Tubi

Fox plans to invest in Tubi, its entry in the fast-growing over-the-top connected TV market, and those investments include original programming. Fox CFO Steve Tomsic says that adding Fox hits like The Masked Singer has given Tubi a boost, and the company is looking to put original programming on Tubi.

Fox sats it will be holding its upfront presentation on May 17 and that, in addition to its entertainment and sports programming, this year’s event will showcase Tubi, the ad supported streaming service it bought last year.

Fox Corp. streaming service Tubi is expanding the live news offering it debuted last fall, adding nearly 80 stations owned by Cox, Hearst, Scripps and Tegna. The 24-hour live feeds will join those of 17 Fox-owned stations and Altice USA’s News 12 New York in a section of the streaming app called News on Tubi. National streaming outlets run by Fox, NBC, Bloomberg and others are also on the free, ad-supported platform.

Since its original run from 1967 to 1978, most viewers have only seen heavily chopped versions of The Carol Burnett Show, and many fans had no idea that singing and dancing were an essential part of a series that was actually more classic variety show than modern comedy sketch show. But now, 65 episodes drawn from the show’s 11 seasons on CBS, which brought it 25 Emmy Awards, have been revived and expanded, most to their original hour length, and can be seen streaming for the first time on services including Tubi and The Roku Channel.

17% of U.S. internet users viewed one or more AVOD services in the past month,  vs. just 13% in the third quarter of 2019, according to a survey conducted by UK research firm Ampere Analysis. The research company says Tubi, recently purchased by Fox for $440 million, is leading the usage surge, based in large part by its extra-large content library, which features more than 29,000 movies and TV show episodes.

The streaming service is also offering live news from NewsNOW from Fox, Fox Soul, Bloomberg TV, NBC News Now, and PeopleTV and will add more premium content including Euronews, USA Today News, and three of the largest local station groups in the country, including Hearst Television, with two others coming soon.

Episodes of unscripted juggernaut The Masked Singer will stream on Tubi, Fox Corp.’s free, ad-supported service, the companies have announced. Tubi, whose acquisition by Fox closed Monday, will add the first two seasons of the competition series to its platform starting Thursday night.

Fox has acquired the ad-supporting streaming service Tubi in a $440 million cash deal. Tubi Founder and CEO Farhad Massoudi will continue to head the company.

Tubi, the ad supported streaming service said it had record growth in 2019 and racked up big increases in December. The company said that monthly active users hit 25 million in December and that total view time in December grew 160% to 163 million hours.

Ad supported streaming service Tubi said it has reached a deal to be loaded onto smart TVs from Hisense using the new version of its Vidaa video platform. Hisense is the world’s third-largest TV manufacturer and the deal covers the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K., where Tubi plans to launch later this year.

As the mega-corporations swoop in, smaller streaming services such as Tubi, Pluto TV and Crunchyroll find a way to compete.

Ad-supported streaming service Tubi said it has surpassed 20 million monthly active users after activity in May reached 94 million hours of content viewing and revenue in the month set a company record. Tubi, which launched in 2014, is privately held and did not disclose the monthly revenue figure.