Tubi Doubles Down on Originals and Ad Tech in NewFronts Push

Two years after it was bought by Fox Corporation, Tubi is doubling down on everything from original programming to ad tech as part of its biggest year yet. During Tubi's NewFronts presentation Monday afternoon at New York's Glasshouse, hosted by Vivica A. Fox with The Masked Singer emcee Nick Cannon serving as DJ, the free AVOD service focused on messages of transparency, originals and "exponential growth." Tubi's viewership grew from 40 million monthly active users in 2021 to 51 million monthly active users last quarter, founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi told Adweek. The streamer also recorded 3.6 billion hours watched in 2021, a 40% year-over-year increase in total viewing time. The platform reports double-digit growth in all audience segments over the past year, with the most growth among college-educated and affluent demos. Though Tubi did not share specific demographic breakdowns, its median viewer age is 39 and 40% of Tubi's audience identifies as multicultural. “Because of our approach, it's not surprising that we don't have to manufacture diversity. We have a very diverse and young audience. Our average age is 16-plus years younger than non-streamers. And the fastest-growing audience segments on TV are the highly educated, high-income households,” Massoudi said. Tubi uses machine learning and personalization to connect its audiences with relevant content from a robust library of over 40,000 movies and TV shows, 100+ local and live news and sports channels and 400+ entertainment partners. The company said channels for Fox's The Masked Singer, TMZ and Gordon Ramsay would join Tubi originals and Tubi en Español, and will soon be available on the platform. "While others try to focus on either producing or licensing a small library that appeals to average America, and these libraries are selected and chosen by a few people, we take a dramatically different approach of trying to super-serve fandoms right and have stories for every community," Massoudi explained. Tubi dipped its toe into originals last year when the company provided more than 140 hours of new programming in a variety of genres, including everything from thrillers and sci-fi to westerns and Black cinema. Now, the company is diving in head-first. “Next year, we’re going to do well over 100 originals,” Massoudi said. “And again, empowering and enabling voices in all kinds of communities, anywhere from LGBTQ, sci-fi, westerns, comedy, romantic comedy, documentaries and many others." Tubi also announced on Monday that it renewed its original series The Freak Brothers for Season 2, marking the first-ever series renewal for the company's original slate. Focusing on transparency To give advertisers better access to these audiences, Tubi is investing in its ad tech. Last week, Tubi unveiled an expansion of its current integration with Nielsen to create enhanced and comprehensive measurement through Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) product. The deal creates enhanced measurement across more than 25 OTT devices, giving advertisers a more comprehensive view of ad performance on Tubi, inclusive of co-viewing. According to Tubi, the move is a step toward increased industry coverage provided via Nielsen One, the company's cross-platform tool to enable publishers and marketers to transact on a single metric across linear and digital platforms. “As a movie and television streaming service with 80% of our viewers watching on TV screens, we’re excited about the proposed integration of Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings measurement across our device partners,” Mark Rotblat, chief revenue officer at Tubi, said in a statement. “This upcoming device coverage replaces slim proxies with comprehensive and stable currency-grade measurement, allowing our advertisers to transact on audiences in a way that is apples-to-apples with traditional TV.” Tubi is also launching a Campaign Insights initiative to provide advertisers more transparency and contextual awareness around where their ads are running and what type of content they're running on, according to Massoudi. The analysis brings together content groupings with rich audience information, giving brands the ability to match audience and context with the power and transparency of digital. The new initiative will complement its Certified Measurement Program—which includes partnerships with measurement companies such as TVSquared, Foursquare and Kantar—as well as its advanced frequency management tool, which caps exposure at the campaign level regardless of demand source. After focusing on Tubi in today's NewFronts event, Fox will spotlight its entertainment, news and sports offerings during its upfront week presentation, on Monday, May 16, which will be held in a new location: Skylight on Vesey.