NAB New York: How Tubi is Surging in the Streaming Wars
Tubi, the free streaming service owned by Fox, flew under the radar for years, but now the industry has taken note of its surging popularity. At NAB New York, Peter Kafka, Business Insider's chief correspondent about the TV/streaming landscape, talked with Tubi CEO Anjali Sud about the TV/streaming landscape and how her company is changing the ways that people watch.
How Tubi aims to leverage its entrepreneurial spirit with Fox's assets
Sud emphasized Tubi's mission to become a leading streaming platform by leveraging its entrepreneurial spirit and Fox's assets. “Tubi operates very much with an entrepreneurial spirit and DNA,” she said. “I think there's more opportunity that we have not yet tapped to leverage some of the incredible assets that Fox has to build a competitive advantage. You're going to see us do more of that.”
The importance of being ubiquitous across devices and maintaining a viewer-centric approach
Sud said that Tubi places a lot of importance on being ubiquitous across devices and maintaining a viewer-centric approach. “Viewers want to be able to access an experience that they trust and content across devices, whichever screen they're on, whether they switch TVs, it doesn't matter,” she said. “We need to be everywhere. And we believe that is a winning value proposition. We have been competing with all of these device partners while partnering with them for over 10 years. A great example is Amazon. We were the first partner on the first Amazon Fire TV 10 years ago. They have Freevee, and we've been operating in that environment for a long time. We have original and unique content, and we have scale.”
Tubi’s approach to monetization
Kafka asked about Tubi's approach to monetization, especially regarding the most recent upfronts and the next.
“Generally, our approach to monetization is that we just want advertisers to access Tubi inventory however they want,” Sud said. “They want to go direct Tubi, great, they want to have a ‘one Fox’ package, great. We're pretty agnostic.”
She noted that this year’s upfronts had Amazon and Disney entering the market. “It was a very competitive marketplace,” she said. “We had the strongest upfront. We've surpassed our expectations and accelerated double-digit growth. It was a very positive validation. What resonated the most was incremental reach at scale at a good ROI. So we really emphasized that over 65% of Tubi's audience are cord cutters and [cord nevers].”
Kafka asked Sud, who was previously CEO of Vimeo, “What's it been like for you to switch into an ad-supported business to be an ad seller? What did you think you knew going into it and you said, ‘Oh, actually, there's more?’”
“It's funny because I spent almost a decade in a company that was very committed to being ad-free,” Sud said. “Many of the reasons filmmakers used Vimeo was because we didn't put ads on your video. And when I came to Tubi, I was very interested in whether I would feel any sort of friction or dissonance. And I think what has surprised me is that Tubi is so viewer-centric and consumer-first in everything. It really amazes me, and I think it's the secret sauce that enables its success. So I've been really pleased to see that that ethos exists in an ad-supported environment.”
Tubi's potential for further growth through better advertiser awareness and education
Kafka mentioned to Sud, “You said in the past you're not profitable, but you could be. Is that still sort of the status quo?”
“Profitability for us is something we're very committed to,” Sud replied. “For us, it's a choice in that we're making the decisions to invest. We haven't spent billions on content, and we feel like we're well positioned to become profitable not through cost-cutting but through growing efficiently and smartly.”
She further clarified that Tubi’s growth will be helped by better advertiser understanding of their offerings and user base. “We've built up the audience clearly, and it's more about unlocking advertiser awareness and education so that our monetization is able to meet that audience,” she said. “And that's really the way we'll get to profitability from the investments that we've made.”
Tubi's content strategy
Kafka asked about Tubi’s overall content strategy, particularly about their focus on appealing to younger demographics, with gaming, fan content development, and interactivity. “Is interactivity interesting to you?” he said. “This is something Netflix flagged early on [with] choose your own adventure shows, and now they're spending quite a bit of money on a [gaming] strategy. Do you think you can become an interactive or gaming part of the world?”
Sud said they do not see enough positive signals towards interactivity and gaming as productive strategies for Tubi. However, she said fan-driven content development is the most exciting for them as it is a unique area of user engagement and growth. “We just launched the first fan-fueled studio in streaming. It's called Stubios. And what it's designed to do is allow anyone to pitch an idea to be green-lit by Tubi and distributed on Tubi based on fan feedback. [The fans] are going to make the show. We're working with Issa Rae and her company [Color Creative] to help mentor them and be successful. And we will distribute it on Tubi, and we'll learn about whether that's a model that can work. I'm more interested in is what are the scalable and efficient ways to bring in unique stories from unique storytellers.”
She also underscored that in recent years, many content creators from diverse backgrounds and working with smaller budgets have seen their work gain wide attention on platforms such as YouTube and Tubi itself. “On Tubi, we have dozens of movies that have been produced in places like Detroit and Austin by aspiring filmmakers on homegrown budgets that have gotten millions and millions of views, without a dime of marketing. And I'm seeing it happening more and more,” she said. She further highlighted that these stories and content are often underrepresented in Hollywood.
Photo courtesy of NAB New York
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