Tubi has crossed 110 million monthly active users, and the Fox-owned free streaming platform just posted the highest revenue quarter in its history. CEO Anjali Sud shared the figures with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Fox's quarterly earnings release.
The platform last reported its monthly active user count a year ago, when it passed 100 million. It now also surpasses $1 billion in annual revenue.
Sud said the numbers reflect a broader shift in how viewers, especially younger ones, want to consume content. "It really feels like we are seeing both in Tubi's results and in the market a clear validation of a strategy that Tubi has believed in and been executing for over a decade, which is the power of free streaming, and our belief that consumers — especially this next generation — increasingly want premium entertainment, they want choice, they want it to be on-demand, and they don't want to have to pay more and deal with rising prices and paywalls and fragmentation," Sud told THR. She noted that competitors including Disney are now considering free tiers, while Netflix has expanded into ad-supported options.
Engagement is growing even faster than the user base. "Our audience is growing 14 percent but our engagement, our time watched, is growing even faster, growing 17 percent, and I think what we like to see is both of those things growing at the same time in concert, because it means that we're not only bringing in more audience, but we're also keeping them and entertaining them, and they're finding value and staying," Sud said.
Advertisers are also taking notice. Sud described what brands are telling the company about why they choose Tubi over other platforms. "What we're seeing is that for a lot of brands, they want to connect authentically. They want to connect with not just audience that are watching television in the background, a lean back kind of experience where you're on your phone, you're not paying attention," she said. "They want to to engage with and advertise and reach an audience that's leaned in, that's just actively discovering and choosing to watch what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, where they want to watch it, and I think that that is the feedback we hear from advertisers around why they're choosing to partner with Tubi."
Tubi has been building out beyond its core streaming service through Fox's Red Seat Ventures division, which covers podcasts and creator content. Fox's pending $22 billion acquisition of Roku is expected to deepen that bet further. Sports has also emerged as a strategic area for Tubi, leveraging Fox's broadcast rights to reach audiences beyond linear television.
