• by Wayne Friedman , May 3, 2021

Looking to catch up to high-profile new premium streaming services from big broadcast TV companies, Fox Corp. says its year-old free, ad-supported streaming platform Tubi will ramp up original content this season.

Tubi plans more than 140 hours of original, new TV programming.

This will include documentaries, unscripted/reality TV programs from Fox Alternative Entertainment and animated shows from Fox’s Bento Box Entertainment, which does “Bob’s Burgers” for the Fox Television Network.

The company says this also includes ”independent-minded titles across the Black Cinema, thriller, horror, sci-fi, romance and Western genres.”

All this will add to Tubi's library TV and movie content -- 30,000 titles. Tubi also has live news programming.

Tubi was acquired by Fox in March 2020 for $440 million and is projected by MoffettNathanson Research to exceed $1 billion in advertising for 2023.

Tubi recorded 33 million monthly active users at the beginning of Q4 2020. It pulled in $150 million in ad revenue that year, and is estimated to earn $380 million in 2021 and $650 million in 2022.

Tubi says the total view time on the platform was up 54% to 798 million hours in the first quarter of 2021. In March alone, it totaled 276 million hours. In 2020, more than 2.5 billion hours of content were streamed on Tubi.

Like other many other new streaming services, Tubi skews young. Its median age is 37 years old -- versus the four major English-speaking live, linear TV networks’ median age, which is around 60 years old.

Tubi says 68% of its audience does not watch other ad-supported streaming services.