Most major streaming services tend to have one element that helps them stand out above the pack. Netflixhas crafted a library of extremely popular shows, including Stranger Thingsand Squid Game. Apple TVis quickly becoming a major hub for the next wave of groundbreaking science fiction shows. Prime Videohas buzzy genre fare like Invincibleand Fallout, not to mention the added bonus of connecting to different services via Amazon Prime. Yet all of these services are slowly becoming overshadowed by another streamer with a built-in advantage that no one expected.
That service would be Tubi. Launched in 2014, Tubi was designed as an ad-supported streaming service by creators Farhad Massoudi and Thomas Ahn Hicks. It flew under the radar for years, largely overshadowed by the programming other streamers put out. However, Tubi quickly became one of the biggest streaming services in the game. It’s grown its subscriber base to 78 million users and seen a massive increase in revenue and usage. What led to Tubi’s sudden surge in popularity? The answer is simple: it costs nothing to install or to start watching, and that’s a big draw for many viewers in the streaming age.
Tubi’s FAST Model Gives It A Leg Over Other Streamers
Graphic showing Tubi logo and titles like Grownish and Secret Life of Pets that you can find on TubiImage via Tubi
One of the biggest issues most people have with streaming services is the rising costs. At a time when most people are struggling to get by, seeing Netflix prices go up has subscribers questioning if they want to stay subscribed. On the other hand, Tubi’s FAST (free ad-supported streaming) model is quickly becoming more attractive to wider audiences. All you have to do is sit through a few ads at certain points, and you can enjoy your programming for free. While other FAST services like Pluto TV and the Roku Channel have their own steady subscriber bases, those bases haven’t grown as much as Tubi’s.
Tubi’s growth began to surge in 2019, when it signed a deal with NBCUniversal to bolster its programming library. It’s continued to grow over the past few years, due to its acquisition by Fox and a steady stream of licensing deals. The fact that major studios like Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal are willing to lend out their programming to Tubi, combined with its free-to-watch model, makes it a major draw for new users. Why pay a staggering fee for multiple streaming services when you can save money and just tune into one? Tubi’s chief marketing officer, Nicole Parlapiano, perfectly summed up the streamer’s advantages during an interview last year.
“Our fans come in, and they behave like [subscription streaming] viewers. The only difference is they don’t pay for it.”
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Tubi’s Diverse Streaming Lineup Makes It Stand Out
Another reason more viewers are drawn to Tubi is its truly unique collection of movies and TV shows. Millennials who grew up on Saturday morning cartoons can check out series like Static Shockand Ben 10. Anime lovers have the entirety of classic series like Yu-Gi-Oh!and Narutoat their fingertips. Genre fans can check out the Percy Jacksonmovies or even a sci-fi classic like Independence Day. Tubi’s also become a livestreaming hub for major sporting events, including the Super Bowl and this year’s FIFA World Cup, which makes it a streamer worth investing in.
Tubi also invests in its own original programming, which has yielded surprisingly successful results. Whether it’s original movies like R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead or TV revivals like Wynonna Earp: Vengeance, there’s a wide range of projects designed to appeal to different audiences. Tubi’s biggest venture into original programming is its “Creatorverse“, which spotlights social media creators from YouTube and other platforms as they create their own shows. At a time when movies like Obsessionand Backroomsare enjoying box office success, that’s a wise investment.
The rising success of Tubi is something that more streamers should pay attention to. It didn’t need a bottomless budget or a splashy new prestige series to grow its audience. It got by on a simple model that’s drawing in viewers, and that might be what wins the “streaming wars”.
