Tubi’s model is different: it licenses content that’s already made, lets people watch it for free, and supports itself with advertising. But that means it’s competing for ad dollars across the attention economy online: not just Netflix, but TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and everything else. I wanted to know how Anjali was thinking about that, especially since the social platforms don’t spend any money on content at all.
Anjali’s plan is to make Tubi feel like a more premium home for better work from all of those creators. It just launched something called “Stubios,” which allows fans to vote on creator projects that Tubi will fund — basically setting up a YouTube- or TikTok-to-Tubi pipeline.
But all of that costs money, too: Anjali recently said that Tubi isn’t yet profitable, “but it could be,” and we really took a deep dive into that. Where does the money come from for a streamer that doesn’t have subscriptions? How much is it? How can you get more? And what will it take to make Tubi profitable?
One note before we start: you’ll hear us say “connected TV” a lot in this conversation, which just refers to TV programming that’s coming from the internet. Traditional broadcast or cable TV was one-way: it came into your house, and that was that. Connected TV excites the whole industry because they get data back and can do everything you’d expect with it: targeted ads, viewer metrics, personalized recommendations, and so on.
Okay, Tubi CEO Anjali Sud. Here we go.
by Nilay Patel, The Verge | Read more:
Image: Tubi
[ed. Fascinating interview about the business and metrics of streaming (if you can get past all the jargon).]
