Tubi’s Adam Lewinson on AVOD Gains

Adam Lewinson, chief content officer at Tubi and the recipient of this year’s World Screen Trendsetter Award in partnership with RX France, discussed the AVOD platform’s gains and programming remit with Anna Carugati in the Grand Auditorium at MIPCOM today.

Carugati, group editorial director of World Screen, began the keynote conversation by asking Lewinson about the gains in AVOD viewership across the globe. “Television predominantly has always been a free, ad-supported model. In the past few years, thanks to the investment of billions by SVOD services, the perception has been that the future of television, which is the future of streaming, would be behind a paywall. But ultimately, historical trends hold. My belief and the belief of the executive team at Tubi is that the future of television is free, ad-supported and specifically video on demand.”

Tubi continues to see usage gains, now reaching 56 million monthly active users. “Last year, we had 3.6 billion hours streamed, and it’ll be even more this year,” Lewinson said. Those gains are being driven in part by viewers becoming increasingly cost-conscious as the number of their subscriptions proliferates. “Eventually, you look at your credit card bill, and you go, wow, this is quite expensive. So that subscription fatigue, as we call it, is real. In the U.S. this year, we’re pretty much at the inflection point where AVOD viewership is surpassing SVOD viewership for the first time. That trend is obviously going to continue into the future. So we’ve been able to draft on that and be a leader in what we believe is the future of streaming.”

On the evolving content lineup at Tubi, Lewinson stated: “When I started, we had a handful of partnerships, and now we work with 500 content partners—every major studio, every major global TV provider.” The goal, Lewinson said, is to have something for everyone, with Tubi having built up a library of 45,000 titles in the U.S.—“the largest library in our competitive set across AVOD and SVOD. We highly personalize it with technology. So algorithms, personalization tools, so that the more you consume Tubi, the more we know who you are. I think the future of television has to be the marriage of content and technology.”

Tubi has ramped up its originals slate, Lewinson noted. “We launched our first original about a year and a half ago. Since then, we’ve premiered well over 50 originals. At a time when many are pulling back on original spend, we’re doubling down, so well over 100 originals coming soon. And our original strategy is actually quite unique in the marketplace, just as the overall programming strategy is unique. If I was an SVOD service, essentially, my job is to make sure that when you look at your credit card bill, you don’t cancel, which means every month, I’ve got to have at least one series or some significant event that I must have and another one coming. That typically requires tremendous investment. Our original content strategy is really more about super-serving viewers and, in particular, super-serving fandoms. We listen to our viewers. We use something called content intelligence, just tremendous data to get a deep understanding of what our viewers want.”

The originals lineup will benefit from Tubi’s association with MarVista Entertainment, which now, like Tubi, is owned by FOX Entertainment. MarVista produced Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial for the platform.

Kids also plays a key role at the platform, Lewinson said. “A few years ago, we launched a section, Tubi Kids. It’s there to super-serve younger viewers with age-appropriate content and, of course, age-appropriate advertising and respecting privacy rules. Every month we have thousands of kids’ titles and tremendous engagement. It’s a very important category that we will continue to lean into.”

Lewinson then discussed the advantages of being part of the FOX Entertainment umbrella. “FOX as a corporation is very focused on ad-supported content, and that’s our vision of the future as well. We all see the world the same way. It’s a very disciplined approach to spend. It’s a disciplined approach in terms of where we’re going to place our investments. We’re really able to work together with some of the tremendous creative producers on the FOX side. FOX Alternative Entertainment produces a lot of documentaries, leaning very much into true crime, for Tubi. FOX recently acquired TMZ, which is producing specials for us and a docuseries. On the scripted side and animation, we do a lot of work with Bento Box, which is another division of FOX.”

Asked about what advertisers look for in an AVOD platform, Lewinson said: “I see advertisers are looking for scale. They’re looking for reach. They’re also looking to connect audiences that match demographically with the content. The same engine that fuels personalization for our viewers also fuels personalization for ads. The advertising community has been tremendously supportive, and we had a very successful Upfront last year. Since we are ad-supported, we’re leaning very heavily into sponsorships and having many conversations with brands about integrations into originals. Much of this does feel like traditional television. Some of the tools in the tool kit are the same, but really it’s the ability to hyper-personalize for advertisers that you can’t do in linear.”

He continued, “At the end of the day, advertisers are very savvy and understand how to follow where the viewers are. At Tubi, we are among the youngest in terms of streamers. Adults 18 to 34, 18 to 25 are highly valuable demographics that are very hard to reach with long-form content these days. So since we’re able to provide that, that’s become another real driver.”

On international expansion, Lewinson noted, “We’ve had a very disciplined approach about rolling out globally. Localization is a piece of that. About two years ago, we launched in Mexico. It was very important to me and our team to make sure that it’s not just the U.S. version in Mexico. We wanted to make sure that it was highly personalized for viewers in Mexico. Everything was in Spanish. Everything at launch was native Spanish-language content, with a heavy emphasis on local and regional content. TV Azteca is our lead partner there. That’s how we think about international expansion. We just expanded into five additional countries throughout LatAm. We have a tremendous business in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Beyond that, I’ll just have to say, more to come.”

The conversation then moved to FAST channels, which serve as a “complementary experience. There are times when you come home and don’t want to have a choice. I just want you to decide for me. Younger demos who grew up on Netflix and YouTube are less likely to really engage in FAST channels. Our view of the future is on-demand, but we’ve launched FAST channels for our subset of viewers who are interested. We’ve leaned very heavily into news. Of our 100 FAST channels, half of those are news channels. That’s immediate and also localized. We have sports channels. We’ve just launched an exclusive World Cup channel that, not surprisingly, is getting a lot of viewership and attention. And then, of course, entertainment. We’re really leaning into our own assets. We have a Tubi Originals FAST channel, exclusive on our platform. We have another exclusive channel called Gordon Ramsay, which is driving tremendous engagement. An exclusive Masked Singer channel. That type of lean-back viewership is tremendously important for some viewers. We want to be there to serve it. But again, we do believe that in the future, the vast majority of consumption is going to be video on demand.”