator Imee Marcos, whom he previously worked with in establishing the Metro Manila Popular Music Festival in 1978 and the Cecil Awards in 1982, stating that "I think it would be great to put on film what he Marcos familyexperienced during heirlast three days in Malacañang." The film was intentionally marketed by the company as "the most controversial film of the year".

References

{{Viva Communications

Viva Entertainment
1945 births
Living people
20th-century Filipino businesspeople
21st-century Filipino businesspeople
Filipino chief executives
Filipino film studio executives
People from San Juan, Metro Manila