SAN FRANCISCO, May 13, 2021 – Tubi (www.tubi.tv), a division of FOX Entertainment, in conjunction with third-party research firm OnePoll, today released new data on consumer streaming behavior, uncovering emerging trends that point to its continued growth one year after the COVID-19 pandemic began significantly impacting the U.S. in March 2020.
The latest research from Tubi’s audience report The Stream revealed video streaming consumption skyrocketing with 70% of Americans participating in the study watching more TV now than they were in March 2020. Among that group, the average person is streaming three additional hours each day since that time. Tubi has seen this upward trend with its viewers over the last year, recently announcing a record-setting Total View Time (TVT) of 798 million hours during the first quarter this year, up 54% year-over-year, and a platform-best 276 million hours of TVT in March.
“Movies and TV shows served as a much-needed escape and form of entertainment over this past year,” said Natalie Bastian, Vice President, Marketing at Tubi. “As many viewers turned to streaming, Tubi experienced exponential growth over the last year with no signs of slowing down—we saw 2.5 billion hours streamed in 2020 alone and we’re continuing to shatter records in 2021.”
The Stream report also finds that nearly half (49%) of people are searching for ways to pay less for their streaming services in 2021 than they did in 2020, with many turning to ad-supported streaming services (AVOD) as a solution to cure subscription fatigue. Nearly a third (32%) of people in the study plan on canceling a subscription streaming service (SVOD) they currently use, with one in three (33%) citing cost as their reason to cancel a subscription. With half (50%) of those in the study turning to free ad-supported streaming services over the past year, 29% among this group did so as a way to cut costs, while 39% did so as a way to supplement their subscription services. The study revealed that consumers crave variety, with 40% of those surveyed noting that a large library of movies and TV shows is important to them in a streaming service, followed by the service being free or affordable (38%).
While more than half of those surveyed (55%) used streaming as an escape from their daily lives, many were also watching more news to keep up with the current events in 2020, with 55% also watching more news now than they were prior to the beginning of the pandemic. Respondents watched local news the most (53%) followed by national news (45%). In October 2020, Tubi launched News on Tubi, a comprehensive live news offering which will carry nearly 100 local station feeds in 2021 covering 58 designated market areas (DMAs), providing the most robust local news offering of any AVOD service.
“Tubi’s median viewer age is 20 years younger than that of linear TV and 39% of our audience identify as multicultural,” noted Bastian. “We’re speaking directly to this demographic in the coming year with a larger library that will soon feature original content, sports programming and an expanded news offering, particularly as viewers look to scale back their subscription costs without sacrificing quality content at their fingertips.”
