AVoD service Tubi, bought by Fox in 2020, has seen significant growth in the last year, with Ampere’s consumer research showing that the number of US respondents reportedly using the service in the past month increased almost four times between Q3 2019 to Q1 2021, to more than 12%. As the number of SVoD services US households subscribe to increases (with the average household taking 2.7 services, and 29% of US households now taking five or more services) viewers looking for additional sources of content are increasingly turning to AVoD providers.

Tubi is currently the largest US AVoD service in terms of content hours. The catalogue is primarily focused on legacy content with an average first release year of 2007, and 88% of its content is made up of films. Now, to continue its recent growth, Tubi has announced plans to produce original content. According to its CFO, the primary focus will be on “cost-effective titles where a lot of viewership resides in.” 

This is a departure from its current strategy of a large, acquired catalogue of acquired older titles (74% of Tubi’s current content is more than five years old). AVoD services typically have a great deal of overlapping content; exclusive original content will further differentiate Tubi and allow it to better compete with SVoD services. 

Tubi will need to balance between drawing in new advertisers and viewers and creating original content on a lower budget than SVoD platforms. According to Ampere’s consumer research, Tubi users over-index when it comes to preference for Horror and Documentary—both of which can be made on a lower cost per hour than other genres. Moving forward, as Tubi continues to expand into new markets, having original content is advantageous as it can be made available in all countries, unlike acquired content where multiple content deals are required across different territories.