Free streaming service Tubi is rivaling major players for viewership

Tubi hit profitability this year doing what other streaming services are trying to: attract younger audiences who are willing to sit through ads.

The Fox Corp.-owned free streaming platform has long been among a sort of second tier of streaming services alongside lower-budget and less popular offerings like Pluto and The Roku Channel. But the free service is gaining traction and finding its footing in conversations with the big players.

In November, Tubi made up 2.1% of total streaming minutes on The Gauge, Nielsen’s monthly analysis of viewing trends, ahead of NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max. Google’s YouTube holds the top spot in the viewership tracker.

“Our fans come in, and they behave like [subscription streaming] viewers. The only difference is they don’t pay for it,” said Tubi’s chief marketing officer, Nicole Parlapiano, in an interview.

Netflix’s dominance in streaming has led many media companies to chase the same success, spending billions of dollars on original content to attract subscribers and strive for profitability.

In response, the cost of streaming has risen, with nearly every subscription platform instituting multiple price hikes in recent years and pushing consumers toward cheaper, ad-supported options. A crackdown on password sharing by some of the biggest players has also shaken up the space.

“People used to cut the cord, now they’re canceling subscriptions. And is that driving more consumption into free streaming? Absolutely,” Tubi Chief Content Officer Adam Lewinson told CNBC.

Tubi said it has more than 100 million monthly active users and 1 billion hours of streamed content per month. For comparison, Netflix reported more than 300 million subscribers as of late 2024, the last time it reported the metric, while Disney+ reported 131 million subscribers as of the end of September.

Nearly 60% of Tubi’s audience is made up of millennials or members of Generation Z, and nearly half are multicultural, Tubi said, citing an MRI-Simmons Cord Evolution Study of its audience.

Tubi bulks up its library by licensing films and TV series — some popular and some niche. The platform does produce original content, albeit at a smaller scale than its competitors. It’s also tapped Fox’s sports arsenal, airing two NFL games this year on Tubi, most notably the Super Bowl in February and a Thanksgiving Day game last month.

In total, Tubi boasts more than 300,000 titles on its platform.

In October, Fox reported that Tubi had reached profitability for the first time for the fiscal quarter ended Sept. 30, with Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch adding that it reached that milestone “earlier than expected.” Tubi reported 27% revenue growth for the quarter, which was driven by an 18% increase in total view time.

Murdoch said at the time the hope was for Tubi to continue on its trajectory so it could become “a meaningful contributor” to earnings in the near term….